Narrative Technique in Julian Barnes' "Arthur & George"

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction  1

2.  The Structure: Where Truth Begins and Ends  1

2.1.  Real and Imaginary Beginnings and Endings  2

2.2.  The Metafictional and Metaphorical Dimension  5

3.  Narrator and Characters: Does Anybody See the Truth  7

3.1.  Narratorial Omniscience and Limitation  7

3.2.  Dialogues: Negotiating the Truth  8

3.2.1.  Guilt vs Innocence: One Man s Truth Is Another Man s Lie  9

3.2.2.  The Uncertainty of Love  10

3.2.3.  In Search of Spiritual Truth  11

4.  Intertextuality: Multiple Truths Under Construction  12

4.1.  Arthur George: Real or Fictional Characters or Both  12

4.2.  The Edalji Case: A Contested and Unfinished Story  14

4.2.1.  The Police Make Up a True Story  15

4.2.2.  Who George Really Is According to Other People s Stories  16

4.2.3.  Sherlock Holmes Investigates the Truth  17

4.2.4.  The Ultimate Yet Ambiguous Truth  19

5.  Conclusion  21

6.  Bibliography  23

1. Introduction

In his novel Arthur & George Julian Barnes not only recreates the lives of his two eponymous characters, but also minutely reconstructs the historical incident that made their lives intersect. In the long-forgotten and unsolved case of the Great Wyrley 1 Outrages in 1903, George Edalji (1877-1953), a half-Indian Birmingham solicitor, was wrongly convicted of animal mutilation and imprisoned. It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the famous writer and inventor of Sherlock Holmes, who slipped into the role of a detective to investigate the truth behind the case and to help undo a miscarriage of justice.

On the one hand, the novel provides “the conventional pleasure of historical fiction” (Walter, par. 4) because it revolves around real-life figures and is based on a real incident. Applying his investigative skills, Barnes carefully researched their biographies and history, and represents them faithfully and meticulously. On the other hand, it has to be borne in mind that it is nevertheless a fictionalized representation shaped by Barnes’ creative and imaginative skills. Thus, the “novel mixes reality and imagination so that the book is part history, part biography and part fiction” (Guignery 129). In terms of genre, Arthur & George could hence be classified as faction, “a work that is on the borderline between fact and fiction, concerned primarily with a real event or persons, but using imagined detail to increase readability and verisimilitude” (Hawthorn 64).

It is exactly this delicate relationship of proven facts and fictional creations Barnes plays with throughout the novel in order to expose “[t]he tenuous nature of reality and the fine line between truth and fiction” (Ball, par. 5). Therefore, Arthur & George could even be categorized as a postmodern novel which authentically represents history, while being aware of its own artificiality and questioning the dichotomy of fact and fiction as well as the claim to one objective truth. In this context, it is worth examining in how far this is reflected on the level of surface content as well as on the level of textualisation, particularly in terms of narrative technique, including discursive devices such as structure, narrative situation, modes of speech, thought and consciousness representation, intertextuality and metafiction.

2. The Structure: Where Truth Begins and Ends

Basically, the novel’s surface structure is divided into four chapters, which are headed “Beginnings” (Julian Barnes 2 1-64), “Beginning with an Ending” (65-287), “Ending with a Beginning” (289-451) and “Endings” (453-501). They literally take the reader from the

1 Great Wyrley is a parish and village in the county of Staffordshire, England.

2 In parenthetical references Julian Barnes’ full name is given in order to distinguish it from “Jon Barnes.”

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beginnings of the two protagonists’ biographies until the end of Arthur’s life. Each of the four chapters contains several sub-sections, which are headed mainly “Arthur,” “George, “George & Arthur” or “Arthur & George,” and alternate primarily between the two protagonists’ respective points of view. Furthermore, there are constant shifts between present tense and past tense, whereby the lines between endings and beginnings of different phases in life, and between past or historical truth and present or current representation are blurred. The reader might therefore get the impression that the topics addressed are of contemporary concern. We view the stories and their world as through a telescope, at once vividly present, yet infinitely distanced. […] But the problems that preoccupied George and Arthur […] – guilt and innocence, the operation of the criminal justice system, divided loyalties, prejudice, religious belief and the reality of death – engage us still and are unlikely to be solved […]. (James, par. 11)

