A Cask of Troutwine reviewed Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
None
2 stars
Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot is a look at the impossibility of finding truth in anything given the distance of time and the rapid changes of culture, technology, etc., while also confronted with the fact that people are inherently complex and impossible to truly understand holistically.
We follow a Flaubert expert as he attempts to discern which of two stuffed parrots are the real inspiration for one of Flaubert's short stories. He presents us with multiple ideas of who Flaubert was or could have been, either a lonely bourgeois shut in, or a bit of a rake with a penchant for women and adventure. He presents evidence for both, and confronts us with the fact that we can only interpret Flaubert rather than know him, as most details of the world he lived in are gone or destroyed, France is entirely different and we only have access to some of his …
Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot is a look at the impossibility of finding truth in anything given the distance of time and the rapid changes of culture, technology, etc., while also confronted with the fact that people are inherently complex and impossible to truly understand holistically.
We follow a Flaubert expert as he attempts to discern which of two stuffed parrots are the real inspiration for one of Flaubert's short stories. He presents us with multiple ideas of who Flaubert was or could have been, either a lonely bourgeois shut in, or a bit of a rake with a penchant for women and adventure. He presents evidence for both, and confronts us with the fact that we can only interpret Flaubert rather than know him, as most details of the world he lived in are gone or destroyed, France is entirely different and we only have access to some of his correspondance.
Interwoven in that is also literary criticism of Flaubert's books, and how we misread entire scenes due to the world we live in being completely different than the one Flaubert was writing about. (There's an entire part about how the famous scene in Madame Bovary of her being seduced in a carriage would have read completely differently to readers of his day, as the type he most likely meant was a cramped, tiny vehicle, and would not have been comfortable to have relations in).
Lastly, we have the narrators own experiences, as we learn more and more of his own life and why he is so drawn to Flaubert's writings, and the failure of his own relationship with his wife.
Mostly I thought the book was alright. The ideas the book presented were interesting, and in some ways it reminded me of things explored in Parenti's History as Mystery, however it never struck me as anything more than novel. I also felt that the similarities between the narrator's experiences and the story of Madame Bovary was a little too obvious a route for the book to go.
