This book is the biography of Gustave Flaubert written by the Francophile Julian Barnes.

Or may be not, may be this is a pointless story of a widower and retired doctor, Geoffrey Braithwaite, who is as fascinated with Flaubert as is his creator.

Or if we are to get intellectual, is this a satirical meditation on writing, on reading, on the possibilities of gaining a deeper insight into the literary output of an author by studying his life, or even on the irremediably fictional nature of being able to access another person at all?

Or is it the story of the whereabouts of Loulou, Flaubert’s stuffed parrot that sat at his desk while he wrote Un Coeur simple?

So, how could I parrot Julian Barnes and write a review about my understanding of Flaubert’s Parrot? May be the parrots themselves would open up the key to my review.


FACTUAL - MIRO





This stuffed parrot is, surprisingly, a Joan Miró work of art (or part of one). It belongs to the MoMa, and is a gift of Mr. amd Mrs. Pierre Matisse. It is labeled as Stuffed Parrot on Wooden Perch, 1936.

Miro’s bird is part of an artistic concoction in which in addition to the stuffed bird he has also included a perch, a stuffed silk stocking with its garter, etc. But I am not interested in this artifice. I wanted to select only that which pertains to the bird. I am sticking to the facts.

Julian Barnes was born in 1946 and he wrote this book and it was published by Jonathan Cape in 1984. It was listed for the Booker Prize. The first edition had 190 pages. Sales Rank in Amazon.co.uk is 29,392 (as of August 12th, 2013).


BEAUTY - The Flying Wonder




And it should not surprise us that there is also beauty in this book. Barnes’s writing in this work is not particularly florid but elegant it is. I think he would agree, though, that the most beautiful passage in his book is his quote of Flaubert. The following passage shares the abstract beauty of my Flying Parrot as well as its mysterious exotic quality.

n  Ahead of them lay the Nile, bathed in mist, like a white sea; behind them lay the dark desert, like a petrified purple ocean. At last, a streak of orange light appeared to the east; and gradually the white sea in front of them became an immense expanse of fertile green, while the purple ocean behind them turned shimmering white.n

ARCHETYPAL - PERFECT





Barnes questions whether there is a perfect reader. May be there isn’t, but I hope there is an archetypal Parrot. Does this one correspond to your idea of Parrot? Or may be you prefer other colours depending on what you have seen or imagined? For example, it could have a green body with a blue head and with a bit of pink at the end of its wings, and its neck could also have a touch of gold. If so, this parrot would be, if not perfect, at least the one that Flaubert described, (son corps était vert, le bout de ses ailes rose, son front bleu, et sa gorge dorée).





If it is difficult to find a perfect reader, or a perfect critic, what about a perfect Review for GR? Can it be attempted, or should I stick with just this Perfect Parrot and continue looking for the Perfect Review?


FUNNY - TOY




This being a book written by Barnes, it is peppered with his unmistakable clever witticism. But as humour can only be triggered from its own context, examples or quotes will not do. I would have to append a silly and ineffectual “and this made me laugh” to elicit the desired effect.

But I’ll have to admit that I did laugh out loud several times.


TRIPARTITE – Chronology




May be because he wants to cater for all tastes, Barnes, or is it Braithwaite, presents three different chronologies of Flaubert’s life. Of course I have my favourite. Out of the two formulaic ones --the pessimistic and the optimistic-- and the one constructed with quotes from Flaubert’s diaries and letters, I pick the latter.

And should I choose the blue parrot?


MODERNIST – Multiplicity




The three chronologies indicate that Barnes is aware of multiplicity of viewpoints. This issue he addresses multiple times as well, both directly and indirectly. What is Biography writing?. Multiple parrots or multiple personas?. The core of Modernism.

But I prefer not to post a photo of a Disembodied Parrot. Not all Modernism is interesting.


SELF REPRESENTATION




Unavoidably, even documents with direct utterances, such as letters and diaries are suspect. Can we trust perception, and what about projections?


APOCRYPHAL – In Shadows





Barnes explores even what it not there in Flaubert’s life, or rather, what never became his literary output. He could have written many more works, but given his highly engaged way of labouring over his novels, and the huge amount of research he undertook for each, these ghosts of ideas had to remain just as shadows of never-to-be books.


