Infinite Books

“She stood before us, without notes, books, or nerves.”

This is the first sentence of Julian Barnes’s new novel and the introduction of Elizabeth Finch, a writer and an adult education teacher. Her favorite student, the novel’s narrator Neal, tells us: “She was, quite simply, the most grown-up person I have met in my life. Perhaps I mean the only grown-up person.”

Neil is fascinated by Elizabeth’s persona. It’s not just fascination; it’s unrequited love. Eventually, he persuades her to meet for lunches every few months, and this unusual relationship continues for 20 years, never progressing behind their intellectual meals that follow the established formula. Neal is a failed actor and a failed husband; his children call him “the King of Unfinished Projects.” And yet it seems that Elizabeth Finch will be one project he finishes.

After Elizabeth dies, Neal inherits all of her papers and journals. In one of the journals, there is an intriguing entry: “J-dead at thirty-one.” He discovers that J is Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Roman emperor, and decides to write about the ruler who, as much as he tried, couldn’t stop the coming of Christianity. The essay makes part 2 of the novel. The story changed gears, but I found this part very interesting – the author temporarily abandoned the fiction, and we were treated to a history lecture. In part 3, it’s back to the fiction format, and now Neal struggles with a question – who was Elizabeth? Meeting with her brother and talking to her students, Neal doesn’t learn much, just details he cannot explain. Who was the mysterious man she was seen with? And – surprise! – she was an excellent swimmer although he and other students couldn’t imagine her wearing beachwear.

Recently, I read another novel on a similar subject by another great British writer and Julian Barnes’ friend, Ian McEwan. In his “Lessons’, Miriam, a music teacher, affects the narrator’s life as much as Elizabeth impacts Neal’s. Thanks to Elizabeth, our narrator, being by nature, not an intellectual man, becomes involved in deep research on Julian the Apostate. He doesn’t want to be like people about whom Elizabeth said, “They choose to understand nothing.”

This is a short novel, and with beautiful language, Julian Barnes tells just enough to leave us thinking about a mystery that people present when we try to understand them. Will this book evoke the memory of our favorite teacher? Will it make us reflect on what’s important in life? In any case, we should choose to understand.

ELIZABETH FINCH by Julian Barnes, Knopf 2022