Vol. 4 Issue 1. – Research Article: ‘Julian Barnes’s Arthur and George: A reader’s postmodern experience’ by Lic. Susana Del Buono

ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#1 | January 2, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036

After eighteen months of supreme inspiration a book is born. It seems to be like any other volume, but thicker, and its three hundred and fifty seven pages printed in minute fonts may discourage many busy postmodern readers. At first sight, what strikes us most is the lack of ordinal chapters which seem to have been replaced by male names: some are Arthur while others are George but there are also Arthur and George as well as other names. In addition, these chapters make up four macro sections, the first one called Beginnings, the second called Beginning With an Ending, the third  Ending With a Beginning and the last one Ending. Just by looking at this structure the reader may feel that this novel is a story to assemble and not a ready-to-go story. At first sight we are tempted to say that its structure looks postmodern, but there are some elements in the narrative that should be analized in order to definitely call it Arthur and George a postmodern novel by the English writer Julian Barnes.

Before coming to define the subgenre where this novel belongs, it would be very useful to become acquainted with the term pastiche. This term widely refers to a text consisting wholly or largely of direct borrowings from one or more other words.[i] In the case of Arthur and George, we may call it pastiche because it has elements from the historical and biographical novel, as well as elements taken from the mistery and the detective subgenres. Julian Barnes collected as much information as he could from all sort of written records (newspapers, letters, essays, books by the real characters, etc) but since he did not have enough information to build up his characters he had to invent the rest of the data, therefore it could not be called a trully historical novel.

At the very beginning the book gives the impression of being a biographical novel, but later it turns out to be something much more complex. The first chapters called Arthur or George tell the reader about the main characters’ early childhood until their young adulthood. Edward’s anecdotes at school are vividly described as well as his armonious family life in Great Wyrley parish and his profound religious customs. He is the eldest son of the Vicar and he is half Parsee (Indian people fromBombay). Meanwhile, as in a parallel line or universe, but not necessarily at the same time, Arthur’s life runs faster and soon the reader discovers that the oculist turned into a famous detective writer cannot be other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the father of Sherlock Holmes.

This first section of the book mixes the author’s inventiveness with many true facts about these two real and tangible people from the last century. At this point we might be talking about the fictionalization of history, which is a postmodern perspective on historical fiction. In order to rebuild the personality of an unknown and forgotten character such as George Edjali, the author had to read a book that Edward wrote when he was studyingt to become a solicitor. From this book called Railway Law for the Man on the train Barnes manages to bring Edjali back to us, his readers. Once the latter are fully in love with his marvellous depiction of George, the poor character starts his quick downfall.

In the last chapter of Beginnings the story veers from a biographical to a detective or mistery story. In Great Wyrley Parish a man appears mutilating a cow in the middle of the night and the detailed description of his action could really freeze one’s blood. Nevertheless, the greatest impact is actually caused by the irruption of a new universe, different from the cozy atmosphere where the characters live. From the cotidianity of a life that can be anyone’s life, one jumps into the middle of nowhere to be in the company of a maniac who feels pleasure at disemboweling defenseless farm animals. Here is where the detective story begins, or maybe the real mistery began some pages ago when the Edjalis start becoming victims of an anonymous campaign consisting of messages left at their door, threatening letters and hoaxes published in the local or neighbouring towns’ newspapers.

The second part of the book is magically brought to us while the readers are made  to sit in a courtroom and witness a completely biased judgement against poor old George, the good son of an Indian Vicar. As you can see, religious matters as well are social issues, such as race prejudice and corruption are also present. It seems that the aim of this particular section, if there is any, is not to pass judgement, on the contrary, one can see how all the events unfold and the way in which the evidence is handled but there is no moral compass telling us whether the actions are moral o inmoral. Besides, when the Edjali’s case is almost fully described one feels that this can be happening at that very moment in any part of our world, not just then, but also at this very moment of existence.

This second section is also accompanied by another piece of Arthur’s life, not yet in touch with George’s, but profoundly moved by the death of his first wife. Being a doctor and an oculist, he cannot understand why he could not see his own wife dying in front of him. This pain is what makes him help other people, that is how he meet George, an ordinary man, who once outside prison, wants to clean his name and recover his position as a solicitor.

All throughout these first two sections and even much later, the postmodern pastiche is completed by all sort of original documents such as letters, newpaper ads, the cover of The Man on the Train, cards, invitations or even capitalization of meaningful words and underlining of sentences. Even when George is in jail we can read the newspapers articles that he might have been reading at the time. These items not only help to build up the atmosphere but they also make one feels even closer to the characters, as if one were reading through their eyes.

In the third section called Beginning with an Ending, we find the beginning of Arthur and George’s relationship and Arthur’s platonic relationship with a woman he had been seeing even before his wife died. Through the latter the author manages to show us the strict social rules of the Victorian Times as well as the hypocrisy that those rules reflected. Borrowing many of the deductive methods of Sherlock Holmes, and as well as the real Conan Doyle could have done it, the fictional Arthur finds another solution for George’s case, the first Court of Appeal is set up in England and George is absolved. As it might be expected, no institution acknowledges its failures publicly, the case is made famous all over England and in some parts of the world, but the scandal is covered by saying or explaining nothing. George’s name is cleaned by means of the media. In the same way a man is destroyed, he is brought back to life and the peace is restored. That seems to be the ending of those previously mentioned beginnings, and if the reader is still expecting something, I am sorry, but nothing else happens here. A life is saved from misfortune but nothing seems to have changed much, there is no punishment to any of the wrongdoers and the actual criminal is never to be found.

To crown this superb novel there is the ending, an ending which appears to be not only indefinite but infinite. There is a mixture of appearance and reality brought to us with Arthur’s death, twenty years after the case was solved. As I said before, twenty years go by and Arthur dies. Odd enough, his funeral is carried out in a spiritualist seance to which hundreds of people have been invited. A chair is placed on stage next to Arthur’s family and Mrs. Roberts, the medium.George has booked a ticket for the seance as if it was a theatre play and he sits in disbelief waiting for something to happen. At this very last part of the novel, one is made to believe that either a fantastic element is being set in motion or that it is all a matter of appearance, nobody sees anything but many people could get messages from their beloved relatives who are dead. The medium performs her task either as an actress or as a true conduct to the other world. George is relunctant to believe at the beginning, but in the end, it is all uncertainty. Another key term in postmodernism. He focuses once more on the platform (…). He gazes through his succession of lenses, out into the air and beyond. What does he see? What did he see? What will he see?[ii] There is no purpose, there is just playfulness in the last words in the novel.

To conclude, beyond the purpose of this essay, there was the need to show my experience as a reader while undergoing the process, a process that is never passive and in this case, was really active and productive. The idea was to show how these elements have helped the reader reconstruct the text into a great whole that emcompasses as many universes as meanings any reader may find.