A retired English doctor obsessively researches Gustave Flaubert's life, turning literary biography into a meditation on art, truth, and grief.
Books mentioned in Flaubert's Parrot (26)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: “Juliet Herbert's translation of Madame Bovary, which the novelist oversaw, and which he proclaimed 'a masterpiece'.”
Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert: “1862 Publication of Salammbô. Succès fou. Sainte-Beuve writes to Matthew Arnold: 'Salammbô is our great event!'”
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert: “Besides, I remember the end of L'Education sentimentale. Frédéric and his companion Deslauriers are looking back over their lives.”
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert: “Flaubert begins work on Bouvard et Pécuchet... He leaves Bouvard et Pécuchet unfinished.”
A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert: “placed on his work-table during the writing of Un cœur simple, where it is called Loulou, the parrot of Félicité.”
Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert: “1877 Publication of Trois Contes. A critical and popular success: for the first time Flaubert receives a favourable review.”
Hérodias by Gustave Flaubert: “Note that in Hérodias, Flaubert's last completed work, the imprisoned prophet Iaokanann...”
The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert: “1874 Publication of La Tentation de saint Antoine. Despite its strangeness, a gratifying commercial success.”
Novembre by Gustave Flaubert: “He sent me his work. He sent me 'Novembre'. It was weak and mediocre.”
Dictionary of Received Ideas by Gustave Flaubert: “Did we live up to our entries in his Dictionnaire des idées reçues... There's nothing under X in Flaubert's own Dictionary.”
The Candidate by Gustave Flaubert: “1874 Flaubert makes his theatrical début with Le Candidat. It is a complete flop; actors leave the stage with tears in their eyes.”
Intimate Notebook by Gustave Flaubert: “'A book of poetry is preferable to a railway.' Intimate Notebook, 1840.”
Candide by Voltaire: “the translation referred to in a letter of 1844: 'I have read Candide twenty times.'”
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: “the following works: Pantagruel, Jude the Obscure, Baudelaire's poems, all Kafka, The Snows of Kilimanjaro – and Madame Bovary.”
Pantagruel by François Rabelais: “the following works: Pantagruel, Jude the Obscure, Baudelaire's poems, all Kafka, The Snows of Kilimanjaro – and Madame Bovary.”
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway: “the following works: Pantagruel, Jude the Obscure, Baudelaire's poems, all Kafka, The Snows of Kilimanjaro – and Madame Bovary.”
Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost: “a tenacious local legend maintained that Abbé Prévost wrote Manon Lescaut there.”
Quentin Durward by Walter Scott: “So the Bishop of Liège dies fifteen years before he should: does this invalidate Quentin Durward?”
Lord of the Flies by William Golding: “The first was a remarkable discovery about Lord of the Flies. In the famous scene where Piggy's spectacles are used for the rediscovery of fire, William Golding got his optics wrong.”
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson: “The second example concerned 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. 'Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred.'”
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: “Nabokov was wrong – rather surprising, this – about the phonetics of the name Lolita.”
Literary Reminiscences by Ivan Turgenev: “I had reached a little more quickly than he for the same copy of Turgenev's Literary Reminiscences.”
La Paysanne by Louise Colet: “Louise Colet, striving for modernity in her poem 'La Paysanne', allowed Jean... to notice the running smoke of a train.”
The Parson, Pen and Pencil by G. M. Musgrave: “I cite G. M. Musgrave... author of The Parson, Pen and Pencil, or, Reminiscences and Illustrations of an Excursion to Paris, Tours, and Rouen.”
A Ramble Through Normandy by G. M. Musgrave: “and of A Ramble Through Normandy, or, Scenes, Characters and Incidents in a Sketching Excursion Through Calvados (David Bogue, London, 1855).”