Arthur & George
Julian Barnes
505 p.
Vintage Books, 2006.
(First published by Random House, 2005.)
Back cover blurb:
Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.
With a mixture of intense research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner workings of these two very different men. This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful differences between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.
I’ve owned this book for a couple of years or so, without reading it. I intended to read it last summer, but I didn’t, because it seemed so time-consuming and a little boring. Now, however, I picked it up, because how long can you own a book without reading it? And after a few pages, I was caught. This book I must say is the most beautiful I’ve read this year. The story, based on real-life events, was, albeit terrifying at places, described so beautifully. I don’t know what is true, or what is false, but I don’t really care - I will assume it’s all true. If it isn’t true, it ought to be.
I have never before read anything by Julian Barnes, so I don’t know what his other stories are like. In this story, however, the characters were described in so much depth that at places I felt as though I was them. Which sounds ridiculous, but there you are. I can’t phrase this properly, but this novel was so impressive; it’s not strange it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It is, I think, it didn’t win it. Of course, I can’t say I know who won it, or if they didn’t deserve it. This book, however, would have deserved it.
Often I am critical to novels based on real life happenings, but because this case was so unheard of (I had never heard of it; it’s to do with ripping of horses and Arthur Conan Doyle), I feel it was all right. (had it been, say, Jack the Ripper, I’d been less impressed.) I really felt for George Edalji, the unfairly accused, and I also felt that everything concerning Arthur Conan Doyle was believable. I know very little of him, what I know is mainly based on Murder Rooms, which is perhaps not 100% true, either. If I mix together all the literary facts I know about Conan Doyle, I’ll maybe get some truth in there, somewhere. Except, when it comes to stories, truth isn’t really in an issue? Whether what is said in Arthur & George is true or not, it’s still hell of a work of art.
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August 4th, 2008
Filed under English, Fiction, Historical
7287pwkr
A Strong and Sudden Thaw
R.W. Day
331.
Iris Print, 2006.
Back cover blurb:
Dragons in Virginia?
Nearly a hundred years after the Ice changed the face of our world, the people of Moline work to reclaim the frozen land, both from the cold and from the dragons that now live in the hills outside of town—dragons that the government won’t believe exist.
David Anderson knows very little of the world outside of his family’s farm, until Callan, an assistant healer from the south, arrives in Moline and begins to teach him of a world he never knew, full of books and ideas, and history long forgotten. When Callan is found in the arms of another man—a crime in this post-Ice world—David learns a frightening truth about himself, and the difference between what is legal… and what is right.
After trouble hits the nearby town of Crawford, David and Callan discover the seeds of a plot that affects not only their home, but towns just like Moline across the world. Now they must fight to save their home, not only from the dragons, but from a government that wants them dead!
I had run out of books when visiting Love, so I was leant this book, after hearing heaps of praise for it. And it was brilliant, and so lovely. I adored the way David’s and Callan’s relationship was described; it was so loving and full of life. I really believed in it, even before it was made explicit. And it made me feel more confident that love existed than I felt… for quite some time.
The story, too, was really intriguing and there, too, believable. A sudden ice spreading over the ice? I can buy that. People going crazy as a result? Yeah, sure. Dragons in the aftermath? Of course. When I read the back cover, I felt a little “right, so?”, but Day makes it so believable and oh, this could really happen, I’m sure. (though, I don’t WANT this to happen - too much religion and too little electricity for my personal taste.) It was such a fantastic story. The only bad thing I can say about this was the open ending, but on the other hand, this might mean that there might be more gay adventure to be had. We can hope.
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August 3rd, 2008
Filed under English, Fiction, LGBT-related, Science fiction
7287pwkr
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle
299 p.
Penguin Classics, 2007.
(first published by John Murray, 1927.)
Back cover blurb:
Revealed at last! The final twenty cases of Sherlock Holmes…
From the rooms at 221B Baker Street, the mind that strikes fear into the heart of London’s criminal fraternity turns its attention to some of the strangest and most intriguing cases ever to be set before the great Sherlock Holmes.
Adventures involving an illustrious client and a Sussex vampire; the problems of Thor Bridge and of the Lion’s Mane; puzzles concerning a creeping man and the three-gabled house; disappearances of secret plans and a lady of noble standing; all test the courage of Dr Watson and the intellect of the greatest detective of them all, Mr Sherlock Holmes.
This final collection also features the story ‘His Last Bow’, the last outing of Holmes and Watson…
More stories with Sherlock Holmes! Stories that were much more fun than those in His Last Bow. I can’t say much about what happened in them; in one there was poison and another a mutilated woman. Whatever the stories were about, they were much more fun to read than those in His Last Bow. This might be due to that I have gotten used to Doyle’s writing, which I perhaps wasn’t before. Or maybe, this collection is better. However it was, I quite enjoyed it!
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July 30th, 2008
Filed under Crime, English, Fiction
7287pwkr
The Ingenious Edgar Jones
Elizabeth Garner
338 p.
Headline Review, 2008.
(First published 2007.)
Back cover blurb:
The skies of nineteenth-century Oxford are aflame the night of Edgar Jones’s birth. Whilst his father dreams of his son becoming a great scholar, his mother is quick to notice that Edgar has a different kind of cleverness. He is a born inventor, with a rebellious spirit that may be a blessing, or a curse.
Soon his abilities bring him to the attention of a maverick professor, a bone collector with plans for a museum that will for ever change the way mankind looks at the world. Finally Edgar has a chance to show his true talent as he embarks on an adventure fraught with terrible dangers, for himself and those who love him.
um. The adventure discussed in the back cover blurb? Does not happen. In fact, that blurb lies a whole lot. Neither of Edgar’s parents notice his intelligence, at least not at the same time. They do it in turns, and they are equally bad.They are not very good parents.
I wanted to like this book, or, I thought I’d like this book. It seemed like a sweet century-before-last-novel, with a cosy atmosphere and prettiness. This I didn’t get. Why? The story was full of wack. This is what happened: Edgar is born. Edgar works in a forge. Edgar invents a pot. Edgar works at a museum. Edgar works at a toy shop. Toy shop burns down and Edgar is thrown in jail. Edgar flies away. Somehow. Maybe I didn’t really pay attention at the end, but by then, I’d almost given up. The ending was very unsatisfactory. Edgar flew away from his prison, his father became a gargoyle, and his mother was going to move to London to live with a pimp. What is that about?!
Throughout the three-hundred-and-a-bit pages, I waited for the story to lift, for something to actually happen. Nothing did. There was a bit of pretty writing (Garner’s writing is really more than half-way decent), and a lack of plot. It was very sad. This book is, for me, the biggest letdown since Edward Trencom’s Nose.
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July 30th, 2008
Filed under English, Fiction, Historical
7287pwkr
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