Elizabeth Finch

Julian Barnes, Justin Avoth

eAudio - 2022

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,... more