Julian Barnes

Chronicles the lives of two boys--the son of a Midlands vicar and the creator of the world's most famous detective--as they pursue separate destinies until meeting and forming a remarkable alliance.

Arthur and George

Sarah Sammis

I have really mixed feelings about this book which was short listed for the 2005 Man Booker Price. It makes a wonderful audio book. I was first introduced to it as an audio book read on Radio 4. Intrigued by what I had heard, I joined a book ring. It arrived last month and I've since then been struggling to read it even though I've already experienced the story in a different medium.

The problem I'm having with the book is that it lacks chapters in the conventional sense and the plot rapidly fluctuates between the characters Arthur and George. For the first two hundred pages the two characters are completely separate. Without knowing how these people line up at first and as a foreigner not being familiar with the places mentioned, I find myself not able to keep track of what is happening. I hate books that make me feel like I'm reading at the event horizon of a black hole, hoping to snatch up a few words as the text flies into oblivion.

As this book is based on actual events and is historical fiction, I have the feeling that the author was trying to put as much of each person's life in the book as possible. A lot of the early details could have been left out. The ultimate story of Arthur's aid in George's legal case is undermined by a whole bunch of padding.

When I wrote my initial review I had decided to give up on the book. The night after I wrote it, I had an epiphany on how to read the book. I would have to read it from one character's point of view and then go back and read the other character's story. That is what I've done the last few days. The original review is posted below:

 I enjoyed the Radio 4 version. Whatever editing job they did to the book improved the story greatly. The story in its original book form is not as engaging. I don't like the bouncing back and forth between characters, nor do I like the book report approach to each scene. I know things will pick up somewhere past the halfway point but frankly there are other books I'd prefer to read.

Amanda Wells

What an interesting book! And the second I've read in a row that is based on historical fact... Unplanned, both! 

This one is quite beautifully written, and you get a very distinct sense of each of the titular characters. I can't think of much more to say right now, except that I wish there was more... And I am certainly glad that I read it. Props to my friend Fi, who lent me a copy to read. I eventually got there... only a year later!

Brilliantly imagined and irresistibly readable, Arthur & George is a major new novel from Julian Barnes, a wonderful combination of playfulness, pathos and wisdom. Searching for clues, no one would ever guess that the lives of Arthur and George might intersect. Growing up in shabby-genteel nineteenth-century Edinburgh, Arthur is saddled with a dad who is a disgrace and a mum he wishes to protect, and is propelled into a life of action. To his astonishment, his career as a self-made man of letters brings him riches and fame and, in the world at large, he becomes the perfect picture of the honourable English gentlemen. George is irredeemably an outsider, and has no hope of becoming such a picture. Though he’s dogged and logical, a vicar’s son from rural Staffordshire, he is set apart, and he and his family are targeted in his boyhood by a poison-pen campaign. George finds safe harbour in the reliability of rules, and grows up to become a solicitor, putting his faith in the insulating value of British justice. Then crisis upsets the uneasy equilibrium of both men’s lives. Arthur is knocked for a loop by guilt and other dishonourable emotions. George is put to the sorest test, accused of a horrible crime. And from that point on their lives weave together in the most profound and surprising way, as each man becomes the other’s salvation. Arthur & George is a masterful novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all, it’s a profound and witty meditation on the fateful differences between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove. George and his father pray together, kneeling side by side on the scrubbed boards. Then George climbs into bed while his father locks the door and turns out the light. As he falls asleep, George sometimes thinks of the floor, and how his soul must be scrubbed just as the boards are scrubbed. Father is not an easy sleeper, and has a tendency to groan and wheeze. Sometimes, in the early morning, when dawn is beginning to show at the edges of the curtains, Father will catechize him. "George, where do you live?" "The Vicarage, Great Wyrley." "And where is that?" "Staffordshire, Father." "And where is that?" "The centre of England." "And what is England, George?" "England is the beating heart of the Empire, Father." "Good. And what is the blood that flows through the arteries and veins of the Empire to reach even its farthest shore?" "The Church of England." "Good, George." And after a while Father will begin to groan and wheeze again. George watches the outline of the curtain harden. He lies there thinking of arteries and veins making red lines on the map of the world, linking Britain to all the places coloured pink: Australia and India and Canada and islands dotted everywhere. He thinks of blood bubbling though these tubes and emerging in Sydney, Bombay, the St. Lawrence Waterway. Bloodlines, that is a word he has heard somewhere. With the pulse of blood in his ears, he begins to fall asleep again. —excerpt from Arthur & George

Arthur & George

Jade Flynn

This one took me by surprise. I won't write a review because I think it's best read blind.

Trevor Berrett

I couldn't decide whether this book fell under the "loved it" or "it was amazing" category. I finally settled on "loved it" but only because I want to try (try) to keep my "it was amazing" books to an exclusive few. However, I must say that I was amazed by the book. Barnes writing was smooth and effortless to read. At the same time it was penetrating, and he could articulate feelings and contradictions with clarity.
The story was wonderful. It is about Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and George Edalji, a wrongly convicted solicitor. The book gives a great narrative about Doyle's youth and adulthood. I found the psuedo-biography fun and enlightening. Though the book is fiction, I'm sure that some of how Barnes characterized Doyle was accurate. 
I think one reason I enjoyed this book was because of Barnes' depiction of Edalji's legal mind and of Doyle's Victorian mind. I loved how George would analyze things thoroughly and then cross examine himself. It didn't get in the way of the story for me to have the characters constantly feeling strongly one way only to then convince themselves that they were wrong. On the contrary, that is one of the reasons I loved this book.
Personally, I think this book, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2005, was better than Banville's The Sea and Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Banville won the Booker, and it is rumored Ishiguro's came in a close second. But Arthur and George was much better than either of them.

Daryl Houston

I enjoyed it and felt like it was heading toward being a 4-star book, but in the end it felt a little flabby and would've been better with about 50 pages shaved off.

Sarah Erle

Laura Mauler

heleen de boever

Ioana Kardos

Tomas Vadovic

Now a major TV series starring Martin Clunes, Arsher Ali and Art Malik From the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011, an extraordinary true-life tale about a long-forgotten mystery... Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages. This is a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful differences between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.

Emmett

edith w.

Cal Desmond‐Pearson

Ilja Panic

Alexander Lobov

Julian Barnes' Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's extraordinary real-life fight for justice. "Arthur George" is based on the true story of two men. One is Arthur Conan Doyle, the other is George Edalji, a solicitor from Birmingham. Their nineteenth-century lives are worlds and miles apart, until a series of shocking events brings them together. In dubious circumstances, George is found guilty of harming animals and is sentenced to seven years' penal servitude--a future of ignominious obscurity. However, when Arthur, who is now one of the most famous men in the land as creator of Sherlock Holmes, hears of this racist miscarriage of justice he decides to clear George's name... Told against the backdrop of Arthur's family life--his own passionate affair with the woman who was to become the second Lady Conan Doyle and his wife's lengthy battle with tuberculosis--this extraordinary novel is a dazzling exercise in detection.

Amanda S

Kevin Bertolero

Jane McCullough

Jess Grossmith

Deborah Meades

Steven O'Toole

Late-Victorian Britain is brought to vivid life in the 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.

Arthur and George

Reviews