reasie's review against another edition
3.0
All fairly straight-forward. A complete biography of a kindhearted servant’s life full of caring too much and being taken advantage of, a wild flight of psuedo-medieval fantasy (I found the story of St. Julian Hospitaler to be my least favorite of the three tales) and a look beyond the edges of the Biblical tale of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist. That was kinda cool. Maybe my favorite. It added smells and sights and sounds and details to Herod’s banquet and really made you pity him.
msgtdameron's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Great short stories that show the breadth of Flauberts style and work. One, A Simple Soul, is Madame Bovary with out the sex angle, but is the story of an unassuming women who see's God. Two, he Legend of Saint Julian Hospitatoris an action adventure story that has an ending close to Temptation of St Anthony. The last, Herodias, describes the beheading of John the Baptist and is close in sexuality to Salammbo. AS I said in my review of Salammbo, Flaubert's ability to move from genre and style to different style and genre makes him the most flexible of the late 1800's authors and these stories reinforce that idea.
drkshadow03's review against another edition
3.0
In “A Simple Heart” the reader follows the simple and pious life of Félicité in the service as her wealthy mistress Madame Aubain. Along the way we watch her deal with an impoverished childhood, be abandoned by her first lover for another woman so he can avoid conscription into the military, suffer the death of her nephew at sea and the daughter of her mistress after chronic ill-health, and eventually the death of her beloved parrot before succumbing to pneumonia while the house around her falls into disrepair.
Although many of the characters take advantage of her kindness, verbally abuse and insult her, and she suffers from various personal tragedies, none of it hinders her from keeping to her simple and humble ways and good nature. As her mistress and others remind her, she is essentially a nobody, yet Flaubert tells her story in a way that suggests her life is an ideal. She behaves like the ideal Christian turning her cheek to others who do her wrong and never compromising her ideals of helping others—never letting herself become jaded by the world. Her life is a celebration of the virtue of humility and unimportance, a challenge to the claim that purpose can only be found in wealth, ambition, and fame. Even in a scene when she saves the kids, her charges, from a rampaging bull she thinks nothing of the matter as being any kind of special action or deserving of special praise.
Throughout the story, there are hints of broader political events occurring in the background such as the July Revolution that led to the overthrow of Charles X from the French Throne. The reader sees these big events have little effect on Félicité’s life. Many writers would create a story showing how big events affect the average person, but Flaubert flips this idea around and writes a story where big events happen and have no effect on his main character. Likewise, we see all these rich, educated, and middle-class notables make poor life decisions. Her other charge, Paul, ends up with debt after debt as he spends all his time in taverns and struggles to find a suitable career. When he finally does find one and ends up engaged, the future daughter-in-law is haughty and full of criticism of Paul’s childhood home and Madame Aubain. Another instance concerns Monsieur Bourais, a retired solicitor and supposed friend to Madame Aubain that helps with her accounting. For all his education, successful career, and the appearance of a respectable character, Monsieur Bourais ends up embezzling money stolen from Madame Aubain, has a secret affair, and commits suicide. Success and respectability doesn’t bring happiness or virtuous behavior. However, poverty isn’t glorified either and is shown as potentially corrupting force. Félicité’s sister only continues her relationship with Félicité in order to see what free things she can mooch from her.
Flaubert shows the virtue in the humble and simple life—the life of simple faith, piety, and the genuine desire to help others in need with no thought of yourself or your own aggrandizement.
“The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller” is Flaubert’s version of previous legends about this Saint of which there are many. His parents hear conflicting prophecies about their newborn son, Julian—the mother believes he will be a great saint, while the father learns he will be a great warrior spilling blood and will marry into an Emperor’s family. During church services, he decided to trap and kill a mouse disturbing his religious prayers. After committing the act, he grows increasingly intoxicated with murdering animals, until he kills a large family of deer; at the end, a stag curses him two murder his own parents. After some close calls, he runs off to avoid this fate, becomes a successful mercenary, which leads to marrying the daughter of an Emperor. One night while hunting the ghosts of the dead animals he returns to his palace to find two people in his wife’s bed. Thinking his wife was cheating on him, he kills them in a rage, only to discover it was his elderly parents coming to find him. He leaves his property to his wife, goes begging around the countryside, and attempts to make repentance. It ends with a dream-like sequence where he feed and helps a suffering leper only to learn it is Christ who takes him up into heaven.
