Flaubert’s Parrot (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Julian Barnes
- First Published: 1984
- Type of Work: Critical novel
- Time of Work: The early 1980’s
- Setting: France and England
- Principal Characters: Gustave Flaubert, Louise Colet, Maxime Du Camp, Louis Bouilhet, Alfred le Poittevin, Geoffrey Braithwaite, Ellen Braithwaite
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, France or French people, Literature, Marriage, Writing, 1980’s, Novelists, England or English people, Truth, Birds, Biography
- Locales: France, England
The Novel
This is a tantalizingly elusive work of fiction, exhibiting elements of biography, autobiography, literary monograph, parody, novel, and anthology of maxims and epigrams. It is narrated by Dr. Geoffrey Braithwaite, a retired British general practitioner in his sixties, widowed from a wife whom he never understood, who becomes obsessed with seeking to understand the essential nature of Gustave Flaubert.
Braithwaite begins—and finally ends—his quest by attempting to identify the particular green stuffed Amazonian parrot which Flaubert borrowed for a model...
[The entire page is 2402 words long]
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