GUSTAVE

Flaubert's Parrot is a lot easier to digest than Flaubert's actual book. I liked the chronology chapter, especially the III one. All of Flaubert's metaphors and descriptions are comical and interesting. The cigar and book ones were two of my favorites.
When I started to read the first chronology, is was a little confused and thrown off. Why were there these dates and descriptions of Flaubert's life? The farther I got into the chronology, the more I got into the flow. The style kind of released in my brain, I could read and understand it easily. I wasn't sure where it was headed, but I continued. Looking back, I think Barnes is just trying to give us some background of Flaubert. The main character, Geoffry, already knows all of this about Flaubert, so I think that Barnes is just trying to bring us up to speed with the main character. If we didn't know Flaubert, we would be completely lost by now.
Flaubert's actual life is sickly joyful as his book was. He is an epileptic whose mom try so hard to care for him that she dies before he does. He is a traveler that loves sleeping with women only to catch syphilis. All of his friends die and most of Flaubert's characters die. Flaubert seems like a character in one of his own books, possibly because he is trying to base them on what he knows or simply does so unconsciously. I like reading about Flaubert, than actually struggling through his works.