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Julian Barnes
Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages. George Edjali’s father is Indian, his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive…
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Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, including Metroland , Flaubert s Parrot , A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters , England, England and Arthur and George , and two collections of short stories, Cross Channel and The Lemon Table .
topAbout the Book
Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages. George Edjali’s father is Indian, his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive vicious anonymous letters, many about their son, they put it down to racial prejudice. They appeal to the police, to no less than the Chief Constable, but to their dismay he appears to suspect George of being the letters’ author. Then someone starts slashing horses and livestock. Again the police seem to suspect the shy, aloof Birmingham solicitor. He is arrested and, on the flimsiest evidence, sent to trial, found guilty and sentenced to seven years’ hard labour. Arthur Conan Doyle, famous as the creator of the world’s greatest detective, is mourning his first wife (having been chastely in love for ten years with the woman who was to become his second) when he hears about the Edjali case. Incensed at this obvious miscarriage of justice, he is galvanised into trying to clear George’s name. With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner lives of these two very different men. The reader sees them both with stunning clarity, and almost inhabits them as they face the vicissitudes of their lives, whether in the dock hearing a verdict of guilty, or trying to live an honourable life while desperately in love with another woman. This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race; about what we think, what we believe, and what we know.Julian Barnes has long been recognised as one of Britain’s most remarkable writers. While those already familiar with his work will enjoy its elegance, its wit, its profound wisdom about the human condition, Arthur & George will surely find him an entirely new audience.
topJulian Barnes interview/review
Taken from abebooks
- Why did the story of George Edjali and his court case fascinate you and end up as the focal point of Arthur and George?
Well, it seemed
a) a very unusual story (the animal mutilation, the miscarriage of justice, the racial aspect); and
b) something that could still happen today, with very few changes. I assumed, when I read about it, that someone must have done a book on the case in the 100 years since it happened. But no one had – so partly I wrote the book so as to have something to read about the case.
- What interests you more – the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes, or his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle?
Oh, Doyle – though the truth is that the case itself is what fascinated me, and Doyle came attached to the case, so there was no avoiding him. If it had been another writer – Kipling, say – or a sportsman, or a dentist, I would probably have been just as happy.
But that said, I came to admire Doyle during the writing of the book – although (or perhaps because) he is in many respects the opposite of what I am as a writer.
- Why is there an enduring fascination for so many people with both Holmes and Conan Doyle?
Though Doyle was not a great writer (as he would have been the first to admit) he was a very skilled professional novelist who created in Holmes a fictional archetype who still feeds something readers need. It is a fantasy, of course, but a compelling one: that a highly intelligent man, by pure deductive thought, a little cocaine and violin-playing, can rationally solve the most fiendish crimes which baffle the police. Fantasy, as I say, but compelling.
- Many people tipped Arthur and George as the Booker Prize winner – but do literary awards mean anything to you?
Well, obviously, I would rather have won than not won. I try to keep it all in proportion, because I have seen writers who in my view have been driven crazy by prize-lust – the Booker, the Nobel – and could not understand when they were not rewarded. I think you should regard this side of literary life as a pure and comic lottery – unless and until you win, when it becomes an award based, for once, on pure merit, decided in all gravity by Olympian judges…
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Did you know who the Arthur and George of the title were before you began the book? If not, were you surprised when George’s surname was first revealed to the reader and how had you pictured him up until that moment?
- George has trouble believing that he was a victim of racial prejudice. Why is this difficult for him to believe when everyone else involved in the case seems to think that this must have played a part in his conviction?
- What qualities does the Mam encourage in Arthur? And how does Arthur’s upbringing compare with George’s? How influential do you think Arthur and George’s parents were on their beliefs and adult careers?
- Do you think it matters that the real perpetrator of the animal mutilations is never identified? In the Sherlock Holmes’ novels the villains are always captured and the case is wrapped up – would you have preferred this to have happened in this book?
- Discuss Barnes’ depiction of the police in the novel – how do you think he perceives their involvement in the case?
- Would you describe Arthur and George as a detective novel?
- Does it matter to you what in the novel is fiction and what fact?
- Do you think Arthur’s relationship with Jean Leckie was compatible with his childhood views of chivalrous knights – did his affair affect your opinion of him?
- Discuss how Barnes is able to evoke the period through his writing.
Other Books by Julian Barnes
A History Of The World In 10…
Beginning with an unlikely stowaway s account of life on board Noah s Ark, A…
Arthur & George
Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century …
Before She Met Me
Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann,…
Cross Channel
No one has a better perspective on life on both sides of the channel than J…
Suggested Further Reading
- Sherlock Holmes novels ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
- Hawksmoor ~ Peter Ackroyd
- Never Let Me Go ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
- Girl with a Pearl Earring ~ Tracey Chevalier
- A Long, Long Way ~ Sebastian Barry