Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

The book Arthur and George tells the story of the real-life meeting between the very famous Arthur Conan Doyle and small town lawyer George Edalji. Julian Barnes paints a very vivid picture of what life was like for Doyle and Edalji in Late-Victorian Britain. It’s a real life mystery, where Doyle gets to use the skills he builds up in his Sherlock Holmes stories, which is why I bought the book in the first place. It was a good read, once I got several chapters in to the story.

The novel is written chronicling the two men’s lives from birth onward, slowly bringing them together, with Doyle eventually becoming George’s savior. George is a near-sighted, shy half-Indian living in Great Wyrley, a small country town whose residents aren’t very accepting of George and his family. He is victimized for years, from childhood where he is accused of theft and sent harassing letters, to later, where Doyle comes in, when he is accused of mutilating the animals of Great Wyrley. Arthur Conan Doyle began studying medicine where he meets Dr. Bell, the man who inspired his character Sherlock Holmes. He later becomes quite famous, marries and has children, and later falls in love with the love of his life, Jean (despite being married). The two men meet when George is finally set free after serving time for the animal mutilations (found guilty on shady circumstantial evidence), and Doyle decides to take up the case and investigate, mostly because he has sunk into a depression after his wife dies. He wants to bring justice to George, and you hope along with him that he can find it. In doing so, he hopes to find peace within himself.

I almost put this book down at the beginning. The first few chapters were very long-winded, but I kept plowing along and in the end, I was glad I did. The book is such an interesting tale of two men who would never have met, but when they did, they made such a difference in each other’s lives that it changed where they went from there. It is a good mystery, but even more it’s a character study and a story of love, loss, and family. It’s wonderful to think of it being a true story (fictionalized accounting of course), that Doyle became his famous detective for a short while and found new purpose to his life, and that George found happiness in the end.

Rating: 4 Purrs. I’d give it five but I can’t because of the very slow start to the book.