“As boys, George, the son of a
Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves
in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one
struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other
creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is
not his wife—their fates become inextricably connected.”
I think the story of George Edalji and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle is a fascinating one, and it is obvious that Julian Barnes has done an
enormous amount of research into the lives of both men, but I think I made a
huge mistake in getting this book on Audible. It is hard to write an unbiased
review of a book when you're trying to work out if the book is badly written,
or if it's due to the poor narrator. In this instance, I think it is safe to
say that my main criticism of the book is not Barnes' beautiful prose, but the
narration on Audible. My concentration was removed from the story and
transferred instead to the poor accents, mispronunciations and general telling
of the story, which is a great travesty to Barnes.
George Edalji was a myopic solicitor, the son of a country
vicar, and part Asian. His path only crossed with that of the creator of
Sherlock Holmes for several months, but there meeting was most fortunate, as
Doyle was instrumental in correcting a serious miscarriage of justice.
The book begins with the childhood biographies of both characters, two children living such opposite lives. George was a lonely, scholarly child, visually impaired, lacked imagination, and came from a poor, religious family in Staffordshire. Up in Scotland, Arthur was full of dreams, a great storyteller and popular with his classmates. He grew up listening to the tales of King Arthur rather than the Bible and was both scholarly and athletic. Whilst this first part of the story is very slow-moving, and at times tedious, it is important background information and gives the reader an insight into how their childhoods formed their adult lives. What at first may seem irrelevant, the importance of knowing about George’s ethnicity and poor eyesight and the part it played in his eventual arrest is shocking.
Barnes meticulously maps out their life journeys, switching
back and forth between both men’s stories until they finally meet. For most of
his younger years, George goes through life being ignored. At school he is told
“You’re not a right sort” because his father was a Parsee, married to the
daughter of a Scottish vicar. In the classroom, he was seen as unable to
correctly answer questions posed to him on the blackboard and was therefore
forced to sit at the back of the class with those who had little interest in
learning. Once he was diagnosed with poor eyesight, he was allowed to sit at
the front of class, and he started to excel at school.
Conan Doyle tried and failed to become an ophthalmologist.
He was a hero in the Boer War, and he had some sporting success both in skiing
and cricket. He had a wife in ill health, and a lover who would become his
second wife, Jean Leckie. George, on the other hand, lived in a Shropshire
village with his family and trained as a solicitor, getting a train into town
each day. His study of the law on railways eventually led to him writing a
guidebook in 1901 titled “Railway Law for the ‘Man in the Train’.” For several
years, his family received poison pen letters and various threats and hoaxes
were played on them. Matters intensified when farm animals were mutilated in
the surrounding area of his home. Despite George reporting the threats and
intimidation to the police on numerous occasions, nothing was ever
resolved. In 1903, George was convicted and charged with the mutilation
of animals; it was also alleged that he was behind the threats and intimidation
the family received. From Barnes’ account of George, it is unlikely that he
would be able to comprehend doing such unmentionable acts, let alone committing
them, yet despite there being no evidence or motive, George was sentenced to
seven years in prison.
Arthur had been going through a rough time. His wife had
died, he was trying to establish where he was in his relationship with Jean
Leckie and he was uncharacteristically lacking focus. Whilst he received several
letters due to the popularity of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle hated the character,
and therefore did not reply to the letters he received requesting help to solve
real mysteries himself. The letter from George Edalji however does influence
Doyle into action; he is immediately convinced of George’s innocence and is
determined to prove it. He is adamant that this is a miscarriage of justice,
that he will find the real culprit/s, and he will obtain a full pardon and
compensation for George.
Upon meeting George, Arthur says 'You and I, George, you
and I, we are unofficial Englishmen.' By saying this, as a Scot, to George
who is half Parsee, Arthur is making it clear that he is going to try and
expose the racism and corruption both in the police force, and the wider society,
which enabled the original threats and intimidation to the Edalji family being disregarded,
rather than being thoroughly investigated. He also wanted to show that there
was insufficient evidence for George to have endured a prison sentence, and
that his name needed to be cleared in order that he could resume his work as a
solicitor.
The story almost reads like a parable. Arthur, trained in
ophthalmology, came to the aid of a nearly blind man, to solve a real crime in
a manner his fictional character would be proud of.
What Barnes has done with this story, is bring a piece of
lesser-known history to life and allowed an insight into the man behind Holmes.
I was aware that Doyle was embarrassed by his creation of Sherlock Holmes,
which was why he had him killed off at the Reichenbach Falls, but I didn’t
realise that he counted J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Bram Stoker (Dracula) as
close friends, nor that he became an amateur detective in the mysterious
disappearance of the novelist Agatha Christie.
In conclusion, I found the subject matter fascinating, and
the story well researched and written, although it did feel prolonged in
places. I understood the need for delving into George and Arthur's childhood,
as that set the scene for what was to come, but at times the amount of
information relating to Arthur verged on a biography, rather than concentrating
on the story of these two men. E.g. the details surrounding Arthur's interest
with the growing Victorian subculture of Spiritualism and his various
friendships with other writers, was it necessary to the story, or could it have
just been brushed upon? Maybe it was just the poor narration on Audible rather
than these numerous details which made me think this book dragged on for longer
than it should have done!
Genre: Fiction, Detective,
Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery
Release Date: 7th
November 2019
Publisher: Audible Studios
Listening Time: 17h
23m
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