WHY the PARROT?


What I think Barnes does not address is why Flaubert had a stuffed parrot on his desk? May be it was a culture thing, a nineteenth century French obsession with the eroticism of this very smart bird.

Courbet and Delacroix had a similar interest in Parrots. These paintings may give as an idea in which way they thought of them.


Courbet's:




And Delacroix's:





In the end, though, with all my parroting, I do not think I have given you a real bird nor have you learnt much about parrots.


This whole effort will remain futile, as happens with a great deal of writing, unless you want to give meaning to it.

"Ποια γνώση είναι χρήσιμη, ποια γνώση είναι αληθινή;" Για το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο δεν μπορώ να δώσω κάποια θετική απάντηση. Οι γνώσεις μου γύρω απο τον Φλωμπερ περιοριζονται στην Μανταμ Μποβαρυ που μου άφησε χλιαρές εντυπώσεις και στην Αισθητική Αγωγή που μετά τις 10 πρώτες σελίδες άφησα στην άκρη για όποτε. Έμαθα φυσικά κάποιες πληροφορίες για την ζωή του Φλωμπερ (αληθινές ή όχι δεν μπορώ να πω) , αλλά θα μπορούσα να συνεχίσω την ζωή μου και χωρίς αυτές για να είμαι ειλικρινής.
Το βιβλίο έχει μεγάλα σκαμπανευασματα απο άποψη ενδιαφέροντος κάτι που με εκνεύρισε γιατί δεν ήξερα αν έπρεπε να το παρατήσω ή όχι.
Το κομμάτι που αναλύει τα πλεονεκτήματα της ανάγνωσης απο την σκοπιά του αναγνώστη και απο εκείνη του κριτικού ήταν απο τα καλύτερα. Και το μόνο που θα κρατήσω απο όλο το βιβλίο μεταξύ μας.

I read this book on the train. Originally this was done out of necessity as I was commuting and needed something to stare at so as to avoid the blank eyed gaze of the other commuter drones as they also lumbered too and from a number of non-descript towns in the north in order to earn their daily crust. Many of them look like zombies.. only the lack of meaty-decay smell informs you that, no, they are in fact still living and allegedly sentient. Sometimes I worry about becoming a commuter zombie (*sad face*).

As I progressed through Flauberts Parrot I learned that in fact, Gustave Flaubert hated trains. He hated them so much, he believed that they would just enable people to move about, meet and be stupid together rather than just staying at home and being stupid on their own, which presumably was far more favourable and to his taste. Clumps of stupidity are better than a sort of stupidity diaspora induced by modernisation or so says Gustave. Such was his hatred of railways that he even went so far as the include them in a list which he termed the misdeeds of modern civilisation, to wit: "Railways, poisons, enema pumps, cream tarts, royalty and the guillotine." Then two years later (1838), he changes the list to "Railways, factories, chemists and mathematicians". Not a fan of progress then, Gustave?

Had he lived to be 190 years old, I feel fairly certain that his list would have read, " The Chunnel, I-pads, Kindles, Richard Branson, Big Wheels in city centres and The Only Way is Essex". Obviously by this point he would have had to grasp the fact that stupid people don't need to move around because now they can get beamed directly into other peoples houses by the magic of television.

Thus, after learning that dear old Gustave hated the train I took a kind of sly pleasure reading this on the 07.38 London to Edinburgh commuter.

I did not take sly pleasure in reading Flaubert's Parrot however, because it felt a little bit like a pointless exercise, 1001 books box ticking exercise aside. With a minimal and fairly forgettable introduction to the narrator, which sets the tone of this book as a novel, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a slightly off beat biography by someone like Bill Bryson. By removing the narrator ...Geoffrey Braithwaite... I just had to look up his name in the book so clearly he was totally forgettable to me, this would probably be more at home in the popular faction section with Bill Bryson's Home and other books of a similar ilk. Maybe I missed the point (a good point to confess to making it to page 168 of 229 and then quitting) and failed to see the charm in this quirky fact laden offering. Maybe I have already become a commuter drone but this didn't work for me and if I wanted to learn more about Gustave Flaubert then there are probably more direct ways of doing so.

