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 Ford Other Pickups 1935 Ford truck pickup vintage dump truck real barn find rat rod 34 36 37 $2,164.87 (15 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 9h 11m Buy It Now for only: $7,999.00 |
 Other Makes 1934 Hupmobile Rare barn find In excellent condition REDUCED TO SELL $9,995.00 Time Remaining: 3d 2h 31m Buy It Now for only: $9,995.00 |
 Ford Mustang 1967 MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE BARN FIND RARE FROST TURQUOIS V 8 MUSTANG 1966 1968 $610.00 (14 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 10h 12m |
 Ford 1937 FORD PANEL CLEAN SOLID BARN FIND PROJECT $3,383.00 (13 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 10h 39m |
 Other Makes ALPINE TRUE BARN FIND 1968 SUNBEAM ALPINE NOT A TIGER BUT COULD BE $2,000.00 (20 Bids) Time Remaining: 21h 47m |
 Chevrolet Camaro R S S S 1967 R S S S CAMARO PROJECT FRESH BARN FIND 12 BOLT POSI LOTS OF OPTIONS Z28 $3,650.05 (9 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 9h 32m |
 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe 1958 CHEVROLET IMPALA SPORT COUPE 348 Rare Barn Find Original Survivor $6,100.00 (29 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 10h 57m |
 Chevrolet Impala 1958 Chevrolet Impala California Car 283 V8 powerglide trans Barn Find $21,999.00 Time Remaining: 18d 10h 54m Buy It Now for only: $21,999.00 |
 Cadillac Fleetwood Delegance 1984 Cadillac Fleetwood Broughan Delegance Barn Find $7,100.00 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 7h 33m |
 Chevrolet Other Pickups All original 1949 Chevy pick up truck Arizona barn find $8,600.00 (16 Bids) Time Remaining: 3d 11h 12m |
 Other Makes Graham Hollywood 109 1941 graham hollywood Hot Rod rat rod project car parts barn find 1940 classic $3,951.00 (21 Bids) Time Remaining: 3d 3h 37m |
 Chevrolet Camaro Barn Find 1969 Camaro X11 V8 w AC Complete Motor runs Rat Rod Vintage Muscle $4,595.45 (28 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 9h 12m |
 Ford Other Pickups 1941 ford pickup barn find Street Rod rat rod 1936 37 38 39 40 42 43 44 $4,925.00 (15 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 6h 13m |
 Ford Mustang MUSTANG 1969 MUSTANG CONVERTIBLE 302CI AUTO BARN FIND $19,500.00 Time Remaining: 1d 2h 42m Buy It Now for only: $19,500.00 |
 Chevrolet half ton 1939 Chevrolet Pickup Barn Find $6,700.00 (22 Bids) Time Remaining: 3d 11h 25m |
 Other Makes MODEL 20 1909 Hupmobile Model 20 Roadster Barn Find 100 Complete $16,600.00 (21 Bids) Time Remaining: 6h 14m |
 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe True barn find Impala Caprice Unmolested never restored $5,400.00 (17 Bids) Time Remaining: 11h 33m |
 Ford 1932 Ford RoadsterREAL HENRY STEEL 32 BARN FIND1950s Hot Rodflat blackCOOL $19,099.99 (14 Bids) Time Remaining: 8h 36m |
 Ford Mustang 1965 Ford Mustang Barn Find $1,625.00 (9 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 7h 29m Buy It Now for only: $3,800.00 |
 Chevrolet Bel Air 150 210 210 1953 Chevy 210 2 Door Sedan All Original Survivor Rat Rod Barn Find Hot Rod $7,600.00 Time Remaining: 1d 6h 45m Buy It Now for only: $7,600.00 |
 Other Makes 1916 maxwell Briscoe Touring 25 Barn find Lower reserve $6,100.00 (20 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 3m |
 Ford 48 Deluxe 1935 FORD MODEL 48 HUMPBACK BARN FIND RUNS ORIGINAL UN RESTORED $3,450.00 (11 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 6h 56m Buy It Now for only: $8,999.99 |
 Chevrolet Bel Air 150 210 BARN FIND RARE 1950 CHEVY BEL AIR 2 Door Hardtop DELUXE STRAIGHT HOTROD BODY CLEAN $760.00 (6 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 5h 31m |
 Pontiac GTO REAL 1966 PONTIAC GTO TRIPOWER CONVERTIBLE 4 SPEED MUNCIE NICE BARN FIND PROJECT $19,100.00 (20 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 10h 42m Buy It Now for only: $28,000.00 |
 Ford 32 ROADSTER 32 ROADSTER 32 FORD ROADSTER HOT ROD HI BOY SBC GREAT DRIVER BARN FIND $2,550.00 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 6d 9h 21m |
 Chevrolet 1973 Chevrolet C10 Truck ALL ORIGINAL 2 wheel drive survivor barn find $18,000.00 Time Remaining: 19d 10h 22m Buy It Now for only: $18,000.00 |
 Nash Rambler American 1959 Nash Rambler American Barn Find $2,800.00 (31 Bids) Time Remaining: 3d 39m |
