The Booker jury sometimes behaves like the Oscar one: how else to explain this-- In the year 1984 the following books were shortlisted:Flaubert's Parrot by Julian BarnesEmpire of the Sun by J.G.BallardIn Custody by Anita DesaiHotel du Lac by Anita BrooknerAccording to Mark by Penelope LivelySmall by David LodgeAnd Anita Brookner's jaw-droppingly boring book,pipped Barnes,Ballard & Desai to the post!The same thing happened again in 1998 & 2005,but at least he lost to somewhat good books: Amsterdam & The Sea. And finally Barnes was given a sort of life-time Booker for the masterful The Sense of an Ending in 2011.What do they say–All things come to those....only I don't think he really waited/cared anymore.Flaubert's Parrot was Barnes' breakthrough book: part biography,part fiction,part lit-crit,part homage,part satire,it's a crazy,whimsical,non-linear,non-conventional, postmodernist take on, on what?What's the story,the theme,the plot?In the words of the elderly narrator Geoffrey Braithwaite, a widowed, retired English doctor & an amateaur Flaubert enthusiast: Three stories contend within me. One about Flaubert,one about Ellen(his wife), one about myself. My own is the simplest of the three--it hardly amounts to more than a convincing proof of my existence-and yet I find it the hardest to begin. My wife's more complicated...books are not life,however much we might prefer it if they were. Ellen's is a true story;perhaps it is even the reason why i am telling you Flaubert's story instead.Flaubert's tale: "The hermit of Croisset.The first modern novelist. The father of Realism...The butcher of Romanticism" never wanted to be chased by posterity:The artist must manage to make posterity believe that he never existed....for the artist,death destroyes the personality and liberates the work. Still Barnes wouldn't let go of his literary idol: his narrator is a sort of alter ego who obsesses over Flaubert:It's similar with books...if you quite enjoy a writer's work...if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence,if you want to pursue him & find him--despite edicts to the contrary--then it's impossible to know too much.Three chronologies of his lives are presented: first in a factual manner,listing his personal & literary triumphs,second listing the failures & disappointments,& third,& most appropriate in a sense: the writer's life & personality in his own metaphors:But maybe seeing someone's life either as triumph or a disaster doesn't actually tell us half as much as just seeing their lives in terms of metaphors...which consists of him saying things like 'I feel like an old camembert slowly liquefying'...I think it's like giving an extra dimension or extra depth of focus. Julian Barnes in Conversation,Cercles 4(2002).But Barnes is balanced in his approach,lest you accuse him of blind worship,he even writes a whole fictional chapter from Louise Colet's (Flaubert's much loved & abused lover)point-of-view:He loved to think of himself as a polar bear,distant,savage and solitary- I went along with this,i even called him a wild buffalo of the American prairie; but perhaps he was really just a parrot.I have read Madame Bovary & Flaubert did understand women,atleast in his fiction if not in life but Barnes seems to have read their very heart! It's hard to read this chapter & not be moved by it.Braithwaite's tale: The narrator uses Flaubert's life to make sense of his own,he tries to lose himself in the trivia of his beloved author's life so as not to face the disappointments in his own,it's a sort of displaced attachment:It's a book about the shiftingness of the past,& the uncertainty & unverifiability of fact...how the love of art compares with the love of a humanbeing...beyond all that it's a novel about grief. IbidBy the time the chapter Pure Story comes,his identification with his hero Flaubert's philosophy is complete:People like us must have the religion of despair. One must be equal to one's destiny,that's to say impassive like it. By dint of saying'That's so! That is so!' & of gazing down into the black pit at one's feet,one remains calm.Ellen's story: Her husband is a doctor who keeps referring to Emma Bovary-- you get the drift?The Theme: The novel begins & ends with Geoffrey B's visit to Rouen,the Flaubertian city,where he sees the first stuffed parrot at the Hôtel-Dieu before discovering the second one in Croisset:Here i could play off the real against the fictional & the contemporary against the nineteenth century in a productive way. Ibid The novel asks the question : Can we really ever know someone,whether it's a great historical figure or one's own spouse? The attempts to find the real Flaubert mirror the attempt to find his parrot, i.e. apparent futility:I think in any case this is appropriate to the book, & also to the sort of novels I write: there isn't a solution. I like the kind of novel or work of art or film which implies that it's going on after it ends, which leaves some things unresolved. If you set up a novel in which there is a sort of symbolic chase for the writer's voice,which is emblematised in one of the two parrots,I think it's only fair that the writer's voice,that the feeling of getting finally in touch with the great writer,fails in the end: let him have a little bit of privacy,& let him keep his secrets,i say. IbidThe Plot : The narrative arrangement here is as unconventional & upside down as in 'The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters', still there's a method to this madness:Flaubert's Parrot begins with chapter1- the problem,the quest; Chapter2- the facts in the case; working backwards:the answer to the problem-the last chapter... The Pure Story is the answer to the second quest. Thus the narrative structure is balanced against the pleasures of going off the tangent.The so-called seperate chapters exist ina sort of parallel relationship to it & explain it indirectly.The vitriol against the critics: This book doesn't handle critics with kid gloves– in fact, the dedication taken from Flaubert's own letter to Ernest Feydeau in 1872,makes it amply clear:When you write the biography of a friend you must do it as if you were taking revenge for him.So Barnes takes it upon him to fence off every conceivable charge against his hero in the chapters called The Case Against,Emma Bovary's Eyes & Cross Channel. The critics are failed creators,carping,jealous & vain who adopt"patronising tone towards their subjects", they are" eternal mediocrity living off genius by denigrating & exploiting it."I'm reminded here of one critical study of The Sense of an Ending(which i think Paul Bryant quoted in his review), which rejects the idea of unreliable narrator & his relevance to Adrian & his girlfriend's story,but if we accept that,then the novel just becomes an exercise in irony & loses its emotional impact & the redemptive value for the reader. Only the writer knows what he has written,critics will just be throwing up many theories. Maybe Mr. Barnes will oblige us someday.And how can I conclude without mentioning The Examination Paper which Barnes puts just after the emotionally draining Pure Story,as a sort of anti-climax:I thought it would be a nice joke to give the reader an examination paper at the end of the book,you know: 'You've done your work-I hope it was pleasant work; here's some question for you to consider'(whose answers are not contained in the book), again it's a sort of upside down examination...It's a subversive examination paper. Ibid The staid,old,kindly-looking English gentleman setting up a subversive paper!?But then did I tell you that in a scathing display of wit & sarcasm,he also prohibits the writing of 10 different kinds of novels in the chapter Cross Channel (still majority of Goodreads members shd rejoice as vampire love stories & pornography are not banned :p)For this & Emma Bovary's Eyes chapters alone he shd've won the Booker,rest of the book is like a cherry on a sinful chocolate cake!Highly recommended.
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 - MIROThis 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 WonderAnd 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. 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.ARCHETYPAL - PERFECTBarnes 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 - TOYThis 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 – ChronologyMay 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 – MultiplicityThe 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 REPRESENTATIONUnavoidably, even documents with direct utterances, such as letters and diaries are suspect. Can we trust perception, and what about projections?APOCRYPHAL – In ShadowsBarnes 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.
What do You think about Flaubert's Parrot (1990)?
Ik ben intussen zowat verslaafd aan Barnes en heb nu eindelijk zijn boek gelezen waarmee hij in 1984 is doorgebroken en dat wereldwijd bekroond werd: 'Flauberts papegaai'. In dat boek gaat de oudere arts Geoffrey Braithwaite na de dood van zijn echtgenote naar Frankrijk, waar hij op zoek gaat naar sporen van zijn idool, de schrijver van 'Madame Bovary'. Hij bezoekt Rouen in Frankrijk waar Flaubert geleefd en gewerkt heeft en hangt zijn hele verhaal vast aan een pittig detail: de papegaai die in Flauberts novelle Un coeur simple de oude Félicité gezelschap houdt en die ze na zijn dood laat opzetten. Blijkbaar heeft Flaubert ter inspiratie tijdens het schrijven van dit verhaal een opgezette Amazonepapegaai geleend bij het natuurhistorisch museum van Rouen. Tijdens de zoektocht naar die vogel (Braithwaite vindt er uiteindelijk twee!) komt het hele leven van Flaubert ter sprake: waarom hij vrijgezel bleef, hoe hij een hekel had aan reizen, maar toch naar Egypte en het Oosten trok, zijn maîtresses, de bordelen die hij bezocht en waar hij syfilis opliep, de ogen van Emma Bovary, het schandaal en het proces rond zijn boek, zijn liefde/haat-verhouding met dichteres Louise Colet en nog veel meer.Ik was vooral gecharmeerd door de prachtige zinnen die Barnes kan smeden, zelfs al in zijn vroege schrijversjaren. Hij heeft een heel persoonlijke stijl, die ik trouwens meteen herkende van zijn recente werken zoals Hoogteverschillen of Alsof het voorbij is. Heerlijk is ook de altijd aanwezige humor en ironie. Verrassend helder is hij in het hoofdstuk 'Zuiver verhaal' waar hij schrijft: "In boeken krijg je de dingen uitgelegd, in het leven gebeurt dat niet. Het verbaast me niets dat sommige mensen de voorkeur aan boeken geven. Boeken verklaren het leven. De enige moeilijkheid is dat de levens die ze verklaren die van anderen zijn en nooit dat van jezelf."
—Willy Schuyesmans
It's really a 2. 5 star book for me, because I really enjoyed some parts and found other parts (and to some extent the whole concept) tedious. I think I would have preferred just to get Julian Barnes straight up on Flaubert: if you aren't really going to write a novel but rather a pastiche, a parody, an appreciation, a medley of parts and ideas and venting and quoting -- which package it as a novel, with a narrator and the thread of a plot? Why not just throw off the pretense and do your thing? I know, I know: it was 1984, it's an "anit-novel," and this was a pretty cool thing to do then. It is cool, and smart, but also kind of preening, and the apparatus of the book for me got too intrusive. Also (and I'm sure Barnes was self-conscious and deliberate about this), the comments in the book about truth and irony apply to the book itself:"If you don't know what's true, or what's meant to be true, then the value of what isn't true, or isn't meant to be true, becomes diminished."I don't know enough about Flaubert to know when Barnes (or Geoffrey Braithwaite) is really truly quoting from his letters or recounting what is known about his life accurately or reliably--and so the degree to which I can appreciate the value of what is or isn't true, and get the irony, when there's irony, is limited. How much of a problem is this? Some, anyway, though uncertainty is an appropriate condition for the reader of a novel that is so much about uncertainty. "Perhaps it was one of them." Perhaps.
—Rohan Maitzen
The author asks really good questions about why we pursue the writer of books instead of being content with their writing and he questions the way we look at history as well. Really made me stop and think about things. In this way, it reminds me of The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, another book that delves into the inherent flaws of autobiographies. In addition, I LOVED the organization of the book. The author will pick some random thing: A critic's accusation that Flaubert didn't bother to settle on one color for Emma Bovary's eyes or ironies in Flaubert's life and write a chapter about it. Or he'll take some skewed perspective on a traditional thing. For example, chapter two is titled: Chronology. First he sets out a time line for the milestones in Flaubert's life. Then he creates a timeline recording relationship milestones in Flaubert's life, that help explain his development as a person. Finally, the author makes a timeline that shows the chronology of some of Flaubert's quotes, which illustrates his development as a writer. Such a novel approach. Simply brilliant.And then the author uses the narrator's interest in Flaubert to divulge his own life. Which honestly, is an idea I had concerning Anna Karenina. I had empathized with Anna's husband more than with her. And I thought about writing a play from his perspective. However, not only did Julian Barnes beat me to it, he did it in such an exceptionally novel way, that I could not ever hope to match it. The best book I have read in the last couple of years without a doubt.
—Laura