“La vanidad es un loro que salta de rama en rama y parlotea a la vista de todos." Flaubert

Con aires del mejor Vila-Matas, “El loro de Flaubert” es un ensayo que pudiera ser una novela que pudiera ser un ensayo en el que, combinando múltiples y eficaces formas de expresión, Barnes indaga en el Flaubert escritor y en el Flaubert persona, dos Flaubert como lo dos loros disecados que se disputan el honor de ser aquel que sirvió de inspiración al autor para escribir su relato “Un corazón sencillo”, aunque sin descartar que el verdadero bien pudiera ser otro.

El propio autor define en un pasaje del texto lo que es “El loro de Flaubert”:

n   “Siento la tentación de escribir un Diccionario de tópicos sobre el propio Flaubert. Un diccionario cortito: una guía de bolsillo que oculte una bomba de relojería; un texto de aspecto serio pero al mismo tiempo engañoso. La erudición heredada, pero en forma de píldora; y con algunas de las píldoras envenenadas. Este es el atractivo, y también el peligro, de la ironía: la facilidad con que permite al escritor estar en apariencia ausente de su obra, pero, en realidad, presente con sus indirectas.” n

Y no cabe duda de que un gran punto a favor de Barnes es la forma en que ha conseguido hacerme interesantes y muy amenas todas esas disquisiciones sobre el autor de Madame Bovary. Como interesantes son todas esas cuestiones sobre literatura y su relación con la vida, e ingeniosas las irónicas puyas que descarga sobre esos críticos capaces de discutir seriamente acerca del lugar exacto en el que el autor besó a un perro buscando coincidir con el beso que previamente su amante había estampado en el mismo animal.

Pero, evidentemente, para mí no es esto lo mejor de este libro. Barnes, con quien comparto pesimismo, …

n   “No se puede cambiar a la humanidad, sólo conocerla”
“Para ser feliz había que cumplir tres requisitos previos, ser estúpido, ser egoísta y gozar de buena salud.” n

… nos presenta aquí a Braithwaite, un inglés apático, médico de profesión, que, tras la muerte de su esposa, se vuelca en resolver el asunto del loro (“Más vale malograr la ancianidad que no saber qué hacer con ella”) mientras especula acerca de la vida del autor de esa famosa novela en la que una mujer engaña a su marido, de profesión médico, dándole pie a reflexionar sobre la vida en general y sobre la suya en particular,…

n   “No hay que participar: la felicidad está en la imaginación, no en el acto. El placer se encuentra primero en la ilusión, y luego en el recuerdo… Hay quienes se abstienen y observan, pues le tienen tanto miedo a la decepción como a la satisfacción. Otros se lanzan, disfrutan, se arriesgan a conciencia… Sé muy bien a cuál de las dos categorías pertenezco; y sé en cuál estaba Ellen.” n

… así como acerca de la dificultad de conocer profundamente a alguien…

n   “Ellen. Mi esposa: una persona a la que tengo la sensación entender mucho peor que a un escritor extranjero que lleva cien años muerto… En los libros las cosas quedan explicadas; en la vida, no. No me extraña que la gente prefiera los libros. Los libros le dan sentido a la vida. El único problema radica en que las vidas a las que dan sentido son las de otros, jamás a la del lector.” n

... y la peligrosa curiosidad que nos empuja a querer hacerlo…

n   “¿La curiosidad es siempre un obstáculo que se opone a los propios intereses? O bien, más simplemente, ¿no será que nuestro deseo de conocer lo peor es la perversión favorita del amor?... Yo amé a Ellen, y quise saber lo peor… Ellen no me devolvió nunca esta caricia. Me apreciaba, siempre estaba automáticamente dispuesta a aceptar, como si fuese un asunto que no valiese la pena discutir, que me amaba pero siempre pensaba, sin dudarlo, lo mejor de mí. Esa es la diferencia. Ni siquiera trató de buscar ese panel deslizante que da paso a la cámara secreta del corazón, la cámara en la que se guardan los recuerdos y los cadáveres.” n

… y lo mal pensada que está esta vida nuestra.

n   “Se pueden enmarcar las verdades acerca de la literatura antes de haber publicado un solo libro; pero las verdades sobre la vida sólo pueden enmarcarse cuando ya es demasiado tarde y todo da igual.” n

Il pappagallo di Flaubert è una biografia su Flaubert che ho letto come propedeutica all’imminente lettura della sua Educazione sentimentale.

