Three tales:
•tA Simple Heart — 3 stars [A story about a simple maid, Félicité, and her unerring devotion to taking care of a widow and her children...she never married although she was close to it at the beginning of the story when a man who she meets at a fair/festival walks her home and throws her to the ground and tries to have his way with her.... Like, what the hell? She wants to later marry this guy?...The story also involves a stuffed parrot...and Julian Barnes’ novel, ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’, is based on the parrot in this story]
•tThe Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller — 3 stars [read like a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm...not something you would want to read to your little kiddies before they go to sleep at night!]
•tHerodias — 1.5 stars [this was over my head...no pun intended...or come to think of it, maybe the pun is intended since it’s about St. John the Baptist and Salome among others]

This work, published in 1877, came after ‘Madame Bovary’ (1857) and ‘A Sentimental Education’ (1869).

I read from a book published by Hesperus Classics with a Foreword by Margaret Drabble. She tells us that his father was a surgeon and ‘as a little boy he would climb the trellis to peer over the wall from his home at the dissecting slabs, bodies and body parts in his father’s hospital next door in Rouen. He saw a lot of autopsies and corpses, as well as a freshly employed guillotine. It is not surprising that he grew up with an unhappy and confused relationship to emotional commitment, sexuality and mortality. A morgue is not the happiest of nurseries.’

Three beautifully written short stories by Flaubert...this is a great introduction to his writing.

So I finally encounter the most famous parrot in literary history, and a story with a marvelous ambiguity of tone. An uneducated woman whose life slowly closes in around her, who ends up nearly blind and death and mistaking a stuffed parrot for the holy ghost. Is she pathetic, is religion being ridiculed, or is it the nature of the human condition that it is only behaviour like this that keeps us content? Flaubert is dead pan, giving nothing away behind a peerless style, and you have to try and figure it out yourself. (I think I enjoyed Julian Barnes Flaubert's Parrot at the time, I've a feeling it is probably unbearably trite). The other two stories I could probably take or leave although they are interesting examples of a profoundly nineteenth century style applied to historical subjects (the life of a medieval saint, the killing of John the Baptist). It serves to make these worlds both very familiar and extremely alien. I'd reckon the John the Baptist is probably an influence on key sections of The Master and Margarita. The head of Baptist is in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, a place I visited in happier times.

'A simple soul' is awesome. Other two stories are ignorable.

I've read this book roughly fifty times now over the past five years, and I'm totally sick of it. Got one month to write a big paper on it, and then I'll be finished with it forever! Don't get me wrong: it's a good book.

A simple heart is quite moving in a way only the French master that kind of heartfelt miserablism. Reminded me a lot of Au hasard Balthazar in a way. The sort of romanticism of predetermined natures and the spiritual nature of that

With his allegedly "immoral" first novel Madame Bovary Flaubert established himself as a leading exponent of the budding realist approach to literature with its emphasis on the sometimes sordid details of everyday life. The same elements recur in Sentimental Education but, in contrast, the historical novel Salammbô , is an exercise in over-the-top exotic Orientalism.

This edition of Flaubert's late "Three Tales" features a high-profile guest foreword by Margaret Drabble, as well as an introduction by translator Howard Curtis. Both emphasize the fact that these short stories are a distillation of Flaubert's craft and reflect the two extremes of his literary style.

The collection opens with "A Simple Heart", a blow-by-blow description of the life and hardships of humble Normandy servant Felicite. The detached, sphinx-like third person narration is tantalisingly ambiguous - are we meant to feel sorry for the protagonist? Contemptuous at her ignorance? Angry at her too easy resignation in the face of adversity? Or should we admire her humility and loyalty? Much is made of Felicite's quasi-blasphemous mental association between the Holy Ghost and her stuffed parrot. Said parrot makes a final appearance in the final pages, when Flaubert abandons the matter-of-fact storytelling in favour of a glimpse of the dying protagonist's ecstatic visions. What are we make of this? It is unlikely that the secularist Flaubert wanted us to take these mystic passages at face value - on the other hand, the heightened language suggests that rather than being demented ravings of a gullible old woman, these "visions" give Felicite a hard-earned dignity at the moment of death.

Certainly, for an anti-clerical agnostic, Flaubert's tales show a strange fascination with religion. "Saint Julian the Hospitaller" is a retelling of the medieval legend of the patron saint of hunters in which Flaubert resorts to Gothic tropes for heightened effect - dark forests, rambling castles, talking animals and last but not least a curse which haunts Julian. "Herodias" is an account of the beheading of St John. An excuse to indulge in Salammbô-style exoticism, the colourfully-described orgies would influence later writers including Oscar Wilde.

This Hesperus classics edition is highly recommended, particularly for Howard Curtis's idiomatic translation, which was nominated for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.

Bộ Giáo dục nên cho truyện Một tấm lòng chất phác vào giảng dạy, vì thật sự nó quá đẹp để bị lơ như vậy. Truyền thuyết về Thánh Julien Hiếu khách cũng rất hay, nhưng Hérodias lại không được như hai truyện đầu.

