Book Review: Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

In this compelling, lovingly crafted novel, Julian Barnes offers up a scintillating soufflé of fact and fiction as he retells the parallel lives of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and George Edalji, a young solicitor wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The book, which came out last year in England, was on the short list for the Booker Prize. Barnes himself has received significant critical praise for his writings, and it is well-deserved. In Arthur & George, he is clearly at the top of his game.

On the surface, Doyle and Edalji were little alike. Doyle was born into genteel impoverishment; his father succumbed to alcoholism and left the family with little. Doyle largely idolized his mother, who indoctrinated him in the mythic tales of another ancient Briton who shared the boy's name. After being schooled by the Jesuits, Doyle studied medicine at Edinburgh University and found an outlet for his boundless athletic enthusiasm in activities such as cricket, boxing, and football. Meanwhile, Edalji is the son of an Indian immigrant and his Scottish wife; Edalji's father is a parish priest in Great Wyrley, where Edalji is raised as an often ostracized outsider. Quiet and sedentary, Edalji is often regarded with distrust by some of the locals, especially some of the local constabulary.

This becomes clear when George's father reports some vandalism and anonymously written defamatory letters to the police. They quickly assume George is the culprit, without any evidentiary support for their theory. Nonetheless, as he grows into adulthood George is often regarded as the source of various problems. While he becomes a relatively respected solicitor, even writing a book on railway law, he cannot escape the perceptions that he is hiding something, and the nasty attacks on his family continue to mount. When there is a series of attacks on local livestock, the police quickly identify George as the criminal mastermind behind the "gang" in question, and he is sentenced to seven years of hard labor. Released after "only" three years, George remains in a legal limbo until Doyle learns of his case and, in a manner befitting his grand fictional creation, sweeps in to prove George's innocence and demand compensation from the government.

Article Author: W.E. Wallo

W.E. Wallo is a book and movie junkie whose writings have appeared in a variety of print and online publications.

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