Javier Marías's 'All Souls' delves into the eccentric and cloistered world of Oxford University through the eyes of a visiting Spanish lecturer. The novel is a masterclass in digression and observation, weaving together anecdotes, intellectual musings, and the narrator's relationships with peculiar dons, including his enigmatic friend Cromer-Blake and his married lover, Clare Bayes. Rather than a plot-driven story, it is a witty, melancholic, and deeply atmospheric portrait of academia, love, and the lingering ghosts of the past within the ancient college walls, blurring the lines between fiction and autobiography.