Flaubert's Parrot

What a strange book. How does one even begin to categorize it? Maybe that's the point. Maybe it shouldn't be categorized at all. It is literary criticism, posing as literary biography and meditation on fiction. It is an amalgam of those things and others. But mostly it is a tour de force of writing.This was Julian Barnes' third novel, published in 1984. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was short listed for the Booker, the first of several of his books to be so listed. It is a short novel, very experimental in concept and structure. Some would call it plotless. It is certainly nonlinear in its story-telling.Barnes gives us as his main character and narrator English doctor Geoffrey Braithwaite, who is obsessed with Madame Bovary's author, Gustave Flaubert. Braithwaite's conceit is that he will write a biography of Flaubert. and to that end, he pores over Flaubert's correspondence, his books, and other biographies of the man.He becomes consumed by the minute details he discovers. Why do Emma Bovary's eyes change color in different editions or sections of the book? Which parrot inspired A Simple Heart - the one Flaubert borrowed from Rouen Museum and kept on his desk during the writing of the story or another one from a hotel? Braithwaite spends much of his time investigating the parrot issue and trying to resolve it.He also explores Flaubert's intellectual and physical relationships with others and particularly how they relate to the creation of Emma Bovary. It gradually becomes clear that there are parallels in Braithwaite's own life, that he sees something of Emma in the life of his own wife, now dead.All of this is revealed slowly, in fragmentary fashion, through extraordinary word play and dissertations on the writer's role, the relationship between art and life, and the unproductive role of literary critics. While most novels are presented in a straightforward, linear fashion that allows the reader to easily digest the meal being served, this one reveals itself somewhat as a coconut. The reader has to work to get at the milk and meat inside.The plot, if it can truly be called that, is Flaubert's life of the mind and the body. As Braithwaite enthusiastically explores that life, we are privy to his research, his notes, musings, and speculations. And that makes up the main body of the book. When we learn, finally, that Braithwaite's own much-loved wife had been unfaithful to him in the manner of Emma Bovary, we begin to appreciate his obsession, his need to understand both the writer and his fictional creations.Flaubert's Parrot brilliantly marries the details of Flaubert's life, his creation of the world of Emma Bovary, and the life of the narrator, Geoffrey Brathwaite, who had his own experience of adultery and, ultimately, of bereavement.And what about that parrot? Where did Flaubert get it? How did he conceive of it? How did it inspire him to write? Does it matter? Probably not. Well, then, never mind.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I have not read anything by Flaubert before and thought it might prove to be a hindrance, but found that it was not.Julian Barnes sets the stage very well, even while flitting around with the narration and once engaged, I enjoyed the novel and the quirky style more than anticipated. The novel stands on it's own quite well.The book centers around a retired physician haunted by scholarly questions and minutiae from the novels and real life of the author, Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), especially in trying to determine which of two different parrots he visits once graced the author's desk?The scholarly obsession with Flaubert by the good Dr. Braithwaite doesn't make much sense until the last few chapters when betrayals of love and literature slowly surface.A favorite quote .... "Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."That poetry wraps around this novel so nicely.It's all about words! .....And words deceive much as people deceive.Why does Flaubert keep changing the color of M. Bovary's eyes? And why is Dr. Braithwaite so haunted by this revelation and other minor mysteries?We discover that Flaubert viewed his work much differently by literal definitions and feels his entire position to have been misunderstood..... "The artistic world has become irritatingly full of schools and -isms: Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism ("A bunch of jokers who have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that they've discovered the Mediterranean!")"Ironically, he finds himself to be hailed as one of the founding fathers of Realism.... after having said that it was because he hated Realism so much that he wrote Madame Bovary in the first place! He also said that success, when it came, always struck for the wrong reason.This novel definitely has you guessing at many of the references and reasons for them. But it slowly reveals them in a wonderful prose that is keenly sharp and often quite funny.The attempts to find the real Flaubert cleverly mirror the attempts to find the real parrot he kept on his desk while writing and in the end....both prove seemingly futile.

So, it's 'about' Flaubert and several parrots. But a single sentence makes it 'about' one of a heap, or a list, of other 'things'. Things and aboutness are not going to help a reader find the parrot. True, the narrator's unfolding character such as it is adds a sort of aboutness such as his - in my view, completely correct - hatred of literary critics. (Were I remotely motivated, doubtless I would find that there have been many critics of the novel who have cleverly sidestepped the criticism of critics, and almost certainly there will exist many overviews of the more lauded critics and their manouvres, such meta-criticisms themselves subject to much criticism. Arriving at a consensus wherein all critics may relax is as impossible as locating Flaubert's parrot. I would simply remind all critics that it is the parrot, or one of them, which is paying their wages, and leave it there). There may be some readers of statuesque bourgeois stability, in various states of decay, who would suffer most extremely if, having barely endured Flaubert, they were to be finished off by reading Barne's little book (though, of course, the irony is that anyone entirely identified with bourgeois sensibilities and sentiments would be immune, and continue freely repeating fashionable frowns, choice of hats and ideas according to the season), Personally, I have very little time for Flaubert and none at all for parrots. The closest mnemonic irrelevancy which occurs to me is that I did once have a white cat - with green eyes - of whom I was fond. It ran away and I don't know what became of it.

The book describes Flaubert from the perspective of different characters. The author appears to step forward at times with his own perspective and understanding of facts. I found this confusing rather than illuminating.The author is gifted, as Flaubert was, with the ability to write wonderful sentences but comes nowhere hear Flaubert's massive humanity. Instead of Flaubert's delicacy there is tawdriness and an obsession with sex.It seems that others are more impressed and it may be that this is a book you like or loathe.I don't suppose there is a chance of a refund?

I read this book for book club. I also got it on audio as i was about to move house and had lots to do. Goodness knows what it was all about - it certainly wasn't about a parrot.He had a lovely turn of phrase at times and the narrative made me chuckle at times and feel sad at others so no doubt well written but lordie me I won't be reading it again!

This is a wonderful novel by Julian Barnes. First published in 1984, the book has stood the test of time and tide. I am loving it even more than the first time I read it, about 30 years ago.

like a woodworm...its boring