Helen's review
Arthur and George
by Julian Barnes
Helen's review
Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
Helen's review
rating:
bookshelves:
historical-fiction
"I enjoyed this novel a lot, although it's rather oddly constructed. The first part of the book describes the early years of George Edalji, the son of a Parsi vicar and Scottish mother, and those of Arthur Conan Doyle. George becomes a solicitor, Arthur studies to become a doctor but of course it is as a writer that he makes his name. [return][return]Barnes paints a convincing and engrossing picture of middle-class Edwardian England (Arthur is married to tubercular Touie and must wait over a year after her death to marry Jean, with whom he's been in love for many years; George is subjected to low-level racism or xenophobia that may not may not have prejudiced the police against him), although I was perplexed where the story was going. George and Arthur never meet until George is thirty, and there is no connection between them until page 209, when Arthur becomes interested in the Edalji case and what he perceives as a gross miscarriage of justice.[return][return]The plot only reall...more
