Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

This month's book is Arthur & George by Julian Barnes, and, as the book was handed out at the end of last month's meeting, we all seemed to know something about it: it was on the Booker Prize shortlist; one of the characters was famous, the other not; it was a historical novel.  It was a little while, I have to confess, before I quite realised which character was the notorious one - although in  a sense, both were in their day.  I had no idea about the 'Great Wyrley Outrages', but found the dual parallel narratives compelling, and the moment at which the two stories collide (the first chapter entitled Arther & George) intriguing.  The central protagonists were rounded, appealingly flawed, and engaging and I enjoyed the conceit of bringing 'real' characters to life in this way.  Like The Sense of an Ending however, this novel didn't seem to have one, or not a satisfactory one, at any rate. Perhaps that is the inevitability of being in the hands of such a masterful storyteller: the conclusion will necessarily prove disappointing. 

Our meeting takes place in Worthing, and here are this month's questions for discussion:

1.    One of the first things we learn about George is that "For a start, he lacks imagination". George is deeply attached to the facts, while early in life Arthur discovers the "essential connection between narrative and reward" . How does this temperamental difference determine their approaches to life? Does Barnes use Arthur and George to explore the very different attractions of truth telling and storytelling?

2.    To what degree do George's parents try to overlook or deny the social difficulties their mixed marriage has produced for themselves and their children? Are they admirable in their determination to ignore the racial prejudice to which they are subjected?

3.    Critic Peter Kemp has commented on Julian Barnes's interest in fiction that "openly colonises actuality—especially the lives of creative prodigies" (London Times, 26 June 2005). In Arthur & George, the details we read about Arthur's life are largely true. While the story of George Edalji is an obscure chapter of Doyle's life, its details as presented here are also based on the historical record. What is the effect, for the reader, when an author blurs the line between fiction and biography, or fiction and history?

4.    From early on in a life shaped by stories, Arthur has identified with tales of knights: "If life was a chivalric quest, then he had rescued the fair Touie, he had conquered the city, and been rewarded with gold. . . . What did a knight errant do when he came home to a wife and two children in South Norwood?" (60). Is it common to find characters like Arthur in our own day? How have the ideas of masculinity changed between Edwardian times and the present?

5.    George has trouble believing that he was a victim of race prejudice (235). Why is this difficult for him to believe? Is it difficult for him to imagine that others don't see him as he sees himself? Does George's misfortune seem to be juxtaposed ironically with his family's firm belief in the Christian faith?

6.    Inspector Campbell tells Captain Anson that the man who did the mutilations would be someone who was "accustomed to handling animals" (84); this assumption would clearly rule out George. Yet George is pursued as the single suspect. Campbell also notes that Sergeant Upton is neither intelligent nor competent at his job (86). What motivates Campbell as he examines George's clothing and his knife, and proceeds to have George arrested (102–7)?

7.    George's arrest for committing "the Great Wyrley Outrages" (153) causes a sensation in England just a few years following the sensational killing spree of Jack the Ripper that sold millions of newspapers throughout England. Are the newspapers, and the public appetite for sensational stories, partly responsible for the crime against George Edalji?

8.    For nine years, Arthur carries on a chaste love affair with Jean Leckie. Yet he feels miserable after the death of his wife Touie, particularly when he learns from his daughter Mary that Touie assumed that Arthur would remarry (215–17). Why is Arthur thrown into "the great Grimpen Mire" by his freedom to marry Jean (220)? Why does he believe that "if Touie knew, then he was destroyed" (267)? Has he, as he fears, behaved dishonourably to both women? What does the dilemma do to his sense of personal honour?

9.    Why is the real perpetrator of the animal killings never identified? In a Sherlock Holmes story the criminal is always caught and convicted, but Doyle gets no such satisfaction with this real world case. How disturbing is the fact that Edalji is never truly vindicated and never compensated for the injustice he suffered? Does Barnes's fictional enlargement of George Edalji's life act as a kind of compensation?

10. Arthur & George presents a world that seems less evolved than our own in its assumptions about race and human nature, and justice and evidence, as well as in its examples of human innocence and idealism. Does this world seem so remote in time as to be, in a sense, unbelievable? Or might American readers recognise a similar situation in a story like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, or more recent news stories about racial injustice?