Description

From the awardwinning novelist a magnetic tale that centers on the presence of a vivid and particular woman whose loss becomes the occasion for a mans deeper examination of love friendship and biographyThis 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 Neils grasp Elizabeths 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 Neils 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