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Arthur & George

By Julian Barnes

(58)

| Paperback | 9780679314189

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Book Description

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-genContinue

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


From the Hardcover edition.

Critics

  • The curious case of the slashed horse

    He’s damn good, Julian Barnes; no doubt about that. But what exactly is it that he’s best at? I have never been able to work it out. Arthur & George, his tenth novel, is a crime novel, a two-person biography, a romance, a historical novel, and a phil ... (read full critics)

    spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

  • Arthur & George By Julian Barnes

    At the beginning of the last century, a half-Indian, half-Scottish solicitor in provincial England was tried and convicted for the unlikely crime of mutilating a pony. Released after serving three years of a seven-year sentence, the innocent young ma ... (read full critics)

    bookpage published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

7 Reviews

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  • 4 people find this helpful

    Part facts, part fiction, this tale of two individuals from completely different worlds linked by fate and a common pursuit of justice is fascinating and enjoyable.

    Cannot be missed by fans of Sherlock Holmes as Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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    Tracy W said on Apr 12, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    My thoughts

    An interesting book about late 19th century English life as seen through the eyes of two men who seem very different but who also share some similarities. At times I felt the story lagged as the author focused on George and then a long section on Arthur, but when the two men meet and Arthur agrees t ... (continue)

    An interesting book about late 19th century English life as seen through the eyes of two men who seem very different but who also share some similarities. At times I felt the story lagged as the author focused on George and then a long section on Arthur, but when the two men meet and Arthur agrees to help George, the book regained my interest. I also liked learning about how Arthur created his fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.

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    krin5292 said on Feb 24, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • A true story of two people whose lives crossed at the beginning of last century. A Portrait of England of the period and of two people; the first the anonymous victim of injustice and prejudice, the second the famous writer Arthur Conan Doyle who defended and partially exculpated him. A well researc ... (continue)

    A true story of two people whose lives crossed at the beginning of last century. A Portrait of England of the period and of two people; the first the anonymous victim of injustice and prejudice, the second the famous writer Arthur Conan Doyle who defended and partially exculpated him. A well researched description of the costumes and mores of the era; an apt study of their personalities and the circumstances that caused their actions.

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    Ignominia said on Nov 8, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

  • Very readable. Loved the dichotomy between the two very different main characters and the way the formal device of a chapter per character gradually eases and the story grows.

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    Mearso said on Dec 3, 2009 | Add your feedback

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