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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | A real tour de force from masterful author Julian Barnes is Arthur & George, which was short-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Late-Victorian Britain is brought to vivid life in the true story of the intersection of two lives: one an internationally famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the other, an obscure country lawyer, George Edalji, son of a Parsi Midlands vicar and a Scottish mother. They start out very differently. Arthur pursues a career in medicine before he discovers that he is really a writer; George, on his way to becoming a lawyer--near-sighted, timid and friendless--is victimized by locals because he is easy to scapegoat--a half-Indian in lily-white Great Wyrley. The victimization of George takes the form of nasty letters, the theft of a school key, and finally, the accusation that he has mutilated animals. Meanwhile, Arthur is becoming more and more famous for creating Sherlock Holmes, whom he tries to kill off once and is forced to resurrect because of his fans' outcry. He marries, fathers two children and then, when his wife is invalided by consumption, falls madly in love for the first time with Jean Leckie. The novel's style is smoothly revelatory. We slowly come to realize that George is half-Indian, that Arthur is the famous Doyle, that the woman he loves, chastely, is not his wife and, sadly, that George will not prevail over the forces ranged against him. When George, desperate to resume his law career after imprisonment, sends Arthur the sad chronicle of his history, Arthur sees immediately that he could not be guilty and sets out to clear his name. This case of George's lifts Arthur from the slough of despond into which he has sunk after his wife, Touie, dies. He is guilt-ridden, constantly wondering if he was attentive enough, if she could possibly have known about Jean. Realizing the immense injustice George has suffered, he is shaken out of lethargy and, in Holmesian fashion, sets out to solve the case. Julian Barnes is a gifted writer of enormous accomplishment. This novel is thoroughly engrossing, filled with Barnes's trademark themes of identity and love, longing and loss, and ultimately, an examination of man's inhumanity to man. --Valerie Ryan | | | |
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 Elemental, mi querido George.- Aug 16, 2008
Mientras esperamos que llegue a tierras americanas la última novela de Julian Barnes llamada "Nothing to be Frightened of", una excelente manera de comenzar la vigilia es disfrutando de "Arthur & George" (2005) del mismo autor, a quien tuvimos la suerte de tener por nuestras tierras en el verano recién pasado dando claras muestras no sólo de su calidad como escritor, sino sobre todo de su buen humor.
La edición leída es la que nos entrega Anagrama en su Panorama Narrativas con sus habituales aspectos destacados: el clásico y elegante amarillo pálido continente de la obra y la agradable letra y compaginación de los textos y, como contrapartida, su principal y desagradable punto en contra: la excesiva españolización de sus traducciones.
Entrando ya en la historia, nos encontramos a comienzos del siglo veinte en la localidad de Great Wyrley, pueblo rural cercano a la ciudad de Birmingham, Inglaterra. Ahí vive la familia Edalji; Shapurji es el padre y Charlotte, la madre. Él es un parsi que se convirtió al anglicanismo y no sólo se quedó en ello, sino que llegó a ser párroco del pueblo. Ella es escocesa, de Edimburgo. El primogénito es George, un mestizo de color que se siente profundamente inglés y tiene tantos problemas de timidez como de vista. Será abogado. De él trata principalmente la historia. También se hablará de Horace y Maud, hermano y hermana respectivamente.
"Irlandés de ascendencia, escocés de nacimiento, educado en la fe de Roma por jesuitas holandeses, Arthur se convirtió en inglés". Él será médico de la Universidad de Edimburgo; se especializará en oftalmología y se dedicará a escribir. De Arthur (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) también trata principalmente este libro.
"Arthur & George" es una novela que podríamos llamar jurídica; hay cartas anónimas amenazantes y obscenas por un lado y animales mutilados por el otro; el pueblo se conmueve y alguien tiene que pagar por ello. Así, es gracias a la (in)justicia de una acusación, un juicio y una condena que los destinos de personas tan disímiles convergen. Una víctima y un héroe que tratarán de reestablecer el imperio de lo justo, una justicia que no se hace explícita sólo en un juicio: eso sería lo obvio, lo fácil. El trabajo de Barnes es mostrar la justicia de manera más sutil, desde la forma narrativa, contraponiendo los personajes -una bilateralidad de la audiencia ejemplar diríamos quienes estamos familiarizados al Derecho y las leyes- hasta el cuestionamiento sobre preguntas fundamentales tales como raza y racismo e (in)necesidad de la religión y de una vida más allá de la muerte, planteando respuestas antagónicas para cada una de ellas.
La contraposición, tanto en la forma como en lo sustantivo, se transforma en un antecedente estructural y dinámico de una lectura trepidante. En Arthur todo es explícito, desde el deporte hasta su vida afectiva y, en cambio, en George y su entorno se ve claramente la "Teoría del Iceberg" que Vila-Matas nos enseña en "París no se acaba nunca" hablando de su añorado Hemingway: lo importante, la gran masa de hielo, es lo que no se ve, lo que está bajo el agua. Lo no dicho de George es tanto o más que lo dicho de Arthur, y he ahí uno de los mayores atractivos de esta novela: su capacidad de interpelar al lector constantemente. Más de quinientas páginas para dejar más preguntas que respuestas; una delicia.
