Arthur & George

著者 : JulianBarnes

• Jonathan Cape Ltd (2005年7月7日発売)

感想・レビュー・書評

[sophieさんの感想 · 2005年7月17日]

Still elegant, this is somewhat more somber than some of Julian Barnes previous work. It's based on something that happened 100 years ago, The Great Wyrley Outrages, but explores both issues which are possibly even more relevent today like racism and the role of law, and also more universal issues surrounding the human condition like identity, spirituality, guilt, perception, and truth.
George's mother is Scottish, his father is Indian. When the family receives vicious anonymous letters, and horses are slashed, the police arrests George and on the flimsiest of evidence he is sentenced to 7 years' hard labour. Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who vows to right this miscarriage of justice. He too has a story: he is kind to his dying first wife and chaste with the other woman he is actually in love with.
It took 3 years to get George released, and without any apology. I hadn't known that Britain had its own Dreyfus, and although the novel is really about the inner lives of two very different men, Julian Barnes nevertheless recreates an interesting historical event.