48, NG5, M29, E48, / WG43, F19, MF0, B2, D0, Frz0, C0, NA1

Julian Barnes, Elisabeth Finch

Jedesmal wenn ich einen neuen Barnes lese, merke ich wie sehr ich ihn vermißt habe und dass ich ihn wirklich öfter lesen sollte. Nicht nur wegen des eleganten Sprachstils und wie er es schafft jedes Buch schon nach den ersten Zeilen fesseln zu lassen, auch wenn wie hier sowohl Erzähler als auch die Titelfigur immer geheimnisvoller und undeutlicher werden, je weiter man im Buch vordringt. Eine begnadete Lehrerin, ein Schüler, der sie so bewundert, dass er nach ihrem Tod den halbherzigen Versuch wagt eine Biografie zu schreiben obwohl er noch nie in seinem Leben ein Projekt zuende geführt hat, und eine interessante, neue Denkansätze fordernde These (um Julian den Apostat, von dem ich bisher nichts wusste), die Finch beinahe zum Verhängnis wird, all das ergibt eine richtig gute Geschichte - aber was kann man von Barnes auch anderes erwarten.
Und ja, was mich besonders freute waren die Stellen über die heilige Ursula und die Frage, ob es wirklich 11000 Jungfrauen waren in ihrem Gefolge, nicht nur aber auch weil es mich an Jürgen Beckers Version der Geschichte erinnerte.
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Linda, who often seemed to be suffering from what she quaintly called 'heart trouble', asked anxiously, 'What have you got against monogamy? Isn't it how most people want to live? Isn't it what most people dream of?'
'Beware of dreams', Elizabeth Finch replied. 'Also, as a general rule, beware of what most people aspire to.' She paused, half-smiled at Linda and addressed the class through her. 'Enforced monogamy is as much to say enforced happiness, which we know is not possible. Unenforced monogamy might seem possible. Romantic monogamy might seem to be desirable. But the first normally collapses back into a version of enforced monogamy, while the second is liable to become obsessive and hysterical. And thereby lies close to monomania. We should always distinguish between mutual passion and shared monomania.'
We were all silenced, taking this in. Most of us had had the average sexual and amatory experience of our generation: that's to say, far too much in the opinion of the preceding generation, and pathetically little in the view of the next, pressing generation.
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Here's another thing: the dead can't tell you that you are wrong. Only the living can do that - and they may be lying. So I trust the dead more. Is that bizarre, or is it sensible?
And further to this: why should we expect our collective memory - which we call history - to be any less fallible than our personal memory?
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'It's a recurrent delusion that a change of government will make a difference.'
'That's a counsel of despair.'
'No, it's a counsel of realism. Do you see me despairing?'
'No. But I also bet you have voted in every single election.'
'In the sure knowledge that it will effect little.'
'Then why do it?'
'Civic duty. It is expected.'
At which point I slightly lost it. 'That sounds incredibly patronising.'
'To whom?'
'To... well, the rest of the electorate.'
'You mean that I am meant to share fully in their hopes and dreams and subsequent disappointments? A politician's main function is to disappoint.'
'That sounds incredibly cynical, you know.'
'I disagree. I am not a cynic.'
'What are you then?'
'I am not vain enough to attach a label to myself.'
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And then there is the inevitable third stylisation - of posthumous memory. Leading to the moment when the last living person to remember you has their very last thought about you. There ought to be a name for that final event, which marks your final extinction.
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'You know how she was,' Anna began. 'A mixture of utter candous and sudden concealment. Also, utter sympathy and occasional distance. Talking to her was completely different from any other woman I've talked to in my life. Most women tell you How We Met' - she did air-quotes - 'and What Went Wrong and How It Ended and What I Learnt From It All. I'm not disparaging that: I do it myself - turn my life into a story. We all do it. EF wasn't like that. She'd give you a conclusion but not the narrative. Why? The obvious, normal reason would be a sense of privacy, of discretion. But I decided that it was also perhaps something bigger: a sense that a life, much as we would like it to be, does not amount to a narrative - or not a narrative such as we understand and expect.'
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(Julian Barnes, Elizabeth Finch, 2022)