Arthur & George

[mothwing]

11.

Arthur & George, by Julian Barnes.
I am in love. This book is absolutely awesome.

The two characters in this one are absolutely lovable, different as they are, Julian Barnes' easy style and the quick pace of the plot make it fun to read. It does not take long to fall in love with those two very different character, either, with Arthur, the father of the greatest fictional detective ever, and the sturdy, hard-working half-Indian solicitor George. You are immediately drawn in to their worlds and their very different lives, and it's one of those books which make you get up with the book in front of you to read passages from it to the bemused people around you every other page. It's absolutely unputdownable.

Seriously, go read it for yourselves. I know I suck at book reviews, but this one doesn't need anyone to recommend it anyway, you only have to read the first two pages and you'll buy it.

I really can't understand how I could forget Julian Barnes. We've read Flaubert's Parrot in our Postmodern Fiction seminar, and that was one awesome book. The seminar was also great, mainly due to the fact that the nicest Professor at the university taught it. Otherwise, it was also pretty depressing. Most people had never heard of Flaubert before and kept calling him "Flawbit", wondering if he'd written Middlemarch.
I mean, yeah, ignorance is not a crime exactly, but the pain it can cause comes close to grievous bodily harm sometimes.

10.

Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Heinz Joachim Müller, Eberhard Späth (yeah, it is a text book, but I read it for myself and not for a course. So it counts.)

Comments

[lordhellebore]

That sounds like the perfect book for me!!! Great Britain, (late) 19th century, the main characters are men... *g*

*puts on list of "must read"*

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

It is a great book!! And yeah, Arthur & George are men. :D

[bilks.livejournal.com]

I feel you're pain. Big fan of Julian Barnes. Arthur and George should have won the Booker in '05. John Banville's book The Sea was just so boring. Have fun reading!