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It’s the only thing that matters,” a classmate of Neil recalls. Despite Neil’s insistence on Finch’s originality, “what she actually says tends to fall flat”. “Part of the challenge of rendering a brilliantly inspirational teacher is making them sufficiently brilliant and inspirational,” said Sameer Rahim in The Daily Telegraph. 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.

Julian barnes finch