Alright...

Well my initial reaction to this book is... it's decently ok - surprisingly. As a fan of repetition, I like the way Barnes (or should I say Braithwaite?) uses the chronologies and different animal descriptions to help readers get a better understanding of Flaubert. By providing offbeat, not very "orthodox" ways to convey Flaubert's essence to readers, Barnes makes reading the biography of Gustave interesting-apparently the trademark of post-modernism. Although at first it seems to odd and wrong to include these changes of pace in literature, I've come to appreciate them for what they are. The thing about this book is not to compare it with others because it's not very comparable. By trying to analyze the similarities or differences that this book has with any other works we've read in class, it seems the negatives of Flaubert's Parrot shine through more than the ups.

One of my favorite things Barnes did in the first four chapters is the dog section in the The Flaubert Bestiary. The way Barnes (again, I guess Braithwaite) chooses to break down the different ways to reference Flaubert's connection to dogs is definitely appealing to me. I especially like the way he states at the end of each description, "what happened to the dog is not recorded", or something close to it. At the very end of the chapter, after explaining Flaubert's alternate version of Du Camp's description, Barnes writes, "what happens to the truth is not recorded." I really like the way this ties into what we learned about post-modernism and that omnipresent "indeterminate truth." Again, a big fan of repetition, this is what connects with me the most.