Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

This is a good book - but quite different for anything I've read lately. It is, in turns, a history, a mystery, a romance, and a tragedy. Mostly it is just a good read.

The story follows, simultaneously, the lives of two men living in late 19th century England. For almost the entire book the two men have no interaction and don't, personally, know each other at all. The Arthur of the book's title is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - of Sherlock Holmes fame. The George is a person mostly overlooked by history. The two men are great character foils, which only serves to enhance the narrative style of the book; consecutive chapters (mainly) alternated points of view between the title characters.

The book is more of a character study than anything else. The plot is comprised (for what I can tell) purely historical record and, honestly, is a little dry in places. The two title characters more than make up for any down fall on the plots part. And Barnes is a terrific writer. I was total engrosed with how the characters dealt with the paths of each of their lives, and found the book hard to put down.

The novel was short-listed for last year's Booker Prize, which is what initially drew my attention. The connection to Sherlock Holmes, a literary favorite of mine, helped me maintain interest. And now that I'm in England, it seemed foolish to put off reading this book any longer. I'm glad I got around to it, but the wait wasn't that bad.

"The Darkness That Comes Before" [The Prince of Nothing Book One] by R. Scott Bakker

This is a superbly written fantasy novel. It is definitely a fantasy book - but in the best of ways.

This book contains probably the most interesting character concept I've come across in fantasy literature. This character, Kellhus, is introduced in the second prolouge and immediately I was hooked on the book. (The first prolouge is only two pages, so I dodn't need to read very far in order to encounter the character.) Initially I was upset that I had to read more than half of the book before I encountered him again. In retrospect, though, I think that if the events of the first half of the book were told from Kellhus' point of view, it would have weakened my interest in the plot.

The narrative of the novel is told from a variety of characters view points. I had read books that employ this technique before, but I think that R. Scott Bakker did as effective a story-tellling job(if not better) with this tool. Quite often the narration would switch mid-chapter, at a key point, to that of different character. And then switch to another character's point of view several paragraphs later. The author never restricts which character minds we can see into, and this makes for an interesting mix.

Book of this type usually envolve a lot of complicated politics. Some readers like this; some do not. (I, personally, am in neither camp.) Bakker seems to be able to cater to most sensiblities quite well. Because of the rotation narration, the reader is usually aware of the motivations of all of the key characters, at most points in the story. So when the politics gets complicated, and outcomes are no longer as characters predicted or hoped, as the reader we immediately understand why. I really like that about this book. It removes narrative drama, for its own sake, and allows the reader to get more involved in the plot.

I did have two issues, however, that I encountered while I was reading the book.

The Maps. A map at the beginning of the book, detailing major plot locations, is almost an essential for any fantasy novel. As such this book comes with not one, but two maps. Unfortunately they were horrible. The first map is of a continent with some crazy name (which is never actually referred to in the novel). The second is of the area called the Three Seas, where most of the action in the novel takes place. My major issue was that these maps were cramped and included the names of countless places never travelled to, or even mentioned, in the novel itself.

THE NAMES!!!! I understand that when an author is creating an imaginary world full of fantasical abilities, palces and events, that they don't want their characters to have everyday, dull names. Usually I am forgiving of the occasional name that is chance looking or difficult to pronounce. Here, however, R. Scott Bakker has crossed the line. Almost every name is completely foreign is appearance and diffucult to get used to. Initially stumbling around the names even detracted from my reading. I discover, only after finishing the book though, that there is a glossary following the text that contains a pronounciation guide. It is incomplete, however, and includes phoenetics for only a handful of key characters.

Having said this, I still quite liked the book and will definietly be reading the subsequent novels in the series.

Thanks to Heinrich for pushing me just that little extra to get me to actually pick the book up.