Graham was an historian: he was meant to be an expert on the past. But there were aspects of it, he discovered, that couldn't be subdued, that simply carried on, lively and painful, as if they were the present. He began to mind. He minded very much indeed. While those around him look on - with concern, with contempt, with amusement - Graham's meticulous passion gradually begins to run out of control. Julian Barnes presents an unnerving version of sexual jealousy and shows it to be not just living, but reasonable, ordinary, funny, dangerous and consuming.