 GMC 100 1955 GMC Stepside 100 Factory V8 Big window original paint barn find $2,125.00 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 4h 36m Buy It Now for only: $9,500.00 |
 Pontiac Le Mans 1967 Pontiac Le mansOwned since 1970unrestoredbarn findbabiedgaraged $10,001.00 (17 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 2h 53m |
 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight 1955 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight Barn Find $5,650.00 (12 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 11h 12m Buy It Now for only: $11,250.00 |
 Triumph Spitfire 1972 Triumph Spitfire Project Car Barn Find $405.00 (3 Bids) Time Remaining: 6d 6h 22m |
 Jaguar 1936 Jaguar SS 25 Litre 4 Door Saloon BARN FIND ONE OF A KIND CLASSIC JAG $22,500.00 Time Remaining: 20d 22h 56m Buy It Now for only: $22,500.00 |
 Chevrolet Nova Nova 1978 Nova 2 door one owner barn find $1,025.00 (26 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 6h 25m Buy It Now for only: $4,995.00 |
 Ford Model T Other Makes Ford Model T Barn Find Rat Rod Hotrod Complete Easy Restoration Cool $3,000.00 Time Remaining: 6d 7h 48m Buy It Now for only: $3,500.00 |
 Jaguar MK VII 1952 JAGUAR MARK VII MK SALOON NEARLY COMPLETE BARN FIND $1,000.00 Time Remaining: 2d 11h 46m Buy It Now for only: $3,000.00 |
 Packard PATRICIAN TOURING 1955 PACKARD PATRICIAN BARN FIND 35K MILES 99 COMPLETE ORIGINAL 69 PHOTOS $1,374.00 (14 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 10h 1m |
 Dodge Challenger challenger BARN FIND1972 Dodge Challenger small block automatic 8 3 4 rear $1,025.00 (12 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 11h 25m |
 Cadillac MM AMBULANCE 1958 CADILLAC MM MILLER METERO AMBULANCE GHOST BUSTERS 59 BARN FIND PROJECT CAR $6,350.00 Time Remaining: 12d 3h 9m Buy It Now for only: $6,350.00 |
 Dodge Challenger Barn FInd 1971 Dodge Hemi Challenger ONE of 71 made Mr Norm Car $100,400.00 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 11h 12m |
 Ford Thunderbird Hardtop 1965 Ford Thunderbird 390 C6 Many Options Barn Find Laser Straight Body New Top $1,046.21 (7 Bids) Time Remaining: 1d 3h 21m Buy It Now for only: $2,000.00 |
 Willys 1948 WILLYS JEEPSTER CONVERTIBLE BARN FIND VINTAGE HOT ROD RAT ROD $3,500.00 Time Remaining: 2d 1h 38m |
 Chrysler 300 Series 1958 CHRYSLER 300D RARE PROJECT HEMI 392 CALIFORNIA CAR LOW MILES BARN FIND $19,200.00 (19 Bids) Time Remaining: 4d 1h 27m |
 Chevrolet C 10 1967 Chevrolet C10 True Barn Find Unmolested Truck $2,550.00 (13 Bids) Time Remaining: 4h 42m |
 Pontiac Firebird 400 1969 FIREBIRD CAROUSEL RED PARCHMENT VINYL TOP 400 WITH A C 90K MI BARN FIND $9,850.00 Time Remaining: 14d 1h 11m Buy It Now for only: $9,850.00 |
 AMC 1970 AMC JAVELIN Donohou FACTORY 4 SPEED BARN FIND $2,525.00 Time Remaining: 4d 10h 43m Buy It Now for only: $2,550.00 |
 Ford Model A SPORTS COUPE FORD BARN FIND 1929 SPORTS COUPE RESTORE OR HOT ROD WOW WOW $5,100.00 (52 Bids) Time Remaining: 1h 31m |
 Ford V8 1934 Ford Deluxe 4 Door Sedan BARN FIND $5,555.55 (12 Bids) Time Remaining: 2d 4h 39m Buy It Now for only: $13,500.00 |
 Oldsmobile Eighty Eight 1956 Oldsmobile Sedan Eighty Eight 88 Rocket Engine Solid Car Barn Find ave $515.00 (4 Bids) Time Remaining: 5d 4h 42m |
 Ford Model T sedan a model t ford barn find original rare vintage rat restore other old sedan parts $3,750.00 Time Remaining: 2d 8h 18m Buy It Now for only: $3,995.00 |
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A Review of Flaubertâs Parrot by Julian Barnes
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes is a book I have had queuing up to read for some time. I don’t know why I have never got round to reading it. Perhaps it’s because of the overtly “literary†tag that was attached to it when it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. I am not against “literary†fiction. Far from it: indeed I aspire to write it, after a fashion. My avoidance of Flaubert’s Parrot was never conscious, but was probably a result of thinking that I knew what to expect – word play, experimentation with form, biography, dissection of the writer’s role, relationship between art and life, in fact all the mundane things that your average novelist has for breakfast. The less than average ones, by the way, always have corn flakes. It is their convention. Having just finished the book, I can declare that I found all I expected and much, much, much more.
