Not one of my schoolteachers or college professors was truly inspirational. Some were memorable, some were competent, and some were better than others, but I cannot think of a single one who stands out as having had a big impact on my thinking or outlook. My experience may be unusual because so many novels and films seem to feature brilliant teachers who transform the minds and lives of their students. Think of Dead Poets Society or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. In Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, the eponymous hero is an adult education lecturer who makes a lasting impression on the story’s narrator, Neil.

In the first part of the novel, Neil recounts his experiences of being taught by Elizabeth and of their occasional meetings outside the classroom. When he inherits her papers and books, he writes an essay, inspired by Elizabeth, on Julian, the last pagan emperor of Rome, an essay that makes up most of part two of the story.

It’s a strange and slightly unsettling book. I hesitate even to call it a novel because in its least successful and most clumsy parts it has the feel of a manifesto or a tract. Study history. Be skeptical. Be stoical. Recognize what is up to you and what isn’t. Live modestly and authentically. All true, and all well and good, but as a work of fiction Elizabeth Finch, though intriguing and occasionally affecting, is unsatisfying. Like Elizabeth, it’s a little bloodless and a little too disengaged.