![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The book is the most philosophical of novels, from a writer who has never hesitated to address philosophical issues. In Elizabeth Finch, the narrator’s understanding of himself and his life is bound up with his attempts to understand a person who has had a profound effect on him. In Barnes’ Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sense of an Ending (2012), his narrator is forced to question the way he has understood his life and his relationships to others. But who is this person who has such an impact on his life? How should he understand her? Can he find a way of expressing what she means to him? Problems of understanding Neil, twice divorced and a drifter through life, describes her effect on him as “explosive”. Her aim, she tells them, is not to impart information or teach according to a syllabus, but to encourage them to find “a centre of seriousness in yourselves”. Neil, the narrator of Julian Barnes’ latest novel, has the problem of interpretation posed for him by Elizabeth Finch, his teacher in a philosophy course on civilisation and culture for adult students. ![]()
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