Every new Barnes book is a joy, but one that I won’t get to share with him. This book is narrated by Neil, a mature student who befriended his university lecturer, Elizabeth Finch. Their relationship became one of letters and occasional lunches before Elizabeth died and Neil is left her papers. 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.Īs 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. 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.
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