false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170283028m/45369.jpg 45369 29 A real <i>tour de force</i> from masterful author Julian Barnes is <i>Arthur & George</i>, which was short-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Late-Victorian Britain is brought to vivid life in the true 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. They start out very differently. Arthur pursues a career in medicine before he discovers that he is really a writer; George, on his way to becoming a lawyer--near-sighted, timid and friendless--is victimized by locals because he is easy to scapegoat--a half-Indian in lily-white Great Wyrley. <p> The victimization of George takes the form of nasty letters, the theft of a school key, and finally, the accusation that he has mutilated animals. Meanwhile, Arthur is becoming more and more famous for creating Sherlock Holmes, whom he tries to kill off once and is forced to resurrect because of his fans' outcry. He marries, fathers two children and then, when his wife is invalided by consumption, falls madly in love for the first time with Jean Leckie. <p> The novel's style is smoothly revelatory. We slowly come to realize that George is half-Indian, that Arthur is the famous Doyle, that the woman he loves, chastely, is not his wife and, sadly, that George will not prevail over the forces ranged against him. <p> When George, desperate to resume his law career after imprisonment, sends Arthur the sad chronicle of his history, Arthur sees immediately that he could not be guilty and sets out to clear his name. This case of George's lifts Arthur from the slough of despond into which he has sunk after his wife, Touie, dies. He is guilt-ridden, constantly wondering if he was attentive enough, if she could possibly have known about Jean. Realizing the immense injustice George has suffered, he is shaken out of lethargy and, in Holmesian fashion, sets out to solve the case. <p> Julian Barnes is a gifted writer of enormous accomplishment. This novel is thoroughly engrossing, filled with Barnes's trademark themes of identity and love, longing and loss, and ultimately, an examination of man's inhumanity to man. <I>--Valerie Ryan</I> 2270654 book 2005 Arthur and George total:1648|5:243|4:676|3:528|2:172|1:29| 1648 5876 2469 325 5 3 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 14 09:42:50 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 14 09:55:29 -0800 2007
The last book I'd...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 20 00:15:41 -0800 2008 Thu Apr 16 20:14:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 29 10:03:19 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 11:41:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false true Thu Apr 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 22 12:58:11 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 17:54:19 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Feb 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 14:31:14 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 08 14:50:08 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 10 12:34:24 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 23 13:23:39 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 03 17:02:57 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 10 04:50:22 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 07:22:51 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 16:52:10 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Sep 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 17:25:27 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 17:36:46 -0700 2008 ...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Feb 14 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Oct 13 04:42:23 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 04:46:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri May 05 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed Aug 12 19:38:39 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 19:43:51 -0700 2009 Old review from 2006

Way outside of my normal range of reading here, but hey, that's what the Christmas book stack is all about. Apparently it's a pseudohistorical novel about Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji, and the 'Great Wyrly Outrage' animal mutilation hearings. In turn-of-the-cen...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 19 15:02:45 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 15:03:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false true Mon Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 10 09:17:27 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 10 09:48:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:38:21 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:38:21 -0800 2009 Always the bridesmaid, never the bride; short-listed again for the 2005 Booker Prize (Barnes's third such honor), Barnes sets aside the postmodern tricks of his most famous works (Flaubert's Parrot; A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters) to write a fairly straightforward novel based on the famou...

more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 31 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 31 12:34:38 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 12:34:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 11:15:48 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 11:35:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Oct 11 11:46:17 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 11:53:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 8 false false Mon Aug 31 16:46:18 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 18:31:24 -0700 2009
This book is based on a true story. I had wondered if it was true as I was reading it and although I knew...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 01 19:07:44 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 19:19:23 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jun 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 04:28:35 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 04:32:11 -0700 2009
When I first began to read it, I found the simplistic nature of the narrative a little hard to get over, but it wasn't long before I found that the language, whilst simple, was engaging and extreme...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=45369