From the award-winning novelist, a magnetic tale that centers on the presence of a vivid and particular woman, whose loss becomes the occasion for a man’s deeper examination of love, friendship and biography
This beautiful, spare novel of platonic unrequited love springs into being around the singular character of the stoic, exacting Professor Elizabeth Finch. Neil, the narrator, takes her class “Culture and Civilisation,” taught not for undergraduates but for adults of all ages; we are drawn into his intellectual crush on this withholding yet commanding woman. While other personal relationships and even his family drift from Neil’s grasp, Elizabeth’s application of her material to the matter of daily living remains important to him, even after her death, in a way that nothing else does. In Elizabeth Finch, we are treated to everything we cherish in Barnes: his eye for the unorthodox forms love can take between two people, a compelling swerve into nonfictional material (this time, through Neil’s obsessive study of Julian the Apostate, following notes Elizabeth left for him to discover after her death), and the forcefully moving undercurrent of history, and biography especially, as nourishment and guide in our current lives.
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“A cryptic crossword of a novel, Elizabeth Finch is a trickier and even brainier version of Flaubert’s Parrot.”
— The Oldie (London)
“A lyrical, thoughtful, and intriguing exploration of love, grief, and the collective myths of history.”
— Booklist“I’ll remember Elizabeth Finch when most other characters I’ve met this year have faded.”
— The Times (London)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Julian Barnes is the author of numerous novels, as well as several books of short stories and collections of journalism. In addition to the Man Booker Prize, his other honors include the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in France, the Prix Médicis and the Prix Femina; and in Austria, the State Prize for European Literature. In 2004 he was named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. His work has been translated into more than forty languages.