Flaubert's Parrot

Geoffrey wonders what it is about people that makes them “want to know the worst” (117). Geoffrey loved his wife Ellen, for instance, but still “wanted to know the worst” (117) about her. She felt quite the opposite way. Geoffrey believes people are unwilling to believe anything bad about a writer whose work they enjoy. However, it is “impossible to know too much” (118) about a writer whose work they love.

Geoffrey suggests there are many offences against Flaubert with which he could be charged. Geoffrey lists and explores the individual accusations against the writer. While is it is said Flaubert hated humanity, Geoffrey argues that Flaubert liked individual humans and—if indeed Flaubert did hate humanity—was he wrong to do so? There are charges that Flaubert hated democracy. Geoffrey dismisses these, noting that Flaubert preferred a certain obscure system of governance. Democracy, to Flaubert, was “merely a stage in the history of government” (120). Flaubert has been accused of hating progress, to which Geoffrey cites the 20th century, and of not being “interested enough in politics” (120). On the latter charge, Geoffrey notes that literature includes politics “and not vice versa” (120). He argues that being more interested in politics did not make Du Camp a better writer than Flaubert.