tylerlenz

I very much enjoyed most of this novel - the two main characters are very well-developed and I was fascinated by the themes of the novel (beginnings and endings, science vs. religion, is what the world thinks/sees more important/true than what actually happens or who someone actually is, the justice system's loose ties with the truth) and how they are manifested in the characters. For example, George has extreme difficulty understanding anything that isn't logical or concrete - shades of gray, nuance and metaphor are completely beyond his ability to perceive. He is also very literally unable to see well - he is extremely myopic and the impact of his bad eyesight on how he carries himself is part of what leads to his guilty conviction. I was less interested in the middle of the book, where Arthur gathers evidence in his investigation of George's case. It reads a bit like an actual Sherlock Holmes novel, which is I'm sure the point, but I missed the focus on character growth and the bigger questions about rationality and truth during that part of the book. So, to get to the themes. Most interesting to me was this idea that there are two truths - what an individual knows, and what the world at large knows - and that a real, actual truth can easily be buried by the impressions of society. Arthur is having an affair during most of the book, but he keeps it platonic. He's in love with a woman, Jean, but they do not consummate their love to maintain their honor and the honor of Arthur's wife. But Arthur's brother-in-law tells him very rightly: "There is what you think and what the world thinks. There is what you believe and what the world believes. There is what you know and what the world knows. Honour is not just a matter of internal good feeling, but also of external behaviour." This theme is even more extreme in George's situation. He spends years in jail and loses his ability to work in his chosen field because he is convicted of crimes he did not commit. Both characters are committed to the rational, to truth, and to science, and both characters lose their religious faiths as adults: "Arthur was not exactly conscious of his faith weakening. But thinking for himself within the Church slipped easily into thinking for himself outside it." That said, Arthur develops a belief in spiritualism. He believes that the dead can communicate with the living and takes part in things like seances. He sees this as forward progress for religion. In the same way that scientific advances are starting to give truth to the unseen (germs, cells, etc), he believes that spiritualism is the advancement of religion and is shocked that others don't embrace it: "Why did people imagine that progress consisted of believing in less, rather than believing in more, in opening yourself to more of the universe?" Arthur's sister thinks that "her brother is confusing religion with his love of fixing things. He sees a problem -- death -- and he looks for a way of solving it: such is his nature. She also thinks Arthur's spiritualism is connected, though quite how she cannot work out, with his love of chivalry and romance and the belief in a golden age." This love of Arthur's for fixing things is tied closely to his love of knowing endings and understanding them. In his writing, he always knows the end of a novel before he knows anything else. As he thinks: "And what is the point of life unless you know what happens afterwards? How can you make sense of the beginning if you don't know what the ending is?" Themes: beginnings and endings, science and religion, knowledge, truth, rationality, spirituality, morality, honor, metaphor, seeing/vision, race, the other/outsiders, justice, injustice, societal truth, societal mistakes

2022-11-14 16:59