Thursday, April 11, 2013

Book Review: FLAUBERT'S PARROT by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot is a strange book, indeed. I spent the first half thinking I was reading a book about a literary obsession when I suddenly realized I was reading a book about a widower trying to understand his relationship with his late wife. Talk about confused! Several months have gone by since I read it, and in retrospect I believe one story was actually told through the other. But somehow I can’t quite decide whether or not I think Barnes pulled it off.

Let’s start with the fact that although I have read Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, it was a long time ago. And that is the only Flaubert novel I have read. I have not read, most importantly, A Simple Heart, also known as The Parrot which winds up being central to the plot – or at least what there is of a plot. I had no idea about Flaubert’s family life, his philosophy, or his, shall we say, eccentricities. That didn’t actually detract from my enjoyment of the novel, because I found reading the biographical bits on Flaubert really fascinating. But it certainly may have impacted my ability to decipher the story.

The ostensible plot involves a retired British doctor and Flaubert aficionado, Geoffrey Braithwaite, touring through France in search of the answer to a mystery: which of two ancient stuffed parrots claiming to be so is actually the one that stood on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote A Simple Heart? What, in a nutshell, is the inspiration for genius, appeared to be the question to which Braithwaite was seeking an answer. But what the asynchronous narrative slowly reveals is that Braithwaite believes understanding Flaubert’s life and inspirations will help him understand his own domestic story – one that has the small, sad dimensions of a Flaubertian tragedy.

The book was slow-going, but it wasn’t as heavy as it sounds. In fact, there are quite a few very funny bits. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is entitled “Braithwaite’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas,” which encapsulates the conventional wisdom about Flaubert and his work with tongue-in-cheek encyclopedia entries:
WHORES: Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. Wearers of the red badge of courage include Flaubert, Daudet, Maupassant, Jules de Goncourt, Baudelaire, etc. Were there any writers unafflicted by it? If so, they were probably homosexual. (Kindle location 2525)
The book is beautifully written, I’ll say that. But there was something of Joyce’s Ulysses in this to me, so think with literary illusions that I couldn’t get a fix on the book I was actually supposed to be reading. The book ought to come with The Parrot as a pre-req – maybe I would have understood it that way!

9 comments:

  1. I've never read any Flaubert so I have a feeling this would all be over my head.

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    1. A lot of it "flew" right over my head, I'll say that :)

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  2. I discovered Julian Barnes a year or two ago through The Sense of an Ending (which I loved), and have wanted to read more ever since. Think I'll skip this one and choose Arthur & George instead! Thanks for the review.

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    1. If you love Barnes and Flaubert, I think this is the book. It was my first Barnes, and I'm still willing to give The Sense of an Ending a go because the writing was really beautiful. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed that one!

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  3. Wow this book sounds unlike anything I've ever read. Now I need to decide if that excites or scares me!

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  4. read this a few years ago & remember planning to read a lot more by this writer, a plan which has yet come to much.

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  5. This book sounds like it would lose me right away...

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  6. Hmmmm -- might be too brainy for me but I'm keeping it on the TBR -- perhaps after reading more Flaubert. (Of which, at the moment, I've read none!)

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  7. Oh, my! I was thinking I might try this out until you compared it to Ulysses. That dictionary entry is quite funny though. Hopefully I will remember to read The Parrot first if I find myself checking this one out. I loved Madame Bovary, so I would love to try more Flaubert. And then on to Barnes. Maybe.

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