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A review by bfraynt
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
3.0
Arthur and George is based on the true story of Arthur Conan Doyle helping to exonerate George Edalji, a young British solicitor, who was wrongfully convicted of maiming animals near his father's vicarage in rural England. It is likely that racial prejudice played a strong role in George's conviction, and Conan Doyle's work helped create the British Court of Appeals. This book had so many elements that I was sure I would enjoy: history, one of my favorite authors, and a real-life mystery. Julian Barnes also gets great reviews as a writer, so I was surprised that my reaction was somewhat tepid.
The main issue is that I think Barnes took on a far too ambitious project. After reading the whole novel, it feels like he wanted to cover themes as diverse as love, life after death, justice, racism, and honor in less than 400 pages, all while also describing real people and events. The result was that the beginning of the book was kind of plodding and didn't hang together very well. Barnes felt the need to summarize both Conan Doyle's and Edlaji's full biographies, neither of which were incredibly interesting. At the end of the book, I finally understood why I had to tramp through pages and pages of descriptions of Conan Doyle's interest in spiritism and deception of his first wife, but I think Barnes could have achieved much of the same impact at the end with a 1/3 as many pages at the beginning.
Thankfully, the last 150-200 pages, where Barnes actually focuses on the main story: Conan Doyle's investigation of the maimings and his interactions with Edalji, were genuinely interesting and even moving at times.
I guess my final verdict was that I closed the book not entirely regretting that I had picked it up.
The main issue is that I think Barnes took on a far too ambitious project. After reading the whole novel, it feels like he wanted to cover themes as diverse as love, life after death, justice, racism, and honor in less than 400 pages, all while also describing real people and events. The result was that the beginning of the book was kind of plodding and didn't hang together very well. Barnes felt the need to summarize both Conan Doyle's and Edlaji's full biographies, neither of which were incredibly interesting. At the end of the book, I finally understood why I had to tramp through pages and pages of descriptions of Conan Doyle's interest in spiritism and deception of his first wife, but I think Barnes could have achieved much of the same impact at the end with a 1/3 as many pages at the beginning.
Thankfully, the last 150-200 pages, where Barnes actually focuses on the main story: Conan Doyle's investigation of the maimings and his interactions with Edalji, were genuinely interesting and even moving at times.
I guess my final verdict was that I closed the book not entirely regretting that I had picked it up.