Cerrando esta reseña, sólo un par de cosas a modo de comentario. En primer lugar, decir que "Arthur & George" no es sólo una novela, sino también un trabajo de investigación sumamente profesional. La ficción se enlaza con los hechos históricos y ello entrega un ambiente de veracidad a la historia que asombra y además entretiene. En segundo lugar y final, cuesta encontrarle puntos bajos a esta novela que merezcan ser mencionados aquí; espero que este hecho -la regularidad en un alto nivel de esta novela- sea un aliciente para quienes se entusiasmen con la lectura; creo firmemente que será una gran inversión.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 an eloquent turn of phrase and a gripping story Jul 25, 2008
This was my first Julian Barnes book so I didn't know what to expect. What I did not expect was to be continually stopped by a sentence, so well phrased, that I had to go back and read it over and over, to savor the pleasure of how Barnes strings words together. Here's an example, from the beginning, the fourth sentence in, describing a curious child: "He did this with nothing that could be called a purpose, merely the instinctive tourism of infancy". Who but Barnes would ever consider linking "tourism" with "instinctive" and all of it as describes an "infant"? Yet it is an absolutely perfect description of childhood discovery.
And then there is the story, which does not disappoint. It starts out slow and informative, picks up speed and becomes more interesting, lags a little in the middle, as characters are filled out, and then it really takes hold, difficult to put down until all is revealed.
And the brilliant approach. I have read about how creatively Barnes plays with the form of the novel - writing novel novels! I can't compare to his previous books, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one, with one chapter named "George" the next "Arthur" eventually followed by "Arthur and George" or "George and Arthur" and an occasional "Campbell" or "Anson". No chapter numbers, just a book in four parts, also cleverly named: "Beginnings" "Beginning With an Ending" then "Ending With a Beginning" and finally, "Endings". Just wonderful througout.
I love this book, and I am very much looking forward to reading it again one day.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Starts out strong then just......dies off Jul 07, 2008
Arthur is a child of Scottish decent growning up in England with his mother and siblings. His father, deemed a worthless alcoholic, is carted off to an insane asylum never to be seen by his family again. Arthur, with his intelligence and determination, educates himself, becomes a doctor, and then becomes the world famous author and creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Meanwhile, George is being raised in a small town by a Vicar and his wife - the Vicar of Indian decent and his mother, Scottish. George grows up a sheltered naive boy without many friends. But somehow he seems to have enemies because when he is in his 20s he is framed for the slaughter of numerous farm animals, is convicted, and sentenced to a 7 year prison sentence of which he is forced to serve 3.
George and Arthur become the most unlikely of aquaintances when George seeks Arthur out to attempt to clear his name. Arthur takes on the cause and begins his own investigation - the type to make Holmes proud. Through this strange friendship a supportive relationship emerges. All the while we learn more details of each's family and relationships with others. The two could not be more different but forge a friendship based on odd similarities.
This novel starts out wonderfully. Each section is told from the viewpoint of either George or Author, switching back and forth. I am a particular fan of this style of storytelling, and for about the first third to half of the book it worked well. As you were reading about one, you were eager to get back to the story of the next - the story intrigued you enough to keep going to find out what would happen next. Then the author told a few chapters from the perspective of other characters - only a few times - that seemed out of place and random. These points of view appeared and then disappeared as quickly. It interrupted the rhythm of the story.
About halfway through the novel the story itself fell apart. The chapters got longer and longer and more self indulgent. They became the self righteous rantings of each character lamenting and whining about his own individual predicament. The characters ceased being sympathetic and instead were annoying. By the end it didn't matter what happened, only that it came to an end.
What started out as very well written resulted in a huge disappointment. It averages out to...average.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Flat-footed Fictionalization Jul 05, 2008
The strange case of George Edalji, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's quest to prove him innocent after years of public humiliation and imprisonment, is an interesting one -- I just don't think Julian Barnes is the right author to tell it. His approach is an intellectual and chilly one, when I think a little more emotion and heart would have done more to draw the reader -- at least this one -- in. And Barnes is inconsistent in his storytelling. After having Conan Doyle agonize at length over how his children will react to his potential remarriage, Barnes never tells us; the wedding and wedding party are presented in laborious detail (including a description of the bride's gown that seems to have been copied verbatim from accounts of the time), and yet not a word from the kids. Oh, well, I guess it wasn't important after all.
I'm a fan of mysteries, so I found the section in which Conan Doyle plays Sherlock Holmes quite rewarding. But the book is ultimately done in by Barne's pedantic, scholarly approach. He's obviously done his research, but does he have to include every piece of it? (An insignificant cricket match is described in an excruciatingly detailed play by play; what's the point, and why should we care?) And when Barnes tries for poignancy and profundity (particularly in the endless epilogue), the results are generally perfunctory and flat. Additionally, the headings that Barnes has given to the book's individual parts strive for meaning, but are just mystifying and pretentious.
All in all, I think a non-fiction approach (from a Sebastian Junger, perhaps) would have been a much more effective way of telling this fascinating story.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
just good enough to read to the end Jun 01, 2008
Well-written, but slow moving; knowing it's based on a true story adds to the interest, and I was grateful for the note at the end that tied up all the endings. The author is no doubt a good writer, but gotta wonder if this could have been quite a bit shorter, and still a good story.
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