{"id":634,"date":"2013-03-25T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T18:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=634"},"modified":"2013-03-20T10:10:57","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T18:10:57","slug":"flauberts-parrot-review-on-goodreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/25\/flauberts-parrot-review-on-goodreads\/","title":{"rendered":"Flaubert’s Parrot– review on Goodreads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flaubert's<\/a>Flaubert’s Parrot<\/a> by Julian Barnes<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

A cousin wanted me to read A Sense of An Ending<\/em> and so I did and I liked it. Read my review<\/a> of that, if you like, and when you find this review for Flaubert\u2019s Parrot<\/em> wanting, apply the other review to this one. They\u2019re much the same. The books I mean, which should reveal for you how woefully unprepared I was for this one.<\/p>\n

I wanted to read something good and since Sense<\/em> won awards and I liked it, and since I\u2019d seen Flaubert\u2019s Parrot<\/em> in one place or another for several years, I jumped right in. This book was way over my head. I\u2019ve never read Flaubert. I have no idea if the narrator\u2019s treatment of the man\u2019s life and works is accurate or flattering or fictional or even farcical. I\u2019m a fan of \u201cfictional non-fiction\u201d and so the best I could do was assume Barnes had made the whole thing up and that I was along for the ride.<\/p>\n

But if he did, then that fiction stands in counterpoint to the truth, and that\u2019s a layer I missed. If he didn\u2019t, then I missed that layer too, and as he spends more than a few lines castigating critics, the irony went right over my head.<\/p>\n

Three stars not because the book was bad in any sense or should be considered a lesser work. Three stars because that was the best that I could enjoy it due to my terrible ignorance. But at least three stars because Barnes is a master with the sentence, and I think he\u2019s earned the right to recognize his gift and praise himself for it. \u201cThe correct word, the true phrase, the perfect sentence are always \u2018out there,\u2019 somewhere; the writer\u2019s task is to locate them by whatever means he can.\u201d Maybe you say he\u2019s not praising himself. But that sentence itself follows \u201cStyle is a function of theme. Style is not imposed on subject-matter, but arises from it. Style is truth to thought.\u201d And this in a book which is a about a man looking into Flaubert\u2019s life, including in it lists and a \u201cdictionary\u201d and timelines and slapping on a coda about how his wife cheated on him.<\/p>\n

The narrator\u2019s wife, not Flaubert\u2019s. Flaubert was never married. According to the narrator. I don\u2019t know if Barnes is or was married, and like the narrator of Flaubert\u2019s Parrot<\/em>, and like Flaubert himself, I don\u2019t know if knowing that sort of thing is even useful.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes My rating: 3 of 5 stars A cousin wanted me to read A Sense of An Ending and so I did and I liked it. Read my review of that, if you like, and when you find this review for Flaubert\u2019s Parrot wanting, apply the other review to this one. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Flaubert’s Parrot– review on Goodreads”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-ae","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}