As always a pleasure to read Julian Barnes. His books are different but have so much to say. He writes a 'biography' which is not an ordinary biography. He mixes the biographic element with some fiction and some literary critics. It does become very fulfilling and thought worthy to read his books. Lately, I have read two of his books:
The Noise of Time, a book about the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and
Flaubert's Parrot about Gustave Flaubert.
The Noise of Time
A wonderful book about a very talented man, who, all his life, had to fight to compose his own music. Living in the Soviet Union under Stalin, everyone was controlled, dissected and judged. He had his own times of not being a favourite, although he managed to compose the 'right' kind of music in order to be able to compose his own music.
The way in which Barnes approaches his subjects gives us a close up of the person. You are there with Shostakovich, can feel his every anxiety, fear and pleasure. It becomes very personal. Barnes do make a lot of research and on top of the facts he manages to put the story of his subjects alive. In this special case it shows how small people are in the face of a totalitarian regime. In spite of everything Shostakovich's music is still alive.
Flaubert's parrot
Geoffrey Braithwaite is an amateur expert on Gustave Flaubert in this story. He follows in the author's footsteps, especially trying to find out which one of the two stuffed parrots that actually was Flaubert's. This novel is different from
The Noise of Time. It tells the story of Flaubert from the outside, from a fan of his. Doing so, Barnes takes the opportunity to use a kind of literature critic on his subject. At the same time, Flauberts actions as he follows in his footsteps, coincide also with Braithwaite's.
The story is rather slow, and sometimes a little bit dull. That is to compare to
The Noise of Time where the story runs like a small waterfall, unable to stop you from reading. Here, it is easier to put the book down.
However, in the end of the book there are a few chapters which lifts the whole book. A talk the expert has with Louise Colet (Flaubert's mistress) and her point of view of their relationship. The writing becomes lighter as Louise is a more positive and open personality than Flaubert. She relates to the difference between men and women:
“Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.”
She was a strong woman in her own accord, married at the time she had the affair with Flaubert. Her salon in Paris was well visited and she lived a rather unconventional life, but still wanted to marry Flaubert. In the background was the ghost of
Madame Bovary.
"Do you know what Nabokov said about adultery in his lecture on Madame Bovary? He said it was 'a most conventional way to rise above the conventional'.”
Barnes uses "George Braithwaite's Lexikon" to reflect on life in general and the life of Flaubert in particular. The question is; can wet really know other people? There will always be a part that is not understood from the outside. Nevertheless, we are eager to try to understand and get to know the people we admire. Is Braithwaite, the expert, more wiser in the end? Maybe, as he can look at his own life in perspective.
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