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Paul Bryant's Reviews > Flaubert's Parrot
Flaubert's Parrot
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This was a giant gimmick of a novel and I thought the gimmick just worked so well. I understand some readers disagree. I'm not going to say that them's fightin' words and I'm going to have to ask you to step outside. I'm just annoyingly, irritatingly going to tell you that I thought this was like a gloved hand on the back of your neck which inches its way round to your windpipe. What happens is that a dull kind of guy mooches about France collecting biographical data about the sainted Flaubert, one of the handful of authors about Not One Bad Word Has Ever Been Spoken. As he muses and mumbles and huffs and puffs his way about France, gradually little fragments of his own life bob to the surface and are quickly shoved back down. He doesn't want to think about that stuff. he's over in France on this Flaubert tour to get away from all that. But back they come and gradually you get this feeling of dread creeping over the somewhat amusing observations about Flaubert and his life and times, and his gentle monologue becomes like trying to focus your eyes on something below the water and realising it might be something really...gruesome.
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Yes, a slight exaggeration.
You used to be less belligerent in those days. And look at the way you backed down in front of that pseudo-intellectual wimp, Manny.
You can't fight Manny. It's in the goodreads charter. Plus, I wouldn't want to anyway. His people are everywhere.
You can't fight Manny. It's in the goodreads charter.I hope someone has informed notgettingenough. I think she may have been left off the mailing list.
Ha ha. Manny doesn't need people everywhere, he's everywhere.
Omniscient, omnipresent, omnomnom.
I would like to deny, in the strongest possible terms, various scurrilous rumors that have recently been circulating here.a) I am not God.
b) If I am, I never slept with Mary Magdalene.
Okay, okay, I see where it comes from. Jewish, beard, interested in cosmology. But none of it's true.
Manny, I know of no Mensch more God-like than you. Except Paul.
But you are clearly divine and Paul is merely, well you know what they say, Paul the Preacher, Paul the Poet, Fearless Fighter for the Truth, Mystic, Pioneer, and Prophet.
Which, having refuted your first assertion, leaves your second assertion to be addressed.
And we all know that the rumourmongers are not concerned with what you did when you and Mary slept together.
They and we want to know how you spent your waking hours, if not minutes, together.
So pray tell, our Bearded Old Testament Bard and fearless, peerless Cosmonaut, how well and truly did you make Mary?
And what did she make of you?
O Manny, who art in goodreads,hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on this website as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily review
And forgive us our typos,
as we forgive those who write insulting remarks in the comments threads.
And lead us not into plagiarism,
but deliver us from Dan Brown.
For thine is the top spot on the most popular reviewers list, apart from Karen, who is the Holy Ghost, the votes and the glory.
For ever and ever. Amen
Oh, don't grovel! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling. And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy". It's like those miserable Psalms - they're so depressing. Now knock it off!
Paul the preacher, Paul the poet,Fearless fighter for the truth,
Mystic, pioneer, and prophet,
Builder of the GoodReads' youth;
Foremost of Manny's pupils,
Pharisee of Left Wing fame,
Great apostle of the Worthwhile,
We as Viriles bless thy name.
Loyal hue, yet born a Slow Man,
Citizen, yet slave to Zeitgeist,
Wealth, position, kindred, freedom,
To the Horde were sacrificed.
Still to-day we need thy Teaching,
Stern yet loving, hard yet true:
Only those who share his Passion
Can their lives in Bed renew.
Paul the fiery, Paul the saintly,
Worship with us at thy Feast;
May our Love be enticed and strengthened,
And our Faith through thee increased;
Till, when Faith no more is needed,
There where Faith and Sight are one,
Our Devon Camper Van shall go farther
Than the Pulpit high, on the Horizon.
OK, I have to go to bed now, can you two stop upping the anti-Christ.
oh you guys...where's the barf bag...
Velvetink wrote: "oh you guys...where's the barf bag..."I'm feeling a little queasy myself. Though I should also point out that you may be missing the implied reference to comment #36 in this review.
Manny wrote: "Velvetink wrote: "oh you guys...where's the barf bag..."I'm feeling a little queasy myself. Though I should also point out that you may be missing the implied reference to comment #36 in this rev..."
:)Oh Manny I got that! but really I thought you were like umm one of the Pineapples from the Dawn of Time
really I thought you were like umm one of the Pineapples from the Dawn of TimeErr... is that bad? I've never heard of them before, but they seem kind of cute.
If you just mean that I resemble a Primeval Pineapple more closely than I resemble God, I'm totally cool with that. It seems like a safer choice all round.
Methinks there's an iconoclast amongst my icons. Or is it Mary? Mary Mary...
Manny wrote: "really I thought you were like umm one of the Pineapples from the Dawn of TimeErr... is that bad? I've never heard of them before, but they seem kind of cute.
If you just mean that I resemble a..."
I like the name. They were a punk band from Brisbane in the 80's - they had a tune called Charlie that was decent (about Manson). One of the members dressed up sometimes in a monks outfit that reminded me of you. I thought Ian might have known them - from his neck of the woods...Anyhow when I google God an old guy with long straggly white hair and beard appears, that's not you.
I feel you have cult status on GR and the idea of a Pineapple from the dawn of time suits. The God thing's a delusion.
I do know those guys, one of them sort of personally and in cyberspace, more from previous incarnations. If NME can have Godlike geniuses, so can we.
I knew the bass player Rod McLeod.They got together for the Pig City gig and I saw them there again.
Also just realised that a whole lot of other well-known Brisband people that I know have been in the band as well.
Their heyday was a period when a lot of the venues had closed down and I had reverted to film and theatre for my entertainment.
Have no idea how I came across this book, but enjoyed it quite a bit. Glad you liked it too Paul.
Well, dunno about that. People can be quite dismissive of ³§²¹±ô²¹³¾³¾²úô (sword-and-sandals crap), not to mention Bouvard et Pécuchet (tedious characters, nothing happens, joke gets tired quickly, unfinished). And Henry James, no less, was startlingly mean about L'Education Sentimentale.