Biografia ricca di spigolature, di aneddoti, di personaggi, animali, di donne conosciute, di luoghi visitati e vissuti, di frasi dell'autore francese diventate caustici aforismi che imperversano nel web:

La vita è una cosa atroce. Come un piatto di minestra sul quale galleggino dei capelli umani. Ma dobbiamo rassegnarci a mandarla giù.

Gli eventi più importanti della mia vita sono stati la lettura, alcuni pensieri, certi tramonti sul mare a Trouville e le conversazioni di cinque sei ore consecutive con un amico che poi si è sposato e ho perduto di vista...

Ma una biografia decisamente troppo dispersiva e poco lineare.
Abbastanza assente la disamina delle sue opere, fatta eccezione per Madame Bovary citata ogni due per tre.

Non mi è piaciuto nemmeno l'espediente stilistico utilizzato dall’autore Julian Barnes che sguinzaglia sulle tracce di Flaubert uno pseudo egocentrico scrittore fittizio, tale Geoffrey Braihwaite, che si impone ingombrante con la sua vita parallela di cui mi interessa meno che zero, fa il simpatico a tutti i costi e finisce solo per creare una inutile confusione tra le parti di finzione narrativa e quelle specifiche e biografiche su Flaubert, in un pasticcio disorganizzato.
Una biografia in mezzo ad uno pseudo romanzo, nuovo genere letterario?
Per non dire dell'enigma del pappagallo... che mi ha decisamente annoiato, sinceramente del pappagallo di Flaubert non mi poteva fregare meno (che poi, non so in inglese, ma in italiano è un titolo che evoca immagini da Rsa, e reparto geriatrico e fa pensare ad una probabile morte in età avanzata di Flaubert ormai non più autosufficiente, mentre sappiamo che il nostro morì all'improvviso a 59 anni e per un colpo apoplettico che non gli diede alcun scampo.

Gustave Flaubert uomo fuoriesce da queste pagine abbastanza sgradevole: cinico, pessimista, alto, calvo, con i baffi spioventi, normanno fino al midollo, che non crede nel progresso paventa l'amore, borghese odiatore dei borghesi; ma questo in fondo è irrilevante... a noi dovrebbe stare a cuore l'opera e non il suo autore, o no?

Mentre leggevo però pensavo a Pietro Citati e alla sua meravigliosa biografia dedicata ad un altro immenso, Marcel Proust, La Colomba pugnalata, altro livello, altra passione altro coinvolgimento senza quella ironia così fastidiosamente british che invece Julian Barnes dissemina tra le pagine ogni piè sospinto, o, forse, semplicemente l'uomo / scrittore Proust è a me più congeniale rispetto all'uomo / scrittore Flaubert.

Me encanta la impronta que Julian Barnes le ha dado a este libro, que es un poco biografía, un poco novela, un poco ensayo, y hasta incluso también, un poco crítica literaria.
Los capítulos son cortos y tienen estilos y estructuras muy diferentes entre sí, algo que le da al libro una buena dinámica y hace que la lectura sea muy ágil desde el comienzo hasta el final, y Barnes combina con mucho ingenio y un toque muy personal datos duros de la vida de Flaubert, con citas, anécdotas, cartas, e intercala también la mirada crítica que tenía de Flaubert la gente más cercana a él, dando como resultado final no solo un libro muy entretenido, sino que uno lo termina con una idea bastante clara sobre la personalidad de Flaubert, su entorno, y los hechos más destacados de su vida.

