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Flaubert's Parrot

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.


Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Flaubert's Parrot deals with Flaubert, parrots, bears and railways; with our sense of the past and our sense of abroad; with France and England, life and art, sex and death, George Sand and Louise Colet, aesthetics and redcurrant jam; and with its enigmatic narrator, a retired English doctor, whose life and secrets are slowly revealed.

A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert's Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality.


© Julian Barnes 1984 (P) Penguin Audio 2010

 Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature Fiction

Critic reviews

Barnes manages to be erudite but extremely funny too… You never know what Barnes is going to do next and I admire that.’
Delightful and enriching... A book to revel in
A gem: an unashamed literary novel that is also unashamed to be readable, and broadly entertaining. Bravo!
Endless food for thought, beautifully written... A tour de force
Unputdownable... A mesmeric original
A wry and graceful book... Unfailingly sharp and often very funny
A dazzling entertainer
Delightful and enriching... A book to revel in!
Julian Barnes' wry and graceful book, part novel, part stealthy literary criticism, traces the marks Flaubert made on a forgetting world. The writing is unfailingly sharp and often very funny, and among the best prose I have read in years
A delight... Handsomely the best novel published in England in 1984
All stars
Most relevant

Would you try another book written by Julian Barnes or narrated by Julian Barnes?

I love julian Barnes-- so effortless in his writing and narration

What will your next listen be?

England,England

Which scene did you most enjoy?

most of what i heard

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Flaubert's Parrot?

If i was the editor i would have redone this entire production as the sound levels of this recording are faulty especially from chapter 3 onwards

Any additional comments?

this audiobook is faulty very poor sound quality

Who's a pretty polly

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