Elizabeth Finch - Julian Barnes

Written by Julian Barnes
Read by Justin Avoth
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
Release date: August 16, 2022
Duration: 05:17:19

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.