Julian Barnes has his character, a doctor called Geoffrey Braithwaite, consider various literary ideas. One, which only really applies to writing prose fiction, is the relation between form and content. Most novels, certainly most pulp fiction, never address this, since the authors usually present apparently literal material merely literally or, perhaps even more commonly, fantastical material literally. Generally within some recognisable genre, these offerings tend to preoccupy themselves with simple narration. In effect, most novels are presented in pictorial form, like a comic strip running a frame at a time through the author’s mind, with only minimally extended commentary. Their presentation is invariably linear, with the writer’s aim to spoon-feed the reader with bite-sized chinks of easily digestible plot in a context aimed at simplifying the experience.
Flaubert’s Parrot is the polar opposite of this. The only plot is Flaubert’s life, both physical and intellectual, alongside that of his enthusiastic intended biographer, the doctor, Geoffrey. Geoffrey’s research, notes, speculations and musings provide the book’s utterly original form. Since the adultery of Flaubert’s fictional Madam Bovary provided the scandal that created his fame, evidence of his attitudes towards women and sex in his own life provides a fascinating backdrop against which we can assess the author’s motives and desires. The death and revealed adultery of the narrator’s own wife provides motive for his obsession with Flaubert and his femme fatale, and, quite unexpectedly, this culminates in a truly moving moment of emotional empathy that the author, Barnes, not Flaubert, not the narrator, evokes in his reader.
This emotional intensity developed as a real surprise towards the end of the book. Through it, Julian Barnes achieves a perfect marriage of form and content, the finest I have ever encountered. No matter how much we analyse the creative process, it is our emotional lives that provide the stuff of art. The writer moulds it, contextualises it, formalises it, but eventually the rawness of the experience, the chasm of bereavement, the hollow of betrayal, the consonance of love that makes us laugh or weep as we read, and Julian Barnes provokes both responses in this beautiful book.
There are some stunning moments of virtuosity. There are, for instance, three concatenated chronologies of Flaubert’s life – an encyclopedia of success, a record of failure and a personal diary. This is a masterstroke, effectively answering the rhetorical question of why we remain interested in the author, even when we consider a work as iconic as Madame Bovary. The narrator’s dissection of “correctness†in fiction is utterly poignant, especially so when we cannot even agree on the detail of reality. And so what if the writer decides to change things around? Isn’t it supposed to be fiction?
But the enduring memory of Flaubert’s Parrot is that masterstroke of marrying motives via Falubert’s real life, whatever that was, the imagined world of his femme fatale and the apparently real life of Geoffrey Braithwaite, with its own experience of adultery and bereavement. And then, of course, we have Geoffrey’s obsession with Flaubert, through which we reflect on the ideas of the self and its selfishness. Stunningly beautiful.
And the parrot? Probably a fake. Or perhaps just faked. Or then again….
About the Author
Philip Spires
Author of Mission, an African novel set in Kenya
http://www.philipspires.co.uk
I was born in Wakefield, west Yorkshire in the United Kingdom and grew up in Sharlston, then a mining village. After London University I lived in Kenya. Then I taught in London before moving to Brunei and then the UAE. Since 2003, I have lived in Spain, completing a PhD and my first published novel, Mission.