As I mentioned last week, I’ve never really read Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books. I love
Sherlock Holmes in all the visual incarnations, but I’ve only read The Hound of
Baskervilles and A Study in Scarlet. And even though especially the latter is filled
with classic Holmes moments, it’s not among my favourite books.
Arthur Conan Doyle created an iconic and memorable character that can be re-invented for the
modern audiences and still retain his essence. Considering the state of
criminal investigation at the time he wrote the books, he was ahead of
his times. A physician himself, he gave his character the analytical mind
needed in detective work. Moreover, he wasn’t beyond trying detective work in
his own life.
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| Julian Barnes: Arthur and George |
The fascinating story
of Conan Doyle as a detective is at the core of Julian Barnes’ book Arthur and
George (2005). It’s not a historical account, it’s a novel based on the lives
of Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji, a part biography and a part detective
story. George Edalji, a half-Indian solicitor from Birmingham, was wrongfully committed
of a bizarre crime of farm animal slashings in 1903, the so called Great Wyrley
Outrages. He was released, but not pardoned, in 1906. Conan Doyle, convinced of
Edalji’s innocence set out to clear his name and after eight months of
detective work managed to have Edalji exonerated. He didn’t, however, discover who
was really behind the deeds, although he was convinced it was a local butcher’s
boy named Royden Sharp. No one else was convicted.
As far as biographies
go, even those that spring partly from the author’s imagination, Arthur and
George is interesting. Two people of seemingly different worlds, though
subjects of the same country, are connected by a court case and nothing else.
Most of the book follows their separate lives and nothing suggests they might
meet one day until they do.
Of the two, Conan
Doyle gets more space. He leads the more interesting life by far and
undoubtedly there have been more sources to his life too. Edalji, however, gets
a more sympathetic portrayal. Not only is he wrongly accused, his entire life
has been struggle against racial prejudice and malign, despite which he has
managed to carve himself a place in society, albeit small. If it hadn't been
for the trial, he would have been forgotten.
Arthur and George is a
window to two very different sides of British culture. Those sides are not
limited to the early 20th century either. They reflect the modern Britain too –
a liberty Julian Barnes has been able to take writing a novel instead of
historical biography. Racism and class structure, the possibilities and
treatment people get because of their place in society are all themes that
reflect the present day too.
Eventful though Conan
Doyle’s life was, he wasn’t nearly as intriguing a character as he was able to
create himself. Edalji’s tragic life would have made a fascinating book on its
own, especially if Barnes had taken more liberties with filling in the
unknowns. As a whole, it’s a somewhat unbalanced book, long stretches of it
being about Conan Doyle. Eventually, Edalji is put aside completely, faded to
obscurity once more. And in the end Conan Doyle, too, is remembered from
Sherlock Holmes, not the man he helped to exonerate.
