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Summary: In Search of Unfathomable Truth
Review: At the first sight this book is a story of an elderly English doctor Geoffrey Braithwaite who tries to reconstruct the life of the great French writer Gustave Flaubert in order to understand him. Those who love Flaubert will find in this wonderful novel a lot of interesting and amazing facts and details that could help them in better comprehension of their favorite writer's oeuvre. But this is only a top layer of the narrative. Dr Braithwaite really wants to solve the mystery of his beloved but unfaithful wife's suicide, using Flaubert's life as his own image in the psychological mirror of humanity (Gustave Fraubert, c'est moi?). But the truth of both Flaubert's life and his wife's suicide is unfathomable as the human life and death themselves. So everyone can claim the possession of truth, but only a personal truth, not the universal one. Just like both stuffed parrots (or even all 50 stuffed birds mentioned in the novel) could be the sought Flaubert's parrot which inspired him to write 'Un coeur simple'.It is my first novel by Julian Barns but its excellent language and exquisite composition incite me to find other ones...
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Summary: Takes you by surprise
Review: I hated this book passionately for the first 50 pages because plot was nowhere to be seen. Then I fell in love with it. Remembrance of Things Past -- the concise edition?
That's what I would call it. Great book.
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Summary: Can a francophile be Joyce's heir?
Review: I picked up this book at a friend's recommendation. It is the first (but certainly won't be the last) book I've read by Barnes. Although the story putatively deals with an aging scholar's research into (and physical search for) Loulou, a parrot mentioned in Flaubert's "Un coeur simple," it covers much larger issues--the relationship of art and life, the dubious nature of literary legacies, the value and role of medicine, the status of women, the importance (or lack of: discuss) marital fidelity. Barnes certainly has a great love and deep knowledge of French literature, but the writing style he adopted for this novel reminds me more of James Joyce's Ulysses with each chapter employing a different literary genre while cleverly linking across chapters to other key thoughts and themes. Its comparative brevity (just over 200 pages), however, makes it easier for the (committed) reader to master and enjoy than Joyce's masterpiece. There's a lot here to explore and think about, and the more effort readers put into it the more they'll get out of it. On my first read through, I mostly enjoyed the Flaubert trivia; upon rereading I plan to pay closer attention to the doctor/scholar-narrator in order to discover more clues about his burdens, motives, and obsessions. Although it probably helps to have read a lot of Flaubert before diving into this novel, I think the only book the reader really needs to be familiar with is "Madame Bovary."
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Summary: Quaint, quirky, literate ,& ultimately, vastly entertaining
Review: This may be the most unusual book I've ever read. Sort of a philosophical treatise on art, writing, Flaubert, the French, compulsion and love presented under the guise of a very arcane literary detective story. Barnes is a very quixotic and imaginative writer with a definitely skewed view of the world and an engaging and witty writing voice. The musings of the narrator are well formed and allow the reader move along at a brisk pace. It helps that Flaubert himself was a wacky and iconoclastic figure-one of those people we've all heard of but don't really know anything about unless you are some sort of 19th century French literature freak. This was the first Barnes novel I read and it was so good I have been slowly working my way through his other books, which has proven to be an altogether delightful experience. All of his novels are good-this one stands out from the pack.
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