Notes on Flaubert's Parrot

Questions worth considering:
1. Isn't all that's left for any writer, "the paper", the ideas, the metaphors? Do the words left behind mean anything or is it just our interpretations of the words? Some books generate richer interpretation while others generate almost nothing. I found Flaubert's "Sentimental Education" to not generate much rich interpretation of the text itself at all but what it did generate were questions about literature itself . . . So there is a richness that projects inward at the story itself (Jane Austen for example), and then a richness that projects outwards (Italio Calvino), and then some books do both (Faulkner?). There is also an additional element in a novel, that to which we can "relate" our own experiences but this seems to be the weakest link, as if somehow who the reader is should bring judgement on the book itself.

1. We can interpret what happens in the text and find richness there (this seems to be largely the purpose of the 18th and 19th century novel) (this book really shows Elizabeth's experience and how she grows and develops)
2. We can use the novel as a lens to interpret the world outside the novel and the "Novel" itself (Tolstoy even, what Nabokov argues against). This book really shows how 19th century middle class life was for women; we can see how we participate in the creation of the text in Borges
3. We can use the novel as a lens to our individual lives (gratifying perhaps but not a commentary on the novel itself). I can see myself in the main character
4. We can use the novel as a lens to human experiences itself (but would this just fall under #2 above?). Women often respond in that way to that experience and this shows how they feel.
5. We can experience the novel as a movement itself (like music) where the words themselves are worth reading and the subject doesn't really matter. 

(Is it a measure of Julian Barnes' skill that simply reading the first page has generated all these thoughts or is it just indicative of my current mental state?)

2. Barnes asks: why does the writing make us chase the writer?  Adding that Flaubert wanted the books to be enough on their own. What are we really trying to get insight into through knowing the author?

3. Isn't the most reliable form of pleasure, anticipation? p. 13

4. Greased piglet is history, we can't ever catch it and look like fools doing so (hence the stupidity of chasing after the author's past as a key to the present)

5. To what use is seeing the author in his/her novel? Why do we bother?

6. What is the nature of language?

7. When is a reader wrong?

8. Draws into question the whole notion of truth and memory. What if 80% of what we "remember" is not accurate? How do we know which 80% or even 50%, then isn't it all garbage if we can't tell the difference? And why so attached to memory and biography as if they are ways to "know" someone or to know ourselves? What would it mean if we were mostly inaccurate? Who would we be? Is there some reason we need to think we are the person we remember we are? Similarly, do we "need" our biographies to be "real"? What are we looking for? Permanence? Order? Narrator states toward the end of the book that "pleasure is found first in anticipation and later in memory" (p. 169). So is one purpose of memory to reconfigure the past to bring us pleasure?
9. Barnes (or the narrator anyway) states that the difference between people are those who want to know everything and those who don't. The search to know everything, the narrator argues, is a sign of love. It seems like a sign of paranoia or desperate control. . .
10. Do we like an author who writes a good book? Why should we associate any liking or not with a author and his/her works (an artist, a singer, etc)? What do these works of art tell us about their creator?
11. Flaubert thought almost everyone (everyone?) was stupid (Sand said he provides desolation and his reply was he could only write what he saw . . . ,p. 136). This view of humanity underlies his works and makes them unappealing to me (they leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't really like reading that kind of book . . . even if it is great literature . . ., putting aside for the moment the question of what makes anything great literature). This seems to be a reader issue and not a writer issue.  Some readers like books that have characters reeking with stupidity peopling them. Or is this a failure of Flaubert to see the world as richer and with more depth? So, in some real way, who the writer is is part of the books but not in the way of their actions or their behaviors. . .we cannot "objectively" create anything so the subjective steals in no matter what.
12. Do most people or most literature people have to "like" a book for it to be great? Is it in fact the opposite, few people like great literature because it's difficult, challenging?
13. Why do I like Henry James better? Because James (and Ford Maddox Ford and Conrad) tried to describe more nuanced characters that weren't so obviously boorish and stupid but real humans struggling with real human issues. Sure Conrad exaggerates but his exaggerations are humble. Flaubert's are not. Flaubert seems to be making fun of everyone not kindly. He isn't laughing with the people, it seems, but at them.
14. Narrator states that Flaubert teaches "the pre-eminence of Truth, Beauty, Feeling and Style" (p. 134). Does not seem to be the case at all . . .Study his private life? Which version!
15. Narrator states, "to be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness though if stupidity is lacking the others are useless" (p. 166)
16. Is it splendid or stupid to take life seriously?
17. "Books are where things are explained to you. Life is where they aren't", p. 168