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A review by andyirwin89
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
4.0
A great pleasure: standard fare with Barnes. The most satisfying aspect overall to 'Arthur & George' is the manner in which Barnes has taken a true story as his basis and woven such an intriguing, clear and individual narrative around it, with two excellently penned characters at its heart.
The crystal clarity of the prose is often breathtaking, and this is particularly acute at the points where the indignities and injustices experienced by George Edalji are rendered. Barnes' own reaction to them is palpable, and for me he is at his finest when he gifts this level of focus and attention to his subject. Unlike so many of his contemporaries in the high towers of British fiction, he writes with such discipline and clinical poise, shunning lyrical and stylised self-righteousness for something altogether more human and compelling.
A&G presents a Britain in which public service incompetence can ruin lives, institutional racism is rife and 'community' is a complex concept. Yet it maintains a sense of hope within its protagonists in even the darkest of passages, and in his treatment of Arthur Conan Doyle Barnes charts the trajectory of a restless, pompous but ultimately well-meaning maverick, motivated as much by problem-solving and a personal need for distraction as correcting injustice.
The crystal clarity of the prose is often breathtaking, and this is particularly acute at the points where the indignities and injustices experienced by George Edalji are rendered. Barnes' own reaction to them is palpable, and for me he is at his finest when he gifts this level of focus and attention to his subject. Unlike so many of his contemporaries in the high towers of British fiction, he writes with such discipline and clinical poise, shunning lyrical and stylised self-righteousness for something altogether more human and compelling.
A&G presents a Britain in which public service incompetence can ruin lives, institutional racism is rife and 'community' is a complex concept. Yet it maintains a sense of hope within its protagonists in even the darkest of passages, and in his treatment of Arthur Conan Doyle Barnes charts the trajectory of a restless, pompous but ultimately well-meaning maverick, motivated as much by problem-solving and a personal need for distraction as correcting injustice.