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Parrot fashion: the cover of Barnes' book
The inaugural book under discussion in the Guardian Book Club is Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes' dextrous, absorbing examination of Flaubert's influence on the world. In his first two columns, John Mullan has explored the influence of literary criticism on the novel and the role of the narrator - but these, of course, are just his opinions. Do you agree with his view that the novel "might be seen as a fictional pretext for its author's own literary criticism"? Or that Barnes' use of a first person narrator "licenses the passages of polemic against those who have wilfully misunderstood Flaubert"? Or has he missed the point entirely? This is your space to voice your opinions on the novel, and we will be listening - a selection of your posts will appear in the Guardian Review in the final column on the novel, in two weeks' time.