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Flaubert's Parrot Paperback – November 27, 1990

by Julian Barnes (Author)

3.9 776 ratings

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BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • From the internationally bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes a literary detective story of a retired doctor obsessed with the 19th century French author Flaubert—and with tracking down the stuffed parrot that once inspired him. • “A high literary entertainment carried off with great brio.” —The New York Times Book Review

Julian Barnes playfully combines a detective story with a character study of its detective, embedded in a brilliant riff on literary genius.

A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert's Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Just what sort of book is Flaubert's Parrot, anyway? A literary biography of 19th-century French novelist, radical, and intellectual impresario Gustave Flaubert? A meditation on the uses and misuses of language? A novel of obsession, denial, irritation, and underhanded connivery? A thriller complete with disguises, sleuthing, mysterious meetings, and unknowing targets? An extended essay on the nature of fiction itself?

On the surface, at first, Julian Barnes's book is the tale of an elderly English doctor's search for some intriguing details of Flaubert's life. Geoffrey Braithwaite seems to be involved in an attempt to establish whether a particularly fine, lovely, and ancient stuffed parrot is in fact one originally "borrowed by G. Flaubert from the Museum of Rouen and placed on his worktable during the writing of Un coeur simple, where it is called Loulou, the parrot of Felicité, the principal character of the tale."

What begins as a droll and intriguing excursion into the minutiae of Flaubert's life and intellect, along with an attempt to solve the small puzzle of the parrot--or rather parrots, for there are two competing for the title of Gustave's avian confrere--soon devolves into something obscure and worrisome, the exploration of an arcane Braithwaite obsession that is perhaps even pathological. The first hint we have that all is not as it seems comes almost halfway into the book, when after a humorously cantankerous account of the inadequacies of literary critics, Braithwaite closes a chapter by saying, "Now do you understand why I hate critics? I could try and describe to you the expression in my eyes at this moment; but they are far too discoloured with rage." And from that point, things just get more and more curious, until they end in the most unexpected bang.

One passage perhaps best describes the overall effect of this extraordinary story: "You can define a net in one of two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally, you would say that it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string." Julian Barnes demonstrates that it is possible to catch quite an interesting fish no matter how you define the net. --Andrew Himes

Review

“A high literary entertainment carried off with great brio.... rich in parody and parrotry, full of insight and wit ... a great success.” —The New York Times Book Review

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reissue edition (November 27, 1990)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679731369
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679731368
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.19 x 0.5 x 7.98 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #377,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,063 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #3,167 in Fiction Satire
- #17,405 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 776 ratings

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Julian Barnes

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Julian Barnes is the author of nine novels, including Metroland, Flaubert's Parrot, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, England, England and Arthur and George, and two collections of short stories, Cross Channel and The Lemon Table.

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Customers say

Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They praise the intelligent writing style and witty humor. Readers describe it as an enjoyable, entertaining read from beginning to end.

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Readability Writing quality Humor Enjoyment

36 customers mention "Readability"28 positive8 negative

Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They describe it as a brilliant novel with interesting essays about writing, literature, and life. Readers praise the book for its pure storytelling and clever biographical essays about Flaubert.

"...It's one of the most intelligently written and interesting books of modern literature, and should be on every college student's mandated reading..." Read more

"...Julian Barnes sets the stage very well, even while flitting around with the narration and once engaged, I enjoyed the novel and the quirky style..." Read more

"...Until then it's a series of very clever biographical essays about Flaubert. Then you understand why the narrator it obsessed with Flaubert...." Read more

"...This non-fiction work is an intellectual thriller as Barnes takes unconventional routes through his subject's history, a "Tour" de force...." Read more

21 customers mention "Writing quality"17 positive4 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book intelligent and interesting. They describe it as readable, flawlessly written, and reliable. Readers also mention that the book is honest and concise.

"...It's one of the most intelligently written and interesting books of modern literature, and should be on every college student's mandated reading..." Read more

"...But it slowly reveals them in a wonderful prose that is keenly sharp and often quite funny...." Read more

"...Maybe it shouldn't be categorized at all. It is literary criticism, posing as literary biography and meditation on fiction...." Read more

"...the material to the reader, including some scathing, precisely reasoned criticism of another Flaubert biographer, an academic...." Read more

14 customers mention "Humor"12 positive2 negative

Customers enjoy the humor in the book. They describe it as a clever, witty pastiche that uses postmodern elements. The quirky style and experimental concept are also appreciated.

"...Every page is interestingly witty and this novel leaves a lasting impression of a master novelist delivering at the top of his ability." Read more

"...narration and once engaged, I enjoyed the novel and the quirky style more than anticipated. The novel stands on it's own quite well...." Read more

"...It is a short novel, very experimental in concept and structure. Some would call it plotless...." Read more

"...Genius is who Julian Barnes is. And the book is grandly, inventively genius." Read more

6 customers mention "Enjoyment"6 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book. They find it entertaining and informative, saying it's well-written and an enjoyable read.

