It could be the philistine in me, but the parts of the book I got the most from were those that moved the plot (of which there is very little) along, that touched on other people’s opinions of the erstwhile Elizabeth Finch and her teachings, to combat Neil’s almost zealous adoration of her. Indeed, it is not a novel in the traditional sense, which befuddled me somewhat, since I went in to it completely blind to its subject, as I’ve lately got into the habit of doing. The introduction invites the reader to take Elizabeth Finch’s course in Culture and Civilization, to “think for ourselves… to reflect and to gently explore our own theories and assumptions”, and I can’t say that on reading this novel-that’s-not-quite-a-novel I didn’t do what was gently asked of me, but possibly not quite as instructed. The prose leaps from gushing praise for Elizabeth Finch for every part of her being, to details on the relationship between teacher and pupil, to passages on Elizabeth Finch’s specific interests, or rather preoccupations. Much of the narrative is word-for-word recollections of Elizabeth Finch’s lectures, which span pages, and consist mostly of the history and culture of the early Christian era, with a particular emphasis on monotheism and its scourge on culture. Neil addresses the reader directly, informally and as the title of the book suggests, writes almost exclusively about Elizabeth Finch and her theories, save for some scant biographical details of his own and a fifty-page essay on Julian the Apostate that takes up the entire Part Two, of three parts. She is conservative in dress – brogues, tartan skirts, discreet, tasteful jewellery, stockings or tights, “you never saw Elizabeth Finch with bare legs”, but liberal, even radical in opinion.Īt the end of her introduction to the class in which our narrator, Neil attends, the students “gazed back at her, some in awe, a few in puzzlement bordering on irritation, others already half in love.” Neil is patently one of the latter, not allowing a paragraph to pass without mentioning her full name or his often-preferred abbreviation, EF. Two biographies, a love story and a philosophical text all rolled in to one.ĮLIZABETH Finch is a lecturer, giving a class to adult learners on Culture and Civilisation.
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