Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

In my own mind this particular review has been too long anticipated. Mostly because I've taken way too long to read it - I read every single other book I've blogged about here since starting Arthur & George, (except The Life of Charlotte Bronte which I read while I was waiting for Mum was finish the Barnes book early this year). The other reason is that I've been talking about this book to any and everyone with ears since reading the first sentence. I've been a big fan of Julian Barnes' since I read A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters a couple of years ago and fell in love with his writing. Then I found England, England and a book of short stories The Lemon Table, while only a fraction of Barnes' very substantial literary output which fully I intend to read through one day, further solidified my barnacle-like attachment to his way of storytelling.



This book is going to receive my first five-star rating on this blog. Since we try and rate as fairly as possible, some of you may stop reading this review at this point and skip below to the Robert Downey Jr pictures. As long as you understand how great Arthur & George is and use the time saved by exiting at this early point to go out and find/read/love this book I will be satisfied. For those of you either harder to convince or who are so enamoured of my blogging that you hang on Every Word I Type, let's break this claim of extreme excellence down -

Arthur & George is based on the true story of the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I was sold on this book as soon as I realised that HE was the Arthur of the title) and a man called George Edalji. Sir Arthur is plagued by his most successful creation - Sherlock Holmes - and the fame the great detective has brought him.



George is a country solicitor who struggles to gain the respect of his colleagues and to gain an audience for his book about railway law. He's also been receiving some hate mail and the police don't like him very much. The two men's paths cross when George is arrested for a really horrible crime and Arthur decides to play the part of detective for real. It really was a landmark event for the English justice system as George's case, called the 'Great Wryly Outrages', became a catalyst for the establishment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in England. There's a lot more going on than a law case in Arthur & George, though that's what brings the titular characters together and changes both their lives. I loved the illumination of Arthur's growing interest in Spiritualism and George's struggle with his own Christian faith and the many other paralells and divergences of character between them - but I especially love the gentle touch of the writing that reveals without judgment the social experience of two men who were, for very different reasons, seen as different and seperate from those around them.

It's hard to convey without the same gifts for writing, the subtlety and humour of Barnes' language and the way he way he builds his extraordinary story - which feels more like looking through a wormhole in time that Being John Malkovich style puts you inside the character's brains than the result of really good scholarship. I don't want to say any more because Arthur & George is a a mysterious, cloudy jem of a book and I don't want to give any more of it away. I love this book. You should all read it. NOW.

*****/***** (5 of 5!)

Here's another picture of RDJ as Sherlock Holmes and his buddy Watson, played by Jude Law - just because I can. What a fine film it was.

Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

Never fear, I have many more Bronte books to unleash like child-crackens upon this blog - but even I can get bored of the amazingness of that family and long for a change of scene and society. I wasn't quite prepared for Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel Less Than Zero though. I think the cover of this book tricked me by provoking happy David Hockey swimming pool thoughts like this -



whereas actually what this book makes you feel like is this -



This is actually an image from the 1987 film made of Easton Ellis' book, which I haven't seen and I'm not sure if I could bear it now - even though it has my future husband Robert Downey Jr in it. It's my own fault, the Bronte sisters tenderised me and I've never read any of Easton Ellis' books before or managed to develop anything more than a vague idea about what they might be like. Less than Zero is like an 80s version of one of my favourite books Catcher in the Rye, just without as much verbal roguishness, Robbie Burns references or good headwear. I wish I had been the first to make the comparison between Easton Ellis' and Salinger's teenage-angst-coming-of-age stories because that would have been amazing of me and I could die happy but it's actually so obvious it could easily have been a deliberate 'update' on the classic by the younger writer. The title was taken from an Elvis Costello song that attacks the conservative politics of England in the 1970s by making nasty comments, and rightly so, about a butt-headed English fascist from the 1930s called Oswald Mosely. Both song and novel are concerned with a world in chaos, and the often disastrous consequences of materialist culture. In fact the David Hockney allusion on the cover of the edition I read may be quite appropriate in it's hyper-real, luscious, perky-bottomed other-worldliness...

Less than Zero is about an eighteen year old guy called Clay who has come home to Los Angeles after living in New England for four months. He is beautiful, bored and ridiculously wealthy, as are all of his friends - they do a lot of drugs, have sex with everyone regardless of their age or issues of consent, look at a few dead bodies, watch porn and snuff films, do more drugs, have more sex, there's a dalliance with prostitution, trips to the grandparents summer house, some eating disorders and lots and lots of nihilistic angst. Surprise, surprise, it's a critique on consumer culture! Easton Ellis was 21 at the time this book was published and from what I've read about the author significant episodes of Less than Zero are autobiographical. The anger and despair that presents as the apathy of the narrator feels real. It's a good and useful book. It marks a scary moment of excess and dissipation in capitalism. It's just really unpleasant to read because it's so unrelenting - because the narrator isn't a hopeful existentialist like Sartre or even Holden Caulfield but is instead more akin to the depressed blackboard in Mr Squiggle. And there's no comic relief! Easton Ellis is a talented writer though, and it's certainly a memorable novel but that doesn't mean I could ever bring myself to like Less Than Zero. He also announced that a sequel called Imperial Bedrooms, focussing on the same characters now middle aged, will be published in May this year - hopefully it'll be slightly more uplifting on the philosphical front, though I imagine the bottoms wont be quite as perky.


**/***** (Two stars out of five for freaking me out).