"...is travelling through paths of his subject's life, Mr. Barnes' book is brilliant...." Read more

"Genius is who Flaubert is. Genius is who Julian Barnes is. And the book is grandly, inventively genius." Read more

"...You can read it in an hour. An hour well-spent and possibly life-changing. A masterpiece." Read more

"Delightful from beginning to end...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

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Jamie Ivan
A MAGNIFICENT BOOK
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2016
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This magnificent book should have won the Booker prize in 1984! It's one of the most intelligently written and interesting books of modern literature, and should be on every college student's mandated reading list. Written as a novel/biography through the eyes of a man who has lost his wife, is apparently age-separated from his children, and who is travelling through paths of his subject's life, Mr. Barnes' book is brilliant. Every page is interestingly witty and this novel leaves a lasting impression of a master novelist delivering at the top of his ability.

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3 people found this helpful

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Savvy-Suz
Words, colors, images....and deceptions
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2008
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I had a hard time getting into this book. I have not read anything by Flaubert before and thought it might prove to be a hindrance, but found that it was not.
Julian Barnes sets the stage very well, even while flitting around with the narration and once engaged, I enjoyed the novel and the quirky style more than anticipated. The novel stands on it's own quite well.
The book centers around a retired physician haunted by scholarly questions and minutiae from the novels and real life of the author, Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), especially in trying to determine which of two different parrots he visits once graced the author's desk?

The scholarly obsession with Flaubert by the good Dr. Braithwaite doesn't make much sense until the last few chapters when betrayals of love and literature slowly surface.

A favorite quote .... "Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."

That poetry wraps around this novel so nicely.
It's all about words! .....And words deceive much as people deceive.
Why does Flaubert keep changing the color of M. Bovary's eyes? And why is Dr. Braithwaite so haunted by this revelation and other minor mysteries?
We discover that Flaubert viewed his work much differently by literal definitions and feels his entire position to have been misunderstood..... "The artistic world has become irritatingly full of schools and -isms: Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism ("A bunch of jokers who have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that they've discovered the Mediterranean!")"

Ironically, he finds himself to be hailed as one of the founding fathers of Realism.... after having said that it was because he hated Realism so much that he wrote Madame Bovary in the first place! He also said that success, when it came, always struck for the wrong reason.
This novel definitely has you guessing at many of the references and reasons for them. But it slowly reveals them in a wonderful prose that is keenly sharp and often quite funny.

The attempts to find the real Flaubert cleverly mirror the attempts to find the real parrot he kept on his desk while writing and in the end....both prove seemingly futile.

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8 people found this helpful

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Michael A. Roberts
Postmodern jeux-d'esprits
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2014
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Very smart, but not worthy of including in the New Everyman's Library as I like to imagine it. Nuff said.

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4 people found this helpful

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D. P. Birkett
What color are Loulou's wings?
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2001
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You have to have read Madame Bovary (or maybe Cliff's notes on Madame Bovary) to understand the plot. You don't have to have read "Un Coeur Simple" but you probably will after reading this. It's not until three-quarters of the way through that you suddenly realize there's a plot. Until then it's a series of very clever biographical essays about Flaubert. Then you understand why the narrator it obsessed with Flaubert. Then you get equally clever essays about the nature of love and grief. Wonderful insight into the poignancy of bereavement combined with sharp and erudite wit. It may be too erudite and clever for some. It demands a certain amount of francophilia and anglophilia, and understanding phrases like "I might let the TLS have it." I'd always thought it was Nabokov, not Starkie who accused Flaubert of getting mixed up about the color of Emma's eyes. I think he did get get mixed up about the color of Loulou's wings in Un Coeur Simple- at least in the English translation I read.

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16 people found this helpful

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PlantBirdWoman
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes: A review
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2015
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What a strange book. How does one even begin to categorize it? Maybe that's the point. Maybe it shouldn't be categorized at all. It is literary criticism, posing as literary biography and meditation on fiction. It is an amalgam of those things and others. But mostly it is a tour de force of writing.

This was Julian Barnes' third novel, published in 1984. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was short listed for the Booker, the first of several of his books to be so listed. It is a short novel, very experimental in concept and structure. Some would call it plotless. It is certainly nonlinear in its story-telling.

Barnes gives us as his main character and narrator English doctor Geoffrey Braithwaite, who is obsessed with Madame Bovary's author, Gustave Flaubert. Braithwaite's conceit is that he will write a biography of Flaubert. and to that end, he pores over Flaubert's correspondence, his books, and other biographies of the man.

He becomes consumed by the minute details he discovers. Why do Emma Bovary's eyes change color in different editions or sections of the book? Which parrot inspired A Simple Heart - the one Flaubert borrowed from Rouen Museum and kept on his desk during the writing of the story or another one from a hotel? Braithwaite spends much of his time investigating the parrot issue and trying to resolve it.

He also explores Flaubert's intellectual and physical relationships with others and particularly how they relate to the creation of Emma Bovary. It gradually becomes clear that there are parallels in Braithwaite's own life, that he sees something of Emma in the life of his own wife, now dead.

All of this is revealed slowly, in fragmentary fashion, through extraordinary word play and dissertations on the writer's role, the relationship between art and life, and the unproductive role of literary critics. While most novels are presented in a straightforward, linear fashion that allows the reader to easily digest the meal being served, this one reveals itself somewhat as a coconut. The reader has to work to get at the milk and meat inside.

The plot, if it can truly be called that, is Flaubert's life of the mind and the body. As Braithwaite enthusiastically explores that life, we are privy to his research, his notes, musings, and speculations. And that makes up the main body of the book. When we learn, finally, that Braithwaite's own much-loved wife had been unfaithful to him in the manner of Emma Bovary, we begin to appreciate his obsession, his need to understand both the writer and his fictional creations.

Flaubert's Parrot brilliantly marries the details of Flaubert's life, his creation of the world of Emma Bovary, and the life of the narrator, Geoffrey Brathwaite, who had his own experience of adultery and, ultimately, of bereavement.

And what about that parrot? Where did Flaubert get it? How did he conceive of it? How did it inspire him to write? Does it matter? Probably not. Well, then, never mind.

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daniel
Slim book, Fantastic
Reviewed in India on November 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
A slim book without a plot , but brilliant take on Flaubert's work and writing processes. And of course there are lot of parrots even at metaphorical levels...wish Amazon prices such slim books for less than 300 rupees.i got it for 335

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Adrian Bailey
It's the way he tells it
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2022
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So, it's 'about' Flaubert and several parrots. But a single sentence makes it 'about' one of a heap, or a list, of other 'things'. Things and aboutness are not going to help a reader find the parrot. True, the narrator's unfolding character such as it is adds a sort of aboutness such as his - in my view, completely correct - hatred of literary critics. (Were I remotely motivated, doubtless I would find that there have been many critics of the novel who have cleverly sidestepped the criticism of critics, and almost certainly there will exist many overviews of the more lauded critics and their manouvres, such meta-criticisms themselves subject to much criticism. Arriving at a consensus wherein all critics may relax is as impossible as locating Flaubert's parrot. I would simply remind all critics that it is the parrot, or one of them, which is paying their wages, and leave it there). There may be some readers of statuesque bourgeois stability, in various states of decay, who would suffer most extremely if, having barely endured Flaubert, they were to be finished off by reading Barne's little book (though, of course, the irony is that anyone entirely identified with bourgeois sensibilities and sentiments would be immune, and continue freely repeating fashionable frowns, choice of hats and ideas according to the season), Personally, I have very little time for Flaubert and none at all for parrots. The closest mnemonic irrelevancy which occurs to me is that I did once have a white cat - with green eyes - of whom I was fond. It ran away and I don't know what became of it.

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Janet Thompson
Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on April 12, 2017
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Laugh out loud funny written in a style only Barnes can pull off with such elan and confidence.

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ebolavir
Dans la tête d'un autre écrivain
Reviewed in France on November 28, 2016
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Qu'est-ce qu'un écrivain peut faire quand il se retrouve (par hasard semble-t-il) dans la ville d'un grand ancien ? Il cherche d'où sortent les idées et les désirs d'écrire du confrère. Et Gustave Flaubert lui a facilité la tâche. Il est né à Rouen (dans l'appartement de fonction du médecin-chef de l'hôpital), a travaillé et est mort à Croisset (quelques kilomètres en aval au bord de la Seine), est statufié place des Carmes au centre de la ville (une statue qui est la copie d'une autre, disparue). Et le perroquet qui fut la consolation d'Un Coeur Simple vient du museum d'histoire naturelle, à quelques minutes à pied dans la même rue. Il est conservé dans le musée Flaubert, l'appartement de fonction où Flaubert est né. Sauf qu'il est aussi conservé à Croisset, dans le pavillon où il écrivait. Vertige du réel, de la fiction, de l'idée qui fait écrire. Pourquoi Flaubert avait-il besoin d'un perroquet, et lequel avait-il sous les yeux quand il écrivait ? On sort du livre totalement mystifié, pas plus avancé qu'avant sur l'art et le mécanisme de l'écriture, mais agréablement promené par l'auteur dans le paysage flaubertien et dans ses pensées. Quand je l'avais lu la première fois (en traduction, disponible mais pas en Kindle), j'avais cru à une plaisanterie littéraire. Mais depuis, je suis tombé sur les actes d'un colloque universitaire de 2001 "Flaubert's Parrot, un symbole du logos" (disponible aux éditions de l'université de Rouen) en présence de l'auteur qui réfute l'idée de plaisanterie. Il ne reste plus qu'à lire la version originale.

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Carmen
Eveything OK
Reviewed in Spain on October 18, 2015
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Perfect transaction... book in very good condtions... no damage... recommended seller

received in stimated time... eveything ok

I don't know what else to say, I need to complete this section to give my opinion about the purchase :)

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