Ce petit recueil plait inévitablement aux amateurs de Flaubert parce qu’il suscite des bonnes mémoires de ces grands romans.
La première conte, « Un cœur simple », fait penser à « Madame Bovary »; la deuxième, « La légende de Saint Julien l'hospitalier », à « La tentation de St. Antoine »; et la troisième, « Hérodias », à « Salammbô. »
« Un cœur simple » raconte l’histoire de Félicité une chrétienne naïve mais très sincère. Félicité est une bonne qui n’a rien mais qui aime les proches avec tout son énergie. Les gens dans son entourage meurent et seulement le perroquet de sa maitresse lui reste. Le perroquet meurt à son tour. Félicité le fait empailler et lui voue une culte jusqu’à sa mort.
Le protagoniste de « La légende de Saint Julien l'hospitalier », reçoit dans son enfance la prophétie qu’il va tuer ses parents. Son dilemme semble être le même que celui d’Œdipe Roi mais Julien est loin d’être un victime innocent du destin. Julien aime tuer hommes et bêtes. À la fin, il réussit à se racheter mais le lecteur a beaucoup du mail à le croire. Son rachat, comme souligne Flaubert, est surtout une légende.
Dans « Hérodias » qui raconte l’histoire de l’exécution de Jean Baptiste on voit le mal à l’état pur. Hérodias pousse sa fille d’un premier mariage, Salomé, à faire une danse lascive devant Hérode Antipas, son deuxième mari. Excité Hérode promet à Salomé d’exaucer n’importe quel souhait qu’elle fait. Salomé demande sur le champ la tête de Jean Baptiste.
Les « Trois contes » offre en même temps un synthèse de l’œuvre de Flaubert et une réflexion très intéressant sur la foi chrétienne et le mal. Je le recommande fortement.

“San Giuliano Ospitaliere” è un bel racconto che però soccombe di fronte al crescendo di tensione presente nelle ultime pagine di “Erodiade”, quando Salomé entra in sala.

In cima al palco si tolse il velo. Era Erodiade, come al tempo della sua giovinezza. Poi si mise a danzare. I Nomadi avvezzi all’astinenza, i soldati di Roma esperti nelle orge, gli avari pubblicani, i vecchi sacerdoti inaspriti dalle dispute, tutti, dilatando le narici, palpitavano di desiderio.

Ed entrambi i racconti escono ridimensionati dal confronto con la sfolgorante bellezza di “Un cuore semplice”: la forma che si adatta al suo contenuto, il sublime che convive con il ridicolo. La vita dell’umile Felicita, dedicata interamente a servire le persone chiedendone come ricompensa un affetto mai ricambiato, fino all’incontro e all’amore per un pappagallo, animale presente nel titolo di un romanzo di Julian Barnes e che nella mente di una persona semplice può addirittura identificarsi con lo Spirito Santo.

Lo Spirito Santo faceva fatica a raffigurarselo; perché non era solamente uccello, ma anche fuoco, e altre volte un soffio. Forse è la sua luce che aleggia di notte sull’orlo degli acquitrini.

Sono frasi come quest’ultima, semplici ma dalla grande potenza visiva, che mi colpiscono al cuore. Come quando la padrona deve prendere una decisione dopo la morte della figlia.

Tutte le piccole cose di lei occupavano un armadio a muro nella camera a due letti. La signora Aubain andava a guardarle il meno possibile. Un giorno d’estate si rassegnò; e alcune farfalle volarono fuori dall’armadio.

Les deux premiers contes m'ont tellement émerveillées,l'histoire de Félicité et de sa poisse qui fait que toutes les personnes qu'elle chérissait le plus finissaient par mourir,elle a vécu seule et a mouru seule,son cœur simple ne méritait "cependant" pas un tel sort!
La légende de Saint Julien était tellement bien écrite,sa nature comme prédateur l'a de tout temps vaincue qu'il a fini par tuer ses propres parents!!
J'ai un peu moins apprécié le troisième conte,il comportait tellement de personnages qui avec leurs noms difficiles,ne m'ont pas permise de bien me concentrer :autrement dit je l'ai lu à contrecœur (:p)
Ceci est mon premier livre de Gustave Flaubert,j'espère que le second sera d'autant mieux.

O meu fraco entusiasmo inicial, apenas um "quanto baste" para a leitura destes contos, acabou por se revelar o estado de espírito mais adequado para receber as palavras deste autor. Lamentavelmente. Como qualquer leitor, preferia ter sido arrebatada pelas histórias, ter tido uma experiência de leitura óptima, ter-me perdido nas suas páginas, ter esquecido as horas, ter aprendido, ter crescido, e ter ficado com uma ou mais memórias inesquecíveis. Isto (e mais ainda) é o que acontece quando um livro nos marca. Enquanto blogger gostaria de ter descoberto um belo livro para recomendar a quem nos lê. Não foi o caso.

No caso presente, a palavra que melhor encontro para descrever a minha experiência é "morna". Foi uma leitura morna. Não foi desagradável, tal como aconteceu com o conto que nos trouxe até este livro, mas nada me deixou. As histórias rapidamente me escapam da memória, sendo até já difícil recuperá-las para sobre elas escrever. Mais uns meses e acredito que estarão esquecidas por completo.

Interessantes quanto baste para que o livro não seja atirado para o lado, mas decepcionantes para quem como eu adora ler contos e espera deles aquele "impacto" rápido e certeiro, aquela intensidade e surpresa. As histórias, apesar de bem escritas, parecem-me fora de tempo. Compreendo e respeito o estatuto deste escritor, reconheço o sucesso destes contos na sua época, mas não os considero, de todo, contos intemporais. O substrato marcadamente religioso e a moral correspondente associada também não contribuíram em nada para a minha opinião sobre os mesmos. Não recomendo pois esta leitura.

Para o post completo, visite o blogue Linked Books:
http://linkedbooks.blogspot.pt/2016/0...