The contrasting prophecies are the heart of the story. One of the major mysteries that keeps the reader curious and turning the pages is how these seemingly contradictory prophecies involving a worldly blood-stained warrior who marries into an illustrious empire will be reconciled with the declaration that he will be a future saint. The reader wonders how this cruel child that takes glee in murdering animals can ever become a saint. The story resolves these issues by turning to the salvation inherent in Christianity, suggesting that no matter how cruel and damning our actions are in the past we can always sincerely repent them and find salvation.
The last story is “Herodias” which is a historical retelling of the troubled reign of Antipas Herod’ and the decapitation of John the Baptist at his birthday under the orders of his wife, Herodias. Antipas is depicted as an indecisive, weak, and spineless king who struggles to take action as his own people resent him and the Arabian King threatens with a military invasion. His wife Herodias is a vain, manipulative, and ambitious woman who resents her husbands weakness and the perceived slander of John the Baptist. She divorces her first husband to marry Antipas in hopes of bearing his children and controlling an Empire, while Antipas divorced his first Arabian wife out of temporary lust for Herodias that seems to have faded by the time of the story. The irony is his divorce of his first wife leads to the invasion that threatens his kingdom and marrying Herodias is one of the factors that has weakened his image among his subjects. All of this points to the dangers of worldly ambitions. Many of the characters praise the greatness of Herod the Great in comparison to Antipas. Likewise, the minor character of Aulus, the son of Vitellius, is revealed to be a chubby and pimply youth whose gluttony and weakness contrasts with his Roman father. There is a contrast between Great leaders and their weakness ineffectual sons. The greatness of these leaders is partially in their ability to take decisive action and risks, which is exactly what Antipas refuses to do instead preferring flattery and playing every side against each other.
In the end Antipas agrees to the murder of John the Baptist at the behest of Salome in order to satiate his lust. Only his bodily desires spur him to action. Likewise, as this was part of Herodias’s plan we see she continues her manipulative nature. The incest accusations prove further true as Salome is her daughter from another marriage that she is prostituting to her current husband. Antipas also hopes the murder of John the Baptist will solve his political problems, but as the ending suggests it is foreshadowing for the coming of Christ. He accepts his death as needed so Jesus movement can grow, hinting later of Jesus’s sacrifice for all of humanity. These traits of the acceptance of self-sacrifice are the opposite of Antipas’ and Herodias’ inaction and manipulations for self-gain and fear of losing what they have.
All the stories are in some way about Christianity. The first is about the ideal Christian life in simplicity and humbleness, turning the other cheek to slights by the haughty and pompous higher classes, the second deals with the redemptive and psychologically transformative powers of Christian salvation and repentance. The third tale deals with the Christian qualities of a good leader who sacrificed themselves for the greater good of subjects versus the many examples of ineffectual leadership or leaders who care only about their own glory, ambition, and personal needs.
grubstlodger's review against another edition
3.0
‘Madame Bovary’ was my surprise favourite book of a few years ago and ‘A Sentimental Education’ was a book that contained remarkable moments and set pieces but didn’t cohere into a fully satisfying work. I was intrigued to try the short stories to see what they’d do for me.
‘A Simple Heart’ was a simple story about a simple person. Flaubert attempted to write a story about a good person but I’m not sure he fully succeeded. I didn’t feel that Félicité was a particularly accurate or intriguing portrait of a good person living a good life but she’s not defined by goodness as much as a lack of imagination and general denseness. She stays loyal because she doesn’t have the ability to envision a different life. I found her faith to be shallow if sweet and the relationship with the parrot, both alive and stuffed, was touching. Why Flaubert went to such extremes, such as obtaining multiple stuffed parrots, for a tiny description, I’m not sure.
