I don't think it's so much that I don't like this book itself, I think it's more I don't like what the book leaves you with; nothing, questions. The amount of questions I have gained from the spontinuity, randomness, and depth of this story/novel/piece of literature has left me frustrated. They all tie together and what could seem to possibly be the answer feels within my grasp but honestly I dont know what my final question is.
Chapter 14 about the examination leaves me with even more questions but also seems to sum up the book in what is really important. Again, Barnes visits the idea of critics but the ideas seemed concluded, finally stating why Flaubert himself hated critics. Things that are left unfinished in this chapter seem correct in their unfinished ways, like they really dont matter that much. These unfinished ideas and notions seem concluded by the restated fact of Flaubert's suicide. Through out the entire book there was a sort of mystery that was building in the questions and the ideas that were formed, but by the end it seems like it was supposed to be that way, unfinished, still searching, because really we (or Barnes) will never know the whole truth.
2 comments:
Right, instead of definitive answers, we get ever more nuanced questions. This seems to be a hallmark of postmodernism. But is this so bad? Sometimes (as in your own upcoming essay, perhaps) it is enough simply to make your reader more fully aware of what is at stake in an issue, rather than try and tie things up neatly.
I agree with the questions being answered but also leaving you with an unknown final question. Why write this book? I kind of like the fact that Barnes makes us think deeper, not necessarily into what he is trying to say but into why he says these things. Barnes made his novel not to give you a plot and then a summary, he made this book to create a maze of questions for us to try to figure out.
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