Flaubert's Parrot

Flaubert's Parrot: Summary

In summary, Flaubert's Parrot is a postmodern novel by Julian Barnes that tells the story of a retired doctor named Geoffrey Braithwaite, who becomes obsessed with the life and work of Gustave Flaubert, a 19th-century French novelist. The novel explores themes such as the nature of art and literature, the relationship between fiction and reality, and the complexities of human identity. Through a series of vignettes and reflections, the novel offers a playful and provocative commentary on the nature of storytelling and the ways in which we construct meaning in our lives.

After his wife's death, retired doctor Geoffrey Braithwaite goes on a trip to the city of Rouen in northern France. As a fan of French novelist Gustave Flaubert, Geoffrey uses the trip to tour sites important to the writer's life and legacy.

On a visit to a Flaubert museum, Geoffrey views a stuffed parrot that the museum claims was on Flaubert's desk during the writing of Three Tales (1877) and inspired the character of Loulou. The following day he visits another museum that has a similar stuffed parrot. This parrot, the second museum claims, is the real parrot that served as Flaubert's inspiration during the writing of Three Tales.

Braithwaite decides to investigate each museum's claim and find out which is the actual stuffed parrot Flaubert used during the writing process. He begins by researching three sources on the writer. The first is a traditional biography that depicts Flaubert's life as a successful endeavor. The second is a biography that focuses on the traumatic events of the writer's life and portrays Flaubert as a tragic figure. The final source is Flaubert's journals.

As Braithwaite explores Flaubert's life and legacy, he finds it increasingly difficult to confirm one objective truth as the three sources often contradict and disagree. While trying to uncover the truth about a stuffed parrot, Braithwaite dives into literary criticism and is forced to re-evaluate the life and work of his favorite writer.

An American academic, Ed Winterton, contacts Braithwaite to share his research. He tells Geoffrey about a set of love letters he discovered that confirms Flaubert's illicit affair with a young woman named Juliet Herbert. However, in accordance with Flaubert's wishes, Winterton destroyed the letters to protect the writer's legacy.

Fig. 2 - The city of Rouen is Flaubert's hometown and the setting for the novel.

The quest to discover the truth reveals more about Braithwaite than it does about Flaubert. He admits that his wife, Ellen, committed suicide and carried out numerous affairs during their marriage. Racked by guilt and anger towards her, Geoffrey struggles to come to terms with her death and realizes his Flaubert obsession has become a coping mechanism. In his quest to discover the actual parrot, Geoffrey recognizes that people are complex, and their lives can not be defined as entirely good or bad.

Braithwaite contacts a French academic who informs him that the natural history museum in Flaubert's hometown had over fifty stuffed parrots during the period he wrote Three Tales. Flaubert had asked to borrow one, and there is no way to know which is the actual parrot used by Flaubert. Both of the stuffed parrots on display as "Flaubert's Parrot" have an equal chance of either being or not being the inspiration for the writer's work. In the end, Braithwaite reasons that the truth, in this case, ultimately does not matter.

Flaubert's Parrot: Characters

The most important characters in Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot are Geoffrey Braithwaite and Gustave Flaubert.

Geoffrey Braithwaite

The novel's narrator and protagonist is a retired English doctor who has recently lost his wife. During a trip to France, he becomes obsessed with discovering the true identity of Flaubert's Parrot. Geoffrey's quest is ultimately revealed as a coping mechanism to deal with his wife's complex legacy.

Geoffrey is presented as highly intelligent and focused as he investigates numerous historical and literary sources to uncover the truth. Although much of the novel is focused on Geoffrey's quest, the reader learns little about him until the book's closing chapters.

Fig. 3 - Geoffrey learns a valuable lesson about finding the true identity of Loulou.

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert is a real-life figure who produced some of the most influential novels of the 19th century. Although he does not appear as a character in the story, Flaubert is the most significant presence in the book. Having grown up the son of a successful surgeon, Flaubert was set to become a lawyer before he dropped out to pursue his passion for writing.

Flaubert is a profoundly pessimistic person who distrusts and dislikes other people. As Geoffrey researches the life of his favorite writer, he discovers a complex and often controversial personal life. Through this obsession, Geoffrey is able to realize that even the most talented people are multi-layered and nuanced.

Flaubert's Parrot: Themes

In Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes uses Geoffrey's obsession with a French novelist to explore the themes of subjectivism and truth.

Subjectivity and truth

When Geoffrey begins his quest to uncover the truth about Flaubert's stuffed parrot, he gathers a group of historical documents. Each source presents a different view of the facts and is impacted by the author's subjective opinion. As Geoffrey dives deeper into his quest, he begins to realize that all of the sources used in historical records and biographies are tainted by the personal nature of memory and opinion.

This subjectivity connects to the idea of truth. While traditionally, it was thought that one version of the truth exists, Geoffrey learns that discovering the truth about the past is actually impossible. Since historians and biographers draw from sources that depend on memory, it is impossible to build a single objective truth. Geoffrey also discovers that historians and biographers can choose to omit facts that do not reflect favorably on their subject. Each of the biographies Geoffrey uses comes to a different conclusion on Flaubert's life. Even Geoffrey himself is guilty of having an overly optimistic view of Flaubert as a person.

Ultimately, Barnes uses Geoffrey's journey to show that, like the stuffed parrots, there is no singular truth, just many versions of the same event and person, all of which contain truth and fiction. The novel itself is constructed from elements of both fact and fiction to show that the act of telling someone else's life story is partially creative and involves the writer's imagination and beliefs.

Flaubert's Parrot: Analysis

Flaubert's Parrot is a complex and multi-layered novel that blends fact and fiction, history and autobiography, and criticism and storytelling. The novel is characterized by its postmodern playfulness and self-reflexivity, as Barnes uses Braithwaite's obsession with Flaubert to explore questions about the nature of art and literature, the relationship between author and text, and the difficulties of knowing oneself and others.

With Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes uses creative techniques and styles to push the traditional boundaries of the novel. The book blends:

• Braithwaite's first-person narration
• fictional letters
• historical fact
• literary criticism

By combining these different writing styles, Barnes ignores the usual fiction conventions, like plot, in favor of an in-depth exploration of Flaubert's life and legacy. The novel also presents a sense of polyphony and fragmentation that mimics Braithwaite's fragmented sense of self.

Entire chapters of Flaubert's Parrot contain elements of non-fiction writing. One chapter is a chronology of significant events in Flaubert's life, listed as facts and dates without the presence of characters or dialogue. Barnes includes a section that deals with literary criticisms of Flaubert's works, then has a chapter defending the writer against his critics. While Geoffrey is the novel's protagonist, the reader learns much more about Flaubert's life and motivations.

Flaubert's Parrot: The Postmodern Novel

Flaubert's Parrot is a highly experimental novel that employs many techniques of postmodern literature.

Postmodern works often ignore plot or story in favor of a more in-depth character study. Most of the novel is in Braithwaite's first-person point of view. This allows the reader to see how dedicated and gripped Geoffrey has become in his quest for the truth. This quest takes precedence over Geoffrey's relationship with his wife and family. Ironically, Flaubert claims an author's personality and personal life should have little bearing on the reader's relationship to their work, yet Braithwaite can focus on little else.

Barnes employs many experimental techniques to highlight the limitations of the truth and writing. The novel switches between several styles, from biography to literary criticism and long sections where the narrator uses argumentative techniques. While traditional novels depend on a driving plot or action, Barnes fully immerses the reader in Geoffrey's obsession.

Flaubert's Parrot: Quotes

Julian Barnes uses Flaubert's Parrot to investigate the ideas of truth and memory. Here is a look at some of the book's most important quotes.

In Flaubert's Parrot, Barnes investigates the power of the written word. In the beginning, Geoffrey places great importance on Flaubert's writing and feels that written records can provide a fuller picture of a person's life because they are distant from the messiness of real life. Eventually, he learns about the limits of history and facts concerning the actual truth.

As Geoffrey dives deeper into Flaubert's life, he realizes that the truth is often subjective and tainted by the human fallacies of memory and bias. While historians and biographers can dive into more detail, they can never capture the absolute truth because there is no unifying objective truth.