Word: flaubert
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...Orgy, a highly original work of nonfiction, part literary testament and part critical study of Madame Bovary, the author confesses to carrying a torch for the novel's heroine, soon to be 130. Peru's Vargas Llosa belongs to a long line of Emma Bovary's professional admirers. Gustave Flaubert's scandalous character has vamped the imaginations and intellects of writers from Baudelaire to Woody Allen, whose l971 short story The Kugelmass Episode conjures a contemporary character who can transport himself to Yonville to play a role in Madame Bovary. "The mark of a classic," wrote Allen, "is that...
...make a Rambo," says Marcus, "it wouldn't be very convincing. Only Americans are arrogant, vulgar and moronic enough to make a fantasy like that credible. But I'll put our vulgar moronism versus their refined elitism any day. I'm not saying Chuck Berry is better than Flaubert. But I also don't want to live in a world where there's only one or the other...
...FLAUBERT'S PARROT, Julian Barnes...
Paradoxically, Flaubert's Parrot is an extraordinarily successful novel about failure, about the emptiness that remains in the scholarly grasp of anyone who tries to completely recapture the past. At one point, Braithwaite says in an aside: "I know this. Sometimes the past may be a greased pig; sometimes a bear in its den; and sometimes merely the flash of a parrot, two mocking eyes that spark at you from the forest." Braithwaite's--and the novel's--wisdom lies in his realization that the overgrown byways of literary history may not lead anywhere in particular, but the stroll itself...
...Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes...