If we were asked in a bookstore what the best title is to start reading Julian Barnes, we would undoubtedly answer Flaubert's Parrot. Although Barnes is an author who has grown literarily over the years, this, his third novel, already contains the most distinctive elements of his style. The protagonist, a widowed doctor named Geoffrey Braithwaite, has read the complete works of his favorite author, Gustave Flaubert, as well as the bibliography written about him. All that remains, then, is for him to explore the world of the author of Madame Bovary and thus delve directly into his creative process, his love life... and the parrot that gives the novel its title. Braithwaite's journey is therefore also our journey into what has come to be called metaliterature, a tradition that includes Cervantes, Borges, and Italo Calvino. It is a literary approach that lends fiction that essayistic qua...read more