2.1. Real and Imaginary Beginnings and Endings

Although the ampersand in the title might create the illusion that Arthur and George are together throughout the novel, the narrative is kept divided for more than half of the story. In the first chapter, “Beginnings,” Arthur’s and George’s life stories are traced in parallel, but apart – they are completely unaware of each other. As if the pieces of two puzzles were put together one after the other, the steps in their personal developments, from their childhood to the beginning of Arthur’s career as ophthalmologist and writer, and George’s professional life as solicitor are presented methodically and chronologically in quickly alternating one- to three-page narrations, which are headed either “Arthur” or “George.” However, this parallel unfolding of their lives is not a historical fact and works only in Barnes’ fictional universe. The narration actually shifts back and forth between two periods because Arthur was born eighteen years before George in 1859 (see Guignery 127). This constant use of analepses and prolepses is highlighted by the use of the past tense for Arthur and the present tense for George, whose story therefore becomes more immediate and more vivid.

The alternating narrations also emphasize the differences of Arthur’s and George’s characters and ways of life right from the beginning: “[h]is novel begins as a pair of alternating biographies, a tale of opposites” (Adams, par. 3). In fact, they inhabit completely different worlds. George is realistic, rather unimaginative, expected to be truthful, and told to believe in Biblical stories, which his father considers as “the way, the truth and the life” (Julian Barnes 5), while George himself is convinced to find truth in the science of law (see 89-90). By contrast, Arthur appears to embody imagination, and trusts the truths conveyed in chivalric stories and medieval romances like the Arthurian legends, “designed to teach him the distinction between right and wrong” (5). These different notions of truth-telling and

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story-telling already reflect the uncertain status of truth as well as its ambiguous relationship to fiction. It is not entirely clear where truth can actually be found, but the solutions offered here imply that, for some people, it is conveyed by fictional stories in which they believe. The second chapter, “Beginning with an Ending,” continues the alternations between Arthur and George 3 , and offers a full account of the prosecution against George from 1903 to 1906, as well as insights into the developments in Arthur’s private and professional life between 1887 and 1906. As to George, the “Beginning” presumably refers to the first animal mutilations in 1903, which then lead to his arrest, trial and incarceration, while the “Ending” alludes to his release in 1906. The sections about George are told in the present tense until “the last normal twenty-four hours of his life” (129), but from his arrest onwards, his narrative switches to the past tense until his release. This change of tense probably indicates that “the progress of his life, as he sees it, comes to an unscheduled stop […]” (Rafferty 3).

As regards Arthur, beginning and ending are very likely to refer mainly to his extramarital, yet platonic relationship with Jean Leckie starting in 1897 and to the death of his first wife Touie in 1906 respectively. However, this new stage in Arthur’s life only sets in in the last sub-section of this chapter (see Julian Barnes 225-287), which goes back to 1897. From this point onwards, Arthur’s narrative always changes to the present tense when Jean turns up, most likely to indicate that his love for her marks the beginning of a new chapter in his life, and “has no past, and no future […]; it has only the present” (237).

Due to this analepsis from 1906 back to 1897, “the chronology of events is […] disrupted” (Guignery 128), which is confirmed, for example, by the fact that in one of the sections about George, The Hound of the Baskervilles is alluded to by “the footprints of a gigantic hound” (Julian Barnes 119), and George in prison in 1904 reads “a tattered cheap edition” (164) of this novel. Thus, traces of Arthur can already be found in George’s life, and they actually constitute first glimpses of their intersecting lives. However, it is only ninety- two pages later, in the part about Arthur, that the narrator mentions the composition of this book in 1901: “he resuscitates Sherlock Holmes and despatches him in the footprints of an enormous hound” (255-256). Nevertheless, at the end of this chapter the two parallel narrations coincide temporally for the first time, when Arthur receives a letter from George in 1906, in which he asks him for help (see 287).

Among these alternations mainly between George and Arthur, this chapter includes a section called “George & Arthur” (100-102), which establishes a link between the two

3 Except for the sections on Inspector Campbell, the man at the head of the police investigation (see Julian

Barnes 104-113, 119-126, 130-138).

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protagonists for the first time without directly referring to them, and therefore without their being aware of it. Using a camera-eye technique, this sub-chapter consists of a rather neutral description of a man who crosses a field at night and goes towards a horse, to which he does something, and then disappears. “The reader is meant to think that this person doesn’t sound like either George or Arthur, so it’s probably someone else. Yet on the other hand, it says, “George & Arthur” there on the page. This must mean the incident has something to do with both of them, and is a tip-off that they will eventually meet” (Schiff 67). It also gives the reader a first hint to what will ultimately link their lives inextricably – the animal mutilations. Thus, in fictional or even metaphorical terms, the intersection of their lives starts at this point in 1903, while in historical terms, their paths cross only in 1906, that is at the end of the second and the beginning of the third chapter.