‘The Legend of St Julian’ was my favourite of the three. It reminded me of TH White’s ‘Once and Future King’ It shares a similar fable-esque style and love of playful anachronism. Having looked at the genuine legend, I liked how Flaubert tied the bloodthirstiness of Julian’s hunting with the prediction that he’d kill his own parents. I especially enjoyed how Julian was partly man of his time but cruel even by the standards of a cruel age. The end part with a crusty, leprosy-ridden Christ figure that requests help from the penitent Saint Julian. The story becomes peculiarly sexual as leprosy-Jesus strips piece by piece and lies closer to Julian until he spoons pox-ridden Christ to death.
I found ‘Herodias’ to be the weakest of the three stories. It was a little sluggish and drowns in its incidental details. None of the people come alive at all. John merely spouts bits of Bible, Herod and Herodias are very bland and blank. Other than showing how complicated and impossible the politics of the time and place are, and hinting how they will soon affect Jesus’s life, it doesn’t add much to the Bible story as it is.
I enjoyed this collection reasonably enough but feel I either lack the narrative subtlety of palate to really get the most out of these stories (or any short stories possibly). Even though I wasn’t fond of ‘A Sentimental Education’ in total, the characters were real and well described - I found that the characters in the short stories weren’t.
That said, I enjoyed how the stories worked thematically, showing three different kinds of sainthood, which made the collection a little better than the stories in themselves.
‘A Simple Heart’ was a simple story about a simple person. Flaubert attempted to write a story about a good person but I’m not sure he fully succeeded. I didn’t feel that Félicité was a particularly accurate or intriguing portrait of a good person living a good life but she’s not defined by goodness as much as a lack of imagination and general denseness. She stays loyal because she doesn’t have the ability to envision a different life. I found her faith to be shallow if sweet and the relationship with the parrot, both alive and stuffed, was touching. Why Flaubert went to such extremes, such as obtaining multiple stuffed parrots, for a tiny description, I’m not sure.
‘The Legend of St Julian’ was my favourite of the three. It reminded me of TH White’s ‘Once and Future King’ It shares a similar fable-esque style and love of playful anachronism. Having looked at the genuine legend, I liked how Flaubert tied the bloodthirstiness of Julian’s hunting with the prediction that he’d kill his own parents. I especially enjoyed how Julian was partly man of his time but cruel even by the standards of a cruel age. The end part with a crusty, leprosy-ridden Christ figure that requests help from the penitent Saint Julian. The story becomes peculiarly sexual as leprosy-Jesus strips piece by piece and lies closer to Julian until he spoons pox-ridden Christ to death.
I found ‘Herodias’ to be the weakest of the three stories. It was a little sluggish and drowns in its incidental details. None of the people come alive at all. John merely spouts bits of Bible, Herod and Herodias are very bland and blank. Other than showing how complicated and impossible the politics of the time and place are, and hinting how they will soon affect Jesus’s life, it doesn’t add much to the Bible story as it is.
I enjoyed this collection reasonably enough but feel I either lack the narrative subtlety of palate to really get the most out of these stories (or any short stories possibly). Even though I wasn’t fond of ‘A Sentimental Education’ in total, the characters were real and well described - I found that the characters in the short stories weren’t.
That said, I enjoyed how the stories worked thematically, showing three different kinds of sainthood, which made the collection a little better than the stories in themselves.
daisybirch's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
paton_manzara's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
tiagoalves's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
roseraindrops's review
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Mild Spoilers!!!
You know what this should be rated higher because I like Flaubert’s writing style and he’s an amazing author but I just don’t think this collection was really for me - it just had lots of topics that didn’t really interest me as focal points (mainly religion and politics) which isn’t surprising tbh because I didn’t read this for enjoyment, but extra reading for coursework.
I just don’t think I really got this collection, I simply didn’t enjoy the subject matter that much in short story form. I had really enjoyed Madame Bovary but I wasn’t that engrossed in any of the stories in this collection.
