Elementary, My Dear Edalji

Arthur & George – what a brilliant novel!

Discovering the Book

I heard about Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George last year and immediately told my wife that I want it for Christmas (who’d think a year has passed already). I had planned to read some other books first, so I let it sit on my shelf for a while.

But the second I took it, I thought: “How’s it possible I didn’t hear about this before! If you want to know what life in England was like for all who were not accepted in ‘official English society’ for this reason or another, then this is what you need. This is the story of the empire, in the heart of empire, of deeply ingrained structural racism, injustice, and utter ignorance of English police and powerful, influential politicians.”

Two Lives, One Story

Julian Barnes tells his story firmly grounded in real events, alternating between the lives of two very different Englishmen. One needs no introduction — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The other, far less known, is George Edalji (pronounced Aydlji, as George points out several times in conversations with other characters).

Their paths don’t cross at first — Barnes takes us back and forth, introducing us to their childhoods, education, and choices they made that shaped the men they became. When a series of shocking and utterly bizarre events reveals how the same society applies radically different rules to different citizens, the two men are drawn together.

George’s Childhood and Aspirations

We meet George as a shy, bookish boy, a devout son often obeying the wishes of his parents, particularly his father, the Vicar. His mother is Scottish, and his father Parsee Indian, who moved to England and inherited the vicarage from his wife’s family.

During his education, George fell in love with  the law and set his mind on becoming a proper English solicitor. Working hard towards achieving his dream, George couldn’t imagine that one sentence he kept hearing during his childhood would greatly affect his life and lead to something that later became known as the Great Wyrley Outrages.

The Sentence That Shapes a Life

“You Are Not The Right Sort,” George heard more than once, but wasn’t paying much attention to it. But it is in this exact sentence that the essence lies. This very sentence, mouthed by an uneducated child, reveals what will turn out to be systemic racism in Great Wyrley and wider, and echoes strongly another sentence from Ali Smits’s novel Spring: “We want people we call foreign to feel foreign; we need to make it clear they can’t have rights unless we say so.” Different stories, different periods — same meaning.

Despite George’s assumed Englishness, and the fact that he never perceived himself as an Indian and even less as Parsee, it didn’t matter at all: he was told from childhood that he would never be accepted as truly English. Repeating this sentence several times, Barnes clearly points out the colonial mindset of English society, just as he does later through the discourse of Chief Constable Anson.

Injustice and Police Misjudgement

When George’s family started receiving disturbing letters, the idea of racial prejudice crossed their minds, even if George himself had a hard time accepting it. Seeing themselves as proper English people who believed in the justice of the Empire’s institutions, they went straight to the police.

Much to their surprise, the policemen, some of whom irresistibly reminded me of Inspector Lestrade, immediately decided George was their prime suspect. For years, George and his family were left to deal with their misfortunes on their own, as increasingly bizarre incidents piled up, unmistakably pointing to George as the culprit in the eyes of Wyrley police.

Doyle Steps In

Finally, as the weirdest and most shocking crimes started happening, George, who was on the point of establishing his solicitor practice, was arrested and convicted to seven years in prison.

Upon serving half of his sentence, George was unexpectedly released. As he tried to rebuild his life, he wrote to Conan Doyle for help. Doyle, who was dealing with personal crisis after his first wife died of tuberculosis, immediately recognized the tremendous injustice done to George for the mere reason that he was mixed-race, and so he employed all of Sherlock Holmes’s abilities and rose to George’s call for help.

Society’s Biases Revealed

It was perfectly clear to Sir Arthur that George being labelled “half-caste” would serve as an ideal culprit for such a hideous crime as killing horses. So un-English was this gruesome crime in the mind of white, proud colonialists that they needed to build the narrative around the weird “goggling half-caste,” in the words of Chief Constable Anson, after dinner — a conversation he reluctantly had with Arthur.

This was all perfectly clear to Doyle if not to George, who insists: “I am aware that you consider race prejudice to be a factor in the case, Sir Arthur… To dislike someone, you have to know them… And then, perhaps, if you cannot find a satisfactory reason, you blame your dislike on some oddity of theirs, such as the color of their skin.”

As Arthur works to clear George’s name, Barnes reveals more problematic aspects of British society of the period. For example, in conversation with Constable Anson, we learn about his interpretation of George’s connection with his family, lack of interest in women or sex, and lack of interest in pubs, alcohol, and sport — all described as some sort of pathology.

He proceeds to imply that George was sexually inhibited, and that this led him to killing horses. However bizarre Anson’s deductions might be, they are all carefully constructed to point out the construction of “otherness” — of someone who doesn’t fit and will never fit in English society because society refuses to allow it.

Englishness and Gender Norms

As the story progresses, we learn something else: there is not only one acceptable way to be English, but one acceptable way to be an English man — you have to love sports and treat women like property. Women are expected to serve as household angels and objects of sexual pleasure; only by conforming to this narrow role could a man be considered properly English.

A Lasting Story

Arthur & George isn’t just a story you read — it’s a story that stays with you. It makes you angry, thoughtful, and yet not at all surprised at how society treated those who didn’t fit its narrow definition of ‘Englishness.’

Reading it made me reflect on how little some things have changed, and how easily prejudice and hate can be disguised as “acceptable” rules. I can’t recommend it enough — if you want a novel that entertains, enlightens, and challenges the way you think about justice, identity, and human decency, this is the one.

I’m equally curious to hear your thoughts if you already read it.