![]() ![]() ![]() Julian Barnes doesn’t write a biography… He researches Gustave Flaubert’s life… Therefore even the dreams that didn’t come to pass become a part of history… It makes me recall a holy relic of Jesus Christ’s prepuce… Throughout Christian history dozens of churches possessed this wondrous relic. When Gustave Flaubert was writing A Simple Heart the stuffed parrot served him as an inspiration… But actually there are two such parrots in two museums… Which one is authentic? Are both fake? The past can’t be resurrected… But it can be made up. ![]() The past often seems to behave like that piglet. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so? When I was a medical student some pranksters at an end-of-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. ![]() How can we know the past? Old articles are silent witnesses of the days gone… The old object in question is a green stuffed parrot… ![]()
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