I liked A Simple Heart the most, sympathising with Felicité’s “primitive moral grandeur which is teasingly instructive” (xxi), and think it’s really interesting to compare the death scenes of Felicité with Madame Bovary: one in a state of religious ecstasy and one in a haunting, agonising vision of moral and physical corruption (the blind beggar). The commentary was particularly interesting on this, and surprisingly applicable to modern time issues about the need for representation and own voices: “How can we represent the dispossessed, the illiterate and the powerless? Yes, we give them a voice. But whose voice is it? Their voice, or a version of their voice?” (xx)
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator - he simultaneously has these sadistic, depraved obsessions with brutality and killing, but is also deeply repentful as well, devoting his whole life to misery in attempt to atone. This sadism also just seems to be an intrinsic part of him, not caused by anything and unavoidable. Not quite sure what the message is here.
Herodias was wayyyyyyy too hard to me to get into and it was the one I really wanted to like, but I found it really annoyingly difficult to not be able to completely understand the story without a wider knowledge of the political and even geographical context. I just could not follow everything going on due to my own ignorance about the time period and context. :(
I also found this story a bit disquieting with the religious condemnation and abuse hurled at Herodias by John the Baptist - my highlight being “May you die like a bitch”.
You know what this should be rated higher because I like Flaubert’s writing style and he’s an amazing author but I just don’t think this collection was really for me - it just had lots of topics that didn’t really interest me as focal points (mainly religion and politics) which isn’t surprising tbh because I didn’t read this for enjoyment, but extra reading for coursework.
I just don’t think I really got this collection, I simply didn’t enjoy the subject matter that much in short story form. I had really enjoyed Madame Bovary but I wasn’t that engrossed in any of the stories in this collection.
I liked A Simple Heart the most, sympathising with Felicité’s “primitive moral grandeur which is teasingly instructive” (xxi), and think it’s really interesting to compare the death scenes of Felicité with Madame Bovary: one in a state of religious ecstasy and one in a haunting, agonising vision of moral and physical corruption (the blind beggar). The commentary was particularly interesting on this, and surprisingly applicable to modern time issues about the need for representation and own voices: “How can we represent the dispossessed, the illiterate and the powerless? Yes, we give them a voice. But whose voice is it? Their voice, or a version of their voice?” (xx)
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator - he simultaneously has these sadistic, depraved obsessions with brutality and killing, but is also deeply repentful as well, devoting his whole life to misery in attempt to atone. This sadism also just seems to be an intrinsic part of him, not caused by anything and unavoidable. Not quite sure what the message is here.
Herodias was wayyyyyyy too hard to me to get into and it was the one I really wanted to like, but I found it really annoyingly difficult to not be able to completely understand the story without a wider knowledge of the political and even geographical context. I just could not follow everything going on due to my own ignorance about the time period and context. :(
I also found this story a bit disquieting with the religious condemnation and abuse hurled at Herodias by John the Baptist - my highlight being “May you die like a bitch”.
nikkivrc's review against another edition
3.0
My favourite story of this collection is 'The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator'. It's almost like a Shakespeare play - it's the story of a man who's doomed by fate to suffer greatly and commit gruesome crimes but at the same time he's also destined for greatness and sainthood. Obviously, in a short story you can't get the same depth as you can in novels, but this story still sucks you in and makes you feel for the characters.
'A Simple Heart' is something completely different, more classic Flaubert (in my view). It's about a servant girl's life, the people she loves and loses, her perception of life. It's quite depressing, with no happy ending for anyone, but I still enjoyed reading it.
Now, 'Herodias' was pretty bad. I really had to struggle to get through it. If this had been the first story I probably wouldn't have read it. It's basically a bible story with no emotional or character development at all. I suppose Flaubert assumed everyone knew the story, but I certainly don't so I couldn't really appreciate this. At all.
'A Simple Heart' is something completely different, more classic Flaubert (in my view). It's about a servant girl's life, the people she loves and loses, her perception of life. It's quite depressing, with no happy ending for anyone, but I still enjoyed reading it.
Now, 'Herodias' was pretty bad. I really had to struggle to get through it. If this had been the first story I probably wouldn't have read it. It's basically a bible story with no emotional or character development at all. I suppose Flaubert assumed everyone knew the story, but I certainly don't so I couldn't really appreciate this. At all.