'The task of the present is to correct our understanding of the past. We invite you to take her course in Culture and Civilisation.īut she will change the way you see the world. Stripped of the quirks of Neil’s narrative and the often-surprising tales of Elizabeth Finch’s life, this section reads like an academic biography.We'd like to introduce you to Elizabeth Finch. While interesting in a lot of ways – and absolutely fitting for Neil’s character – it didn’t engage me in the same way that the Neil/Elizabeth sections did. The middle section of the book is a long essay, purportedly written by Neil in response to an interpretation of Elizabeth Finch’s notebooks. I felt like I should be highlighting and making notes, just as if I was in one of her classes! How true this is of a lot of us! Personally, I liked this independent, feisty and opinionated woman – the snippets of the contents of her notebooks (as included in the narrative by Neil) were intriguing and interesting. It’s clear she is a divisive figure – loved by some (including Neil) and not by others who cannot see her appeal. She is only seen through the lens of Neil’s memories (and those of his fellow students who he speaks to about her or who feature in the memories). The character of Elizabeth Finch is also fascinating. If you enjoy this style of thought-over-action novel (and I do), there’s much to like. Neil is thoughtful, aware of his own shortcomings, slightly awkward in his relationships with others, perhaps obsessive – an echo of other Barnes characters who have gone before. I absolutely adored the sections that were so very Barnes – Neil’s confessions and ruminations (in a novel where not much actually happens – not that this is a problem!) put Barnes’ fans on familiar ground. This is explored further in the middle section of the book, Neil’s extended essay on Julian the Apostate, in which he considers who writes history and how it is revised over the ages. Elizabeth Finch was a scholar in many ways, but also an original thinker and someone with secrets one of the things that Neil grapples with in the novel is how much someone can ever be truly known.

As he considers the idea of writing a biography of her, he trawls the notebooks and the memories of those she left behind.Īs with all Barnes’ books, it is packed with ideas and philosophical considerations.

Their relationship became one of letters and occasional lunches before Elizabeth died and Neil is left her papers. This book is narrated by Neil, a mature student who befriended his university lecturer, Elizabeth Finch. Every new Barnes book is a joy, but one that I won’t get to share with him. Reading Julian Barnes is always a bittersweet experience for me I was introduced to him the sublime A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters as a teenager by my step-father who is sadly no longer with us.

Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes