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…

It makes me recall a holy relic of Jesus Christ’s prepuce… Throughout Christian history dozens of churches possessed this wondrous relic. When Gustave Flaubert was writing A Simple Heart 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? The past can’t be resurrected… But it can be made up. The past often seems to behave like that piglet. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. 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. I have read and enjoyed Julian Barnes in the past and I know he has a great sense of witty humor but with all the strange quirky facts about Flaubert that are stuffed into this book, I couldn’t help but wonder if we, the readers are the butt of his joke.Flaubert’s Parrot was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984 and many people love this book, but for me this particular piece of metafiction just didn’t work.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… I may have done this book a disservice as I haven’t read anything by Flaubert so many observations and quotes went over my head but overall I found Flaubert’s Parrot to be a bizarre and pointless alternative biography. Unfortunately the doctor is such a colorless character that I easily lost interest in him and found he faded into the pages. He seems determined to find the answer to obscure things such as which of two stuffed parrots was Flaubert’s actual inspiration for one of his stories or why Flaubert kept changing the color of Emma Bovary’s eyes.

Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor and appears to on a quest to examine all things “Flaubert”. It is a combination of a literary critique of Gustave Flaubert as well as a novel that deals with the mystery of obsession and betrayal. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barns was both a difficult and strange read for me.

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes