Flaubert's Parrot

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… 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......more

A novel that is largely a non-traditional biography of Gustave Flaubert. We get all the usual biographical info on Flaubert we expect, but it’s organized in chapters such as one on the various colors of Madame Bovary’s eyes in that novel by Flaubert. Barnes threads the book with the fictitious biogr......more

O carte amuzantă, scrisă anume pentru fanii lui Flaubert (între care, firește, eu sînt cel mai mic și mai umil). Evident, ficțiunea biografică a lui Julian Barnes nu urmează un fir cronologic strict, precum biografiile clasice (viața și opera). Totul depinde de voia și placul naratorului, medicul eng......more

Will be top contender for novel of the year for me. Or, err... anti-novel? It is intelligent literary analysis at its most intimate, at its most arresting and brilliant; this may be one of the best literary dissertations of all time. & that is, well, bizarre; the last time I had declared this so rec......more

Geoffrey Braithwaite, a doctor with three children, takes a vacation to Rouen in France to pay homage to his literary hero, Gustave Flaubert, most famously known for his novel Madame Bovary. On this pilgrimage, Dr. Braithwaite is stimulated to think of the many arguments and critiques of his hero an......more