Flaubert’s Parrot

It is only now that Julian Barnes says he has reached the end of his career as a novelist that I have read one of his most famous books, "Flaubert’s Parrot" (1984). But in truth, Barnes has always started from the end: his recurring theme is the process of coming to terms with grief, the attempt to shed light on a blind spot in the past. Is "Flaubert’s Parrot" a novel? Perhaps only half so. It certainly possesses that typical Barnesian charm: the elegant, agile and terse prose, which mimics a whispered, tentative monologue; the surprising way of alternating scenes of everyday life with brief theoretical musings that recur, like musical variations, a few dozen pages later; the sense of the irreparability of fate, of characters, of time. After reading it, as usual, one feels a bit like diners rising from the table after an exquisite lunch that has, however, left them unsatisfied.

The retired English doctor, who cannot find the words to recount the fate of his deceased wife, defends himself and puts on a show by describing here his passion for Flaubert – that is, for the writer for whom all words now seemed compromised, and who therefore remained trapped until he suffocated within an ironic mimesis of a virtuoso parrot. As long as forty years ago, Barnes warned us of an exegetical affliction now evident to all those concerned with the relationship between art, history and politics: ‘The present looks upon a great figure of the past century and asks, Was he on our side? Was he on the side of the good guys?’ What a lack of self-confidence shines through in these questions: on the one hand, the present wishes to act as a father figure to the past, passing judgement on what is politically acceptable; and on the other, it wants to be flattered, to receive signs of approval and to feel encouraged to continue along the path it has taken.”

Julian Barnes

Einaudi, 230 pp., 12 euros