Very much a “thinky” novel, Elizabeth Finch may be “rather less fun” than most of Barnes’s books, but it “offers plenty to chew on”. Neil recalls their sort-of friendship – they occasionally met for lunch – and describes his quest, in the present day, to find out more about Finch in the wake of her death.

A Previous Life: a fairly preposterous new novelįinch, who is “probably inspired” by Barnes’s friend, the late novelist Anita Brookner, is remembered as an inspirational teacher, someone “who obliged us – simply by example – to seek and find within ourselves a centre of seriousness”.

Novel of the week: The Candy House by Jennifer Egan.

This is a novel that rejects the rigid convictions of cultural polemics while constructing a qualified but resolute polemic of its own.

A book that is, among its many layered identities, a manifesto. The novel is in part a fierce defence of the intellectual values that have directed the course of Barnes’s writing from the first. Alongside the characteristically self-deprecating tone of Neil’s hesitant ruminations stands something more steely. Yet it would be a mistake to think that Barnes is simply repeating old tricks in Elizabeth Finch.

The story turns on a long relationship, which changes through the decades it focuses on moments of evocative return. Several features of this novel are located in recognizably Barnesian territory.

His elusive example, intertwined with the lives of Neil and his fellow students, leads the reader from a personal narrative to the broader framework of history. A third character, embedded in the ambiguities of textual record and legend, becomes prominent in the narrative: Julian the Apostate, the philosophical Roman emperor. It is the story of Elizabeth Finch, the enigmatic woman who delivered the course. But, as Neil often tells us, 'this is not my story'. The story of Neil’s life – his only story – turns on his experience of a year-long course for mature students on 'Culture and Civilization' that he once took, and its enduring legacy through years of reflection. More concerned with the ambiguity of ideas than with clarity of plot or character, it is a heartfelt celebration of the life of the mind – though its defiance is qualified by the wryness we would expect from Julian Barnes. This uncompromising novel denies its readers many of the pleasures of fiction.

Julian barnes elizabeth finch review