The third chapter, “Ending with a Beginning,” basically traces Arthur’s involvement in George’s case from 1906 to 1907. The heading implies circularity: an ending obviously means a new beginning, the beginning of a new story or episode in life. In this particular context, the “Ending” obviously refers again to George’s release from prison, while the “Beginning” marks the beginning of their intersecting lives and of George’s life as a free man. It is probably also an allusion to Arthur’s intention to “go back to the very beginnings of the case” (316) in order to find out the truth about the Great Wyrley Outrages and to prove George’s innocence.

Headed “Arthur & George” (291-306), the first sub-section mirrors the novel’s title and makes Arthur’s and George’s lives intersect directly for the first time, when Arthur agrees to take up the case. The two strands of narrative are finally brought together. At this point, the novel has obviously reached some sort of climax, which is emphasized by the use of the present tense. This chapter mainly 4 features narrations in which the foci of Arthur and George alternate within one sub-section, supposedly to draw attention to their relatedness. Moreover, these sections are characterized by a slow and unstable shift from the past to the present, which probably marks the difficult beginning of George’s life in freedom. “George & Arthur” (415-427) relates their second meeting, in which George subtly criticizes Arthur’s way of investigation 5 , still using the past tense. This encounter is actually invented by Barnes to show that their relationship was not always positive and “to make this actual crossing point between their lives slightly longer and richer than it was” (Schiff 66). The narration then moves to the present tense like in “Arthur & George” (427-441), in which George is granted the important,

4 Apart from three sections alternating between Arthur (see Julian Barnes 306-366, 392-415) and Captain Anson,

the Chief Constable of Staffordshire (366-392).

5 See chapter 4.2.3. (p. 18).

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yet ambivalent free pardon 6 , whereas “George & Arthur” (441-451) begins in the past tense, but suddenly switches to the present tense for their third meeting at Arthur’s and Jean’s wedding in 1907. This not only marks a new phase in Arthur’s life, but also in George’s: the invitation to the wedding symbolizes George’s readmission to society (see 444).

The last part, “Endings,” consists of a single section focusing on George’s point of view and shifts 23 years forward to 1930, to the end of Arthur’s life. At first told in the past tense, the narration suddenly changes to the present tense for Arthur’s spiritualist memorial service – presumably to highlight the appearance of Arthur’s and other people’s spirits, which imply ever-present eternity. Furthermore, the present tense also puts emphasis on George’s presence, which Barnes made up to maintain at least a symbolic link between the two protagonists until the end of the story (see Schiff 67-68), as well as on the fact that his life does not end in fictional terms. It is only in the author’s note that his death in 1953 in mentioned (see 504). Arthur’s death, on the other hand, does not really mark the end of his existence in a spiritualist sense. In the author’s note, Julian Barnes declares that “Arthur continued to appear at seances around the world for the next few years” (503). So it is not really clear when Arthur’s life is over – his life has obviously more than one end – and that is probably the reason why the plural “Endings” is used in the chapter heading.

In summary, already the structure deals with the relationship of fact and fiction, which is also mirrored in Arthur and George themselves, especially in their different conceptions of truth. Moreover, there are invented situations throughout the novel, in which Barnes “fiddled the record […] to make it work better in fictional terms” (Schiff 74) and to give his narrative more coherence. Many situations in which he obviously took imaginative freedom deal with the meetings between Arthur and George, and therefore raise questions about when and where their lives really intersect for the first and last time, or, to put it differently, where the metaphorical, fictional or historical truth about the story of Arthur and George begins or ends.

2.2. The Metafictional and Metaphorical Dimension

Working on a metafictional level, the novel’s structure raises issues about literary structure, for example, questions about where a story begins and ends, whether a beginning does always have an ending, or whether an ending does not also imply the beginning of a new story. Most importantly, the structure “echoes the method of composition of Conan Doyle, who always conceives the conclusion of his stories first” (Guignery 128). He always knows where he is going when beginning a novel: “‘Dr Doyle invariably conceives the end of his story first, and

6 See chapter 4.2.4.

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