This re-imagining of "Madame Bovary"'s ending by Julian Barnes proved to be a comfort because of the opening preface:

"A hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, on October 1 1856, the first episode of Madame Bovary appeared in the Revue de Paris. The serialisation was a benign act of nepotism by one of the magazine's editors, Maxime Du Camp, towards an old friend of his from student days, Gustave Flaubert. This debut came at the late age of 35: Flaubert had put himself through a long and silent apprenticeship, working out his youthful romanticism, discovering a harder and more objective way of writing, and discarding - or at least, refusing to publish - almost everything he wrote. When his collected juvenilia finally appeared in 2001 (Oeuvres de Jeunesse, Pléiade edition), they were seen to take up almost as many pages as the subsequent novels of his maturity. Flaubert had always been wary of publication, and said that when it came to finally displaying himself, he would only do so "in full armour".

But there is always an entry-point for an unexpected knife: the first episode of Madame Bovary appeared with the author's name misspelt as "Faubert"."

Why you ask? Two reasons.

First, as I was ruminating in a conversation last night, in 1.5 years I will hit (the sell by date) 30 sans any literary fame (or for that matter any other kind of fame), which is what one of the "selves" claims to desire. So Flaubert's life provides me a convinient cover to delude myself with literary pretensions until I am 35. And if nothing happens even by then, I have Whitman lined up to provide further cover until I hit 39. Thus, even if I don't do a whit of writing till then, I will invoke Flaubert and fib by saying that I shall appear "in full armour" only. Second, that mis-spelling - "Faubert" - is comforting because it has already happened to me.