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This richly drawn novel defies the rules of categorization. Is it a biography of two Victorian gentlemen, one famous and one infamous? A historical fiction richly exploring English life at the turn of the 20th cenutry? Or is it a whodunit exploring the persecution, trial and wrongful imprisonment of an innocent man?
Julian Barnes masterfully examines the parallel lives of two boys, both born in the late 1800s in very different circumstances. George is the son of a vicar in the working class village of Great Wyrely. A shy and myopic student, he doesn't seem to realize that he is the half-caste result of marriage between his Parsi father and his Scots mother. His English is flawless, his manners above reproach, and he is in every way but one a true English gentleman. In the lily-white Midlands, the bookish young man is subjected to veiled threats and anonymous letters and eventually accused of beastly acts. His belief in the justice of truth and fairness is shattered as he is convicted and jailed.
Arthur is one of seven children born to a strong-willed Irish woman and a lay-about lush who eventually is institutionalized. While George is well-versed in the Bible due to his father's role as a clergyman, Arthur's Catholic upbringing acquaints him with the Ten Commandments. But his well-read mother also introduces the imaginative child to romantic tales of knights and ladies, and Arthur is imbued with the valiant heart of chivalry. George wants nothing more than to become a respected lawyer; Arthur's ambitions run toward the study of medicine, but his dream is to rescue his mother from her meager existence.
Their two lives will not intersect until the men are both in their third decade. By then George Edalji has been wrongfully imprisoned for libel and unspeakable acts of violence, and Arthur Doyle has been knighted and is the world-renowned author and creator of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur has become bored with his popular detective and killed him off so that he can return to the practice of medicine, when he hears of the dubious case against this half-caste lawyer whom many feel has been wronged by police persecution. In true chivalric fashion, Arthur charges to the rescue. He cavalierly adopts his fictional character's highhanded investigative methods; only his fame and reputation rescue the attempt to restore George's good name and position from failure at the hands of the local police, who are anxious to cover up their part in George's persecution.
This book is based on a real-life incident that resulted in elevating George Edalji's case to the front pages of the world press and eventually led to a major change in English law to allow appeals to be heard by a higher court.
Julian Barnes introduced this artful blend of biography, history and masterful storytelling in FLAUBERT'S PARROT. With ARTHUR & GEORGE he has created a wonderfully readable biography of one of history's favorite and most durable authors, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, while introducing us to an examination of Victorian values and their impact on the law, medicine and the morals of the times.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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