A book about the impossibility of knowing another person, knowing history, and about the necessity or perhaps the compulsion to try. Barnes is the most European British novelist I know. ( )

Marred by an out of nowhere reference to Trotsky as an apostate. Surely anyone reasonably familiar with the ground would have Stalin in the frame. Didn’t Hitchens teach him anything? ( )

Barnes has obviously been in this game long enough to know that he would never find a decently large audience for an extended essay about his namesake, the philosopher-emperor whose attempt to marginalise Christianity and put the Roman Empire back on a sane course of Hellenistic paganism was ended by his death on a Persian battlefield in 363. So he hit on the ingenious tactic of burying it in the middle of a short novel in which the narrator, Neil, dubbed "King of unfinished projects" by his daughter, tries to find out more about the life of his friend and sometime Foundation Course tutor, Elizabeth.

Of course, we soon discover that there are serious limitations to what we can ever really know about another person, whether it's the fourth-century Apostate or a reclusive private intellectual ("she never married," as Elizabeth sums herself up acerbically in one of her notebooks). And Neil's limitations as a biographer give Barnes plenty of licence to keep us dangling and withhold any satisfying resolution. This is a book about the process of living (and loving), not the result. Enjoyable, as a couple of hours spent in the company of Julian Barnes usually are. ( )

Sempre interesante, Barnes, pero non á altura do loro de Flaubert ou O sentido dun final. Presenta moitos conceptos interesantes pero pérdese no texto e non chega, ou polo menos eu percíboo así, a unir de ningún xeito os dous estudos sobre as personalidades de Xuliano, e de Elizabeth Finch. ( )

"I sometimes wonder how biographers do it: Make a life, a living life, a glowing life, a coherent life out of all that circumstantial, contradictory and missing evidence."

Neil, the narrator of this short novel, is taking an adult-education class on "Culture and Civilization" taught by the eponymous Elizabeth Finch. Neil is fascinated and intrigued by her, and even develops a sort of crush on the much older Elizabeth. After the class ends, he continues a friendship of sorts with her, meeting monthly or so for lunch, although her personal life remains very much a mystery to him. After she dies, he learns that she has left him her papers, and he tasks himself with finding out her secrets.

The book is structured in three parts. The first consists of Neil's recollections about the class and Elizabeth. The second part consists of a dry academic essay on Julian the Apostate, a historical figure referenced by Elizabeth in the class and who seemed to be of some significance to Elizabeth. The essay is factual and purportedly written by Neil. The third part consist of what Neil is able to find out about Elizabeth.

Overall this appears to be a character study, as there is very little plot. Many reviewers felt that the middle section, the essay on Julian the Apostate, bogs the book down. I tend to agree. I found it interesting, but I'm not sure what Barnes was attempting to accomplish by its inclusion, or what exactly its purpose was.

I found this to be a pleasant read, but I've liked the other books I've read by Barnes (A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters; Flaubert's Parrot) much more. I never felt compelled to pick it up, and for the most part found it rather aimless. But it was short.

3 stars

First line: "She stood before us, without notes, books or nerves."
Last line: "And any ironic laughter you hear will be mine." ( )