Not a fraud

In Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes pays homage to a beloved writer’s stoicism, wit, frivolity. In reading it decades ago, I discovered a love letter conveyed in multiple genres, as if one could not possibly be sufficient. I may never have re-read had it not arrived unexpectedly, a birthday gift with a note in blue-lined yellow paper - and a stray bookmark. This time, I eavesdropped on worship. The narrator, a 60’ish widower and doctor, finds in Gustave Flaubert’s life a not-bounded-by-time kinship. As the devotee kneels to pray and the treasure-hunter kneels down to open a hidden drawer, the narrator gathers Flaubert.