Scala Radio Book Club: Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending
Last updated 17th Aug 2022
In the Scala Radio Book Club this week (Thursday 21st April 2022), Mark Forrest chatted to English writer and Man Booker Prize winner, Julian Barnes, on his brand-new novel Elizabeth Finch.
Charting the story of a remarkable teacher through the recollections of a former student, this stunning novel is both a breath-taking testament to the power of human connection and a deeply felt love letter to philosophy.
We'd like to introduce you to Elizabeth Finch.
We invite you to take her course in Culture and Civilisation.
Her ideas are not to everyone's taste.
But she will change the way you see the world.
'The task of the present is to correct our understanding of the past. And that task becomes the more urgent when the past cannot be corrected.'
Elizabeth Finch was a teacher, a thinker, an inspiration - always rigorous, always thoughtful. With careful empathy, she guided her students to develop meaningful ideas and to discover their centres of seriousness.
As a former student unpacks her notebooks and remembers her uniquely inquisitive mind, her passion for reason resonates through the years. Her ideas unlock the philosophies of the past, and explore key events that show us how to make sense of our lives today. And underpinning them all is the story of J - Julian the Apostate, her historical soulmate and fellow challenger to the institutional and monotheistic thinking that has always threatened to divide us.
This is more than a novel. It's a loving tribute to philosophy, a careful evaluation of history, an invitation to think for ourselves. It's a moment to reflect and to gently explore our own theories and assumptions. It is truly a balm for our times.
Mark was interested to know who Elizabeth Finch is and why the narrator, Neil, is so fascinated by her.
‘Elizabeth Finch is a woman in her fifties,’ said Julian. ‘She's teaching a course called Culture and Civilization. She is, to the eye of the narrator Neil, a strange, wonderful and unique individual. She's what's called an independent scholar. She's published some small books, but what she does is teach in an unconventional manner. She tries not to say, “This great man said this”, but more “this is what someone said, what do you think about it?” That's one of her techniques.’
Mark asked, ‘As this is your 14th novel, I wonder how much easier the process of creating these novels has become over the years?’
‘It's become both easier and just as difficult at the same time. I think I'm a novelist who tends to write books which are rather different from one another. That may be out of neurosis or maybe out of boredom, I'm not sure. But I don't really want to go back on the same subject again. I range widely across the world and also in terms of history and time. I also range between fiction and nonfiction.’
Mark asked, ‘Every writer in the English language wants to win the Booker Prize because it's there at the top of the tree. Is it always a help and never a hindrance in your experience to get the big accolades? How was it for you after 2011?'
‘Well, I used to say when I was younger that prizes were for the encouragement of the young, and the conservation of the old,’ said Julian. ‘That was pretty much how it's been for me. When I was young, my first book won a prize and that was nice. I was 65 when I won the Booker. I wouldn't have objected to winning it earlier, but I knew that I had reached a stage where I didn't think that I had to write my novel as the winner of the Booker Prize.’
Find out about more Scala Radio Book Club guests here >>
More from Booker Prize-winning and nominated authors who have visited the Scala Radio Book Club
Haven by Emma Donoghue
Haven is a haunting, luminous meditation on isolation, faith and survival inspired by real historical events, as a trio of seventh-century monks found a monastery on an impossibly remote island. From Booker Prize-nominated and international best-selling author.
Trust by Hernan Diaz
From Pulitzer Prize finalist for his first novel 'In the Distance', Hernan Diaz's new novel, Trust has already been longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Trust is a literary puzzle about money, power, and intimacy, Trust is a novel that challenges the myths shrouding wealth, and the fictions that often pass for history.
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Booksellers Association's Indie Book of the Month and nominated for the 2022 Booker Prize award. In this newest release, Graeme Macrae Burnet tells the story a woman who seeks out a captivating psychotherapist whom she believes to be responsible for her sister's suicide.
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
Nominated for the 2022 Booker Prize, Booth is the latest novel from the award-winning author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.
Booth delivers a mesmerising nineteenth-century saga of a thespian family whose six siblings come to adulthood in the shadow of the American Civil War.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
A page-turning second novel from the 2020 Booker-prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain.
Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow's housing estates. They should be sworn enemies and yet they become best friends.
Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
From Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending. Charting the story of a remarkable teacher through the recollections of a former student, this stunning novel is both a breath-taking testament to the power of human connection and a deeply felt love letter to philosophy.
Every Leaf a Hallelujah by Ben Okri
An environmental fairytale made for our times, written to be read by adults and children, from the 1991 Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo's 2019 Booker Prize-winning book Girl, Woman, Other tells the unique stories of twelve women over the course of hundred years in Britain. From Newcastle to Cornwall, the novel follows these characters on their personal journeys, in their search of a place to fit in.