Un libro muy bien logrado, muy recomendable, que vale la pena leer, y que puede disfrutar cualquiera sin que sea condición importante el estar interesado en conocer la vida de Flaubert o haber leído su obra.

n  “El autor debe estar en su libro como Dios en su universo, presente en todas partes, pero siempre invisible”n

À boa moda do Vila-Matas, Julian Barnes concede ao leitor este belíssimo «sortido literário», quase exclusivamente com itens apetitosos, daqueles revestidos com pratas, de formas e texturas mais satisfatórias, com não mais de um par de capítulos bolacha seca/sem graça, migalhosa ou então «mole, toda mole».
E esta metáfora da caixa de sortido de bolachas foi feliz porque aos apreciadores de livros sobre livros, àqueles cuja postura de culto literário não se integre nas seriedades prosaicas ou, pior, nas sorumbáticas vaidades armadas ao pingarelho, aos que lêem com e por prazer, que aprendem com a graça de saber que não aprenderão tudo, e que o fazem sem se esquecerem da diversão no acto leitor, a esses o sortido fornece a satisfação que é pegar nos piores itens e vesti-los com as pratas que envolviam os melhores. Até os despojos indesejados, com a ousadia palerma e satisfeita de um pequeno prevaricador, ficam revestidos de promessa.

Σημείωση 1: Να μην διαβάζω τέτοιου είδους βιβλία μες στο κατακαλόκαιρο!
Σημείωση 2: Να ελέγχω πριν αγοράσω ένα βιβλίο αν οι σημειώσεις βρίσκονται στο τέλος του βιβλίου, γιατί έτσι δεν τις διαβάζω ποτέ!
Σημείωση 3: Η γραφή του Barnes είναι ιδιαίτερη με ευχάριστες εκπλήξεις αλλά στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο σε κάποια σημεία γινόταν κουραστικός!

Recently, I had the chance of visiting a bookstore with a friend, after our vaccinations and easing of restrictions, that produced a wonderful experience, namely finding this book. Not the Julian Barnes book but Gustave Flaubert’s “Trois Contes.” It featured a parrot on the cover. The story was “A Simple Heart.”

To be honest, I didn’t remember a thing about this tale. It was a little underwhelming, I had to look up a lot of the rural French words, found it rather depressing (review to come later) but the ending smacked me in the face. Holy parrot!

No, Flaubert’s parrot? I read this book in January 1987. Good memory you might say! No, inside the book, I found my pay stub for January 30, 1987. I must have used it as a bookmark.

To be honest I don’t remember much of this book other than it was funny, it introduced me to Flaubert, and to this English writer that I would come to love, Julian Barnes. It was a revelation.

The plot is as follows. There is a letter that says that Flaubert borrowed a parrot from the local museum to write his “Un cœur simple.” Geoffrey Braithwaite, a retired doctor, is on the hunt to discover the real parrot used in this story. In typical Barnesian fashion, things do not go as planned.

Outcome.
What do I make of a book that inspired me thirty-five years ago?

Flaubert fared poorly. As readers we love our books, and in doing so, we love our beloved writers. Yet in his search of a rather odd form of biography, he digs up so much dirt that one starts to question our “bear-like” Flaubert.

Barnes scored well. On the other hand, as much as I enjoyed this book many years ago, I can say he is an author that only got better with age.

It was an enjoyable read. I will leave you as Flaubert did with “Le dictionnaire des idées reçues.”

Barnes, Julian: A funny, witty English writer that obsesses about things Français. He looks to both sides of the coin, sometimes humorous; sometimes poignant; often very reflective in that English manner. Or is that in a French manner?

Flaubert, Gustave. Flaubear bridged Balzac to Joyce. The precursor of Proust. The father of realism. Not a small feat considering he was an odd character. Lived under his mother, never married, lived like a hermit, and yet was the toast of the town due to his first novel. He made a great many women “friends.” Mother was not happy.

Madame Bovary. Scandalous. Did you know that the people in Hamburg would rent carriages for an illicit rendezvous? The book was deemed obscene. Made Gustabear famous.

Sand, George. Letters enable a long friendship. George to Gustave: “You produce desolation, and I produce consolation.”

Parrots: “Perroquet is a diminutive of Pierrot, parrot comes from Pierre, Spanish perico derives from Pedro.” Who knew?

Un cœur simple: The story is based on a real story of a man and his parrot (L’Opinion nationale, June 20, 1863). He had a bad love story, turned misanthropic and lived with a parrot. Flaubert‘s note: “Change the animal: make it a dog instead of a parrot.” He changed the owner, not the bird. p. 59

Damned parrots!


Original review
I did terrible in French in high school and then along comes Monsieur Barnes, who brought together his love of French, Flaubert, some detective work and a tragedy to spin a wonderful tale. His wit and humour mixed with his love of language immediately put his books on my shelves. From this one book and the others I would collect makes Barnes one of my favourite authors. Plus he added Flaubert to my language, so I read them all.

