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British author Julian Barnes has titled his collection of essays about France "Something to Declare." Barnes does indeed have numerous things to declare about his "second country," and he does so with profound insight and biting intelligence. Fans of Barnes' acclaimed fiction will like the book, as will francophiles, but it also should appeal to anyone who has ever pursued an interest passionately.

Barnes opens with an examination of the work of historian Richard Cobb. Like Barnes, Cobb was an Englishman with an abiding love for France and an especially keen eye; he was also a prolific writer who didn't believe in the idea of History with a capital H. Barnes tells us that Cobb "preferred les petites gens [the little people] both in his life and in his writing: small tradespeople, working folk, servants, laundresses, wigmakers assistants, cardsharps, water-carriers, prostitutes, idlers, semi-criminals."

Knowing that the "truth" of history "lay in the detail," Cobb immersed himself so deeply in the life of his adopted country that he acquired a "second identity." He rejected the notion that history was composed of "theory, scheme . . . let alone models" and instead studied the lives of individuals. He compared himself to Maigret, the fictional French detective created by Georges Simenon.

In the chapter that focuses on the Tour de France, Barnes notes that riders have used drugs for a long time in order to compete in grueling races. Cyclists from an earlier time used "strychnine, cocaine, and morphine, though there were also folksier pick-me-ups, like bulls blood and the crushed testicles of wild animals."

Barnes explores this world of chemically induced performances without empty moralizing and without blanket acceptance, making a lucid argument for what is lost and what is gained when athletes make the choices they make.

Barnes' other essays focus on diverse topics. He tells the story of renowned cookbook writer Elizabeth David , who introduced such exotic ingredients as garlic and basil to the post-war English palate; the film-making careers of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut; and the early motor-car adventures of Edith Wharton and Henry James -- American writers who toured France. More than half the book, however, explores the life, loves, works and interpretations of 19th-century writer Gustave Flaubert.

Barnes has been criticized for this obsession with the author of "Madame Bovary." Fellow writer Kingsley Amis commented to a mutual friend that he wished Barnes "would shut up about Flaubert."

Barnes responds, "Fat chance." Flaubert, Barnes says, is "the writer's writer . . . the saint and martyr of literature . . . the creator of the modern novel."

Even if one isn't nuts about Flaubert in the way Barnes is, the essays compel attention with their energy and intelligence. "Something to Declare" reminds readers that when one is so taken with something -- whether it be Flaubert, cycling, cooking or a second country -- the pursuit of it becomes a driving force. Barnes conveys his passions with infectious vigor.

-- Maureen Gibbon wrote the novel "Swimming Sweet Arrow" and won a 2001 Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship.