"Flaubert's Parrot" by Julian Barnes

Before reading this book, all I knew of Flaubert was Mme Bovary and all I knew of Julian Barnes was Arthur & George, although I do have a copy of The Sense of an Ending that I fully intend to read someday. Even considering my minimal knowledge, Flaubert's Parrot was kind of a shock to my system. 

This was not a story to sink into. Instead, it was a weirder but somehow deeper and more clever biography than any I’ve ever read. The writing reminded me of Milan Kundera (although all I know of Kundera is The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and I appreciated the dry, wry humor.

In this book, somehow Barnes gathers up everything that can be known about Gustave Flaubert and forms it into a sort of novel-like expression. It's the farthest thing from your typical encyclopedic biography, and yet I feel like I came away with a better sense of who Flaubert was as a real human than I could have otherwise.