How can we know the past? Old articles are silent witnesses of the days gone… The old object in question is a green stuffed parrot…

How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so? When I was a medical student some pranksters at an end-of-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. The past often seems to behave like that piglet.

The past can’t be resurrected… But it can be made up.
When Gustave Flaubert was writing n  A Simple Heartn the stuffed parrot served him as an inspiration… But actually there are two such parrots in two museums… Which one is authentic? Are both fake?
It makes me recall a holy relic of Jesus Christ’s prepuce… Throughout Christian history dozens of churches possessed this wondrous relic.
Julian Barnes doesn’t write a biography… He researches Gustave Flaubert’s life… Therefore even the dreams that didn’t come to pass become a part of history…

In 1850, from Constantinople, Flaubert announces three projects: ‘Une nuit de Don Juan’ (which reaches the planning stage); ‘Anubis’, the story of ‘the woman who wants to be fucked by a god’; and ‘My Flemish novel about the young girl who dies a virgin and a mystic… in a little provincial town, at the bottom of a garden planted with cabbages and bulrushes…’

Contemplating vicissitudes of world literature Julian Barnes doesn’t forget to mention the ghoulish and everlasting obscurantism of critics…

…many critics would like to be dictators of literature, to regulate the past, and to set out with quiet authority the future direction of the art. This month, everyone must write about this; next month, nobody is allowed to write about that. So-and-so will not be reprinted until we say so. All copies of this seductively bad novel must be destroyed at once. (You think I am joking? In March 1983, the newspaper Libération urged that the French Minister for Women’s Rights should put on her Index for ‘public provocation to sexist hatred’ the following works: Pantagruel, Jude the Obscure, Baudelaire’s poems, all Kafka, The Snows of Kilimanjaro – and Madame Bovary.) Still, let’s play. I’ll go first.

Trying to reproduce the past, we always tend to patronize it…

Flaubert’s life intertwined with the life of a biographer whose wife died. Witty and ingenious as no biography has ever been. I can only compare its novelty of form (in effect) to “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” (Mario Vargas Llosa) from what I’ve read. Although, they're totally different. I am not ready yet (not sure if I’ll ever be) to write a review, but I can say however: I enjoyed reading this book a lot. This is Barnes at his best: a light read, but full of quotes I could not help but write down, a full of humor read, a highly enjoyable one thanks to the nicely crafted, yet so natural phrases and thanks to the unexpected biographical details about Flaubert. If all biographies were like this one, we’d definitely be as fond of reading them as of reading novels. Or, at least, I know I would.

"I attract mad people and animals."

Loved.
A novelised biography of Gustave Flaubert. But better than that sounds.
I get the feeling that while Julian Barnes was stalking his favourite author, he found so many oddities and pleasing coincidences (les perroquets !) that he kept a journal entitled “Cool shit I know about Flaubert and other musings” which became this book.
The obsession rubs off. You’re lying if you enjoyed this and didn’t contemplate ordering “A Simple Soul”.

This quote cut too close to home: “Even what art is escapes them. They find the annotations more interesting than the text. They set more store by the crutches than the legs.” - Gustave Flaubert (via Julian Barnes, now via me in a goodreads review you are now reading)
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“Why does writing make us chase the writer? Why can’t we leave well alone? Why aren’t the books enough?”

“as for coincidences in books - there’s something cheap and sentimental about the device; it can’t help always seeming aesthetically gimcrack.”

“the common but passionate reader is allowed to forget; he can go away, be unfaithful with other writers, come back and be entranced again.”

“the lazy rush to understand”

“How do we seize the past?... We read, we learn, we ask, we remember, we are humble; and then a casual detail shifts everything.”

“He finds himself by looking into the works of others.”

“you trust the mystifier more if you know he’s deliberately choosing not to be lucid. You trust Picasso all the way because he could draw like Ingres.”

“Do the books that writers don’t write matter?”

“perhaps the sweetest moment in writing is the arrival of that idea for a book which never has to be written… which never needs to be exposed to a less loving gaze than that of its author.”

“Is your PhD from Bucharest?” (haha)

“pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory”