The storyline of this book centers on deciphering the mystery of which stuffed parrot actually sat on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote his books. Two museums claim to own this bird, which served as a muse to Flaubert. Narrator Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor with a passion for Flaubert’s writings. He would love to publish his own work about Flaubert, and fancies himself an amateur scholar.

A look below the surface is needed to fully appreciate this masterly crafted book. Dr. Braithwaite is searching for meaning in a recent significant event in the narrator’s life. This book is a combination of biography (of both Flaubert and the narrator), critique of literary criticism, and self-disclosure. It is about writing as an artform, and what a writer’s art reveals about the author, and similarly, what a critic’s viewpoint reveals about the critic.

It is a humorously written clever work of creative brilliance that deals with both obsession and the drive to gain meaning from tragedies in one’s life. I have only read a couple of Flaubert’s works so I do not think it is necessary to be well-versed in his writings to appreciate this book. It will not be for everyone, but I enjoyed every minute of it and will likely re-read it in the future.

3 estrellas

¿Por qué la escritura hace que sigamos la pista del escritor? ¿Por qué no podemos dejarle en paz? ¿Por qué no basta con los libros?

Flaubert: El padre del realismo. El puente que une a Balzac con Joice. Precursor de Proust.

Dificil tarea calificar este libro. Por una parte me gusto bastante lo que se descubre de Flaubert, su vida y época; Aunque a la larga aburre. Por otro lado se me hizo un suplicio la historia del médico aficionado al escritor, un completo pedante...

This is a new favourite.It's easy to appreciate a work that reminds u that literature has no limits. The magic is when you get to enjoy such an experience from start to finish. I was a casual Flaubert reader, but this will change soon.

"Madame Bovary, c'est moi". And what about the parrot? You must read this book....

Julian Barnes first won my heart in A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters in which there is a chapter written from the point-of-view of a woodworm on Noah's Ark. It was such a refreshing change of pace and I adored it. Since reading that several years ago I have put off reading anything else by Barnes, hoping to retain that feeling lest History was a fluke. I bought a copy of Flaubert's Parrot a while back but kept it on the back burner, again to avoid being disappointed by Barnes, but also because I do like what I have read of Gustave Flaubert's also and I didn't want to be pissed off.

I was not.

Barnes uses a nonconventional way of telling this story as he did in History. Geoffrey Braithwaite is obsessed with Flaubert and is in search primarily for Loulou, a parrot mentioned in Flaubert's Un couer simple. In the process there are diversions in which Braithwaite is irate with literary critics, complains about genres and subject matters that should no longer be used in literature, and page after page of details about Flaubert's life. In the process Braitwaite's own life is reflected in Flaubert's and he - just like the reader - learns who he is by learning about who was Flaubert.

Other reviews are throwing around the word "postmodern" in terms to Julian Barnes, and in specific this book. I cringe when I read that as by definition of the word "postmodern" I should probably hate this. There is nothing pretentious here - Barnes is a smart man which some find intimidating, but he is accessible. An entire chapter of the Chronology (in 3 parts) of Flaubert's life is a smart addition of the whole of the book and adds to the nonconventional flavor of the style. But postmodern... not quite so much.

DNF'd @ 13%. This book does NOT work well on an e-reader! The 'Chronology' chapter displayed so poorly it was impossible to read. And knowing there may be more display issues further down the line, I decided to pack it in to avoid the frustration.

Non è un romanzo.
Non è una biografia.
Non è un saggio di critica letteraria.
Non è un divertissement.
Non è un catalogo.
Non è un diario.
Non è un'investigazione sui pappagalli di Flaubert.
Ma allora cos'è? Direi che -oltre ad un poco di tutto questo- è un tentativo, raffinatissimo, di scrivere un romanzo sulla vita: di Flaubert, di Braithwaite (il protagonista), di Barnes stesso e di noi tutti.
"E poi lo saprete anche voi, non è che davvero cerchiamo e scegliamo, non credete ? Siamo scelti piuttosto; veniamo eletti dall'amore attraverso un voto inappellabile, a scrutinio segreto".

La dedica: A Pat

Als je een beetje een literatuurnerd bent en/of van Britse humor houdt, is dit misschien wel een boek voor jou. Voorkennis over Flaubert is niet vereist, maar maakt het wel leuker. Doet door de vele stijlwisselingen, zelfverwijzingen en tongue-in-cheek humor Nabokoviaans aan.

Sencillamente espectacular el libro que Barnes se saca de la manga: Flaubert, los loros, todo aquello que nunca se atrevio a preguntar sobre la figura del genio frances (y que no encontrara en este libro)...
Y ademas, te ries cosa mala leyendolo

I have so many thoughts after having read this book. As a friend of mine said recently about another book: “It makes me think about my own raison-d’être”. I’m ambivalent about some of the aspects Barnes explores here but have come to understand that that is his trademark. Having read four of his books now, I am in no doubt that, like Flaubert, Barnes is a master when it comes to style.

I feel it’s a stretch calling this book a novel. It’s not entirely, or only, a memoir either, however. Maybe the French term ‘autofiction’ would be apt here. I’m not sure what purpose it was supposed to serve to invent a man, a doctor, as the main character. Clearly, apart from the promiscuity and death of the doctor’s wife, we know the opinions aired here belong to Barnes (when they don’t belong to Flaubert, that is; frequently they seemed to belong to both).

I thoroughly enjoyed his discussion of literature, the meta-fictional aspect of the book, even if I did feel the criticism of certain types of literature or certain authors that I actually like. I also appreciated his list of literature that, according to him, critics might ban, as the literary dictators some of them apparently consider themselves. He asks at some point, “Is there a perfect reader somewhere?” – an interesting question, though I feel he strives to answer more what the perfect writer is, likewise interesting, presumably even more so for writers (which explains why the exuberant comments on the cover of my book are by Philip Larkin and John Irving).

As in Levels of Life, this book is part biography, part fiction; part symbolism, part philosophizing. I definitely prefer his musings on life and his philosophizing to his treatment of various symbols like (in this book) parrots, bears, railways and (in Levels of Life) hot air balloons, soaring and falling. I know the symbols are connected to his musings, but the almost archaeological/ethnographic approach to the parrot (and other animals) and its relation to Flaubert clearly fascinated Barnes more than me, and as he uses repetition as another literary device (of said symbols) ad tedium, I felt it to be too much gimmickry. (I almost wish someone would remind him of the age-old rule of ‘kill your darlings’).

At times I liked his language more than the subject matter. However, turning a good sentence, finding a clever image, often seems to be his main objective, apparently much like his idol (I’ve only red Mme Bovary, ages ago). Yes, he is a master craftsman, but sometimes he/the language becomes too obviously clever. And yet, one forgives him when he suddenly springs upon the reader a perfect sentence which does just what he wants literature to do: it combines form and content: “The past is a distant, receding coastline, and we are all in the same boat”.

His arrogance, as I see it, or perhaps conviction is a better word, is quite delightful when towards the end he offers a number of maxims on life (or rather Flaubert’s), many of which I found myself agreeing with, even if they’re dressed as truths. He gets a bit ahead of himself at one point and more or less begins his book ‘Something to declare’ – a book about his love of France. He even uses the same image of having something to declare. I suppose it’s because his Francophile tendencies are so all-consuming that he cannot excise them from this book, and I’m only glad that I also studied French at the university, which I’m sure made it easier for me to appreciate this book. And I look forward to reading his ‘Something to declare’. Not just yet, though; after a book by Barnes, I feel like reaching for Asterix or Tintin or something to relax my brain a bit…

Gustave Flaubert died in 1880. But this did not prevent Julian Barnes from falling in love with him. Barnes' obsession with him, which only a lover can suffer from, resulted to this book which was first published in 1984, almost a century after the author passed away impoverished, lonely, exhausted and not having finished his swan song, "Bouvard et Pecuchet" (despite its incompleteness it was still good enough to be included in the 1001 list).

Any keen follower of my goodreads review (and there are, I repeat, LEGIONS of them--"legions" as in daemons, not as in many) will remember my most recent one prior to this, that of Flaubert's "A Simple Heart" (Un Coeur Simple). When he was writing this novella, Flaubert borrowed a stuffed parrot from a museum and placed it on his writing table. It has no name. But Flaubert resurrected it in "A Simple Heart" and gave it to the principal protagonist Felicite who named it Loulou.

Barnes read all of Flaubert's works, his letters, the letters he received; he visited places where Flaubert lived, visited or stayed, saw the trains he rode. He knew Flaubert's friends (George Sand, Turgenev, etc.), his lovers, the prostitutes he consorted with. All meticulously noted, studied, absorbed and written about, not just like in the manner a historian will write about the past, but more like a lover remembering even the small, insignificant things about the object of his affection. So Barnes writes not only about that parrot from the museum, but also about the other parrots in Flaubert's life and literature. And not only about parrots, but also about all the other animals that has figured somehow in the author's life and writings (including, for example, Emma Bovary's dog which was lost), what he wrote or what others wrote about him in relation to animals (George Sand, for example, wrote that he seems "gentle as a LAMB"; when she died, Flaubert wrote that he wept like a CALF).

But why the fuss about all these? Barnes himself provides the answer:

"(I)f you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him--despite edicts to the contrary--then it's impossible to know too much."

He even ruminated, and devoted an entire chapter (the 9th), on the books Flaubert could have written, the things he could have done, or maybe did but have remained hidden--

"It is not just the life that we know. It is not just the life that has been successfully hidden. It is not just the lies about the life, some of which cannot now be disbelieved. It is also the life that was not led."

The best part, in my opinion, however, is Chapter 10 entitled "The Case Against". Here Barnes defends Flaubert and his works against their critics. He affirms his love with his soaring and biting polemics and I thought, while reading this chapter, that if Haruki Murakami would have a reader-lover like Barnes, I may finally have to shut up and cease my critique of him (ha, ha). Fortunately, there is no one. I haven't seen anybody here who has exhibited facility in defending this author from those who detest him or his works. In fact, many of his so-called "admirers" even find difficulty explaining why they LIKE him. So different from Barnes' love for Flaubert":

"With a writer you love, the instinct is to defend. This is what I meant earlier: perhaps love for a writer is the purest, the steadiest form of love. And so your defence comes the more easily."

Me hizo tan feliz este libro, reir, pensar, reflexionar.
Falta para que termine el año pero siento que va a estar entre los mejores del 2021.
Seguiré leyendo a Barnes