Parroting On

Difficult as it may be to believe, I'm still moving on with Anna Karenina - and enjoying every paragraph. Just reached the bit where Anna & Vronsky living abroad, in sin, as they say, meet the artist chap who paints her. Some of the greatest pages on the nature of art ever written, and I'd completely forgot they were in there. What a blessing it is to have such a lousy memory - now I can enjoy those sections all over again.

The reason reading the greatest novel ever written (well, maybe, maybe not: what about Ulysses?) is taking me so long this time round (apart from the facts I just don't want to rush, and I'm incredibly busy) is that I keep jumping off into other things. Last week I reread Flaubert's Parrot, partly because I'll be teaching La Bovary soon, and partly because it's just so good and, guess what? Yes, it was even better second time round. Why didn't it win the Booker? (Can't remember what did that year, but it must have been something outstanding.) Mind you, perhaps the jury decided it wasn't really a novel - more a sort of critical thesis on steroids. And with heart. Which means it can't really be a critical thesis at all. Hah.

Barnes and Flaubert on literary critics are both highly entertaining, by the way.