A Simple Soul [Hardcover]

Gustave Flaubert (Author), 1stWorld Library (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1421806258 | ISBN-13: 978-1421806259

For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite. For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress - although the latter was by no means an agreeable person. Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in Saint-Melaine, and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from the parlour, where Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near the window. Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white wainscoting. An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered with a pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as it was on a lower level than the garden.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A Simple Heart" ("Un Coeur Simple"), by French writer Gustave Flaubert, is one of the stories in his Three Tales (Trois Contes), published in 1877. It received admiring reviews at the time and has continued to be second only to his novel Madame Bovary (1857) in recognition and acclaim.

Originally entitled "Le Perroquet" ("The Parrot"), "A Simple Heart" is the story of one woman's apparently fruitless existence. The protagonist, a hardworking, good-hearted, poor and uneducated woman named Felicite, is said to have been modeled after a maid employed by Flaubert's family during his childhood, a much beloved woman of tremendous character. The story is unusual among the author's writings because it is about goodness. In this story of a simple housemaid's life and death, the reader is invited to view a world of boundless, if not reciprocated, love and spirit. Felicite, a woman of simple mind and devoted heart, suffers tremendous loss but continues to her last breath to love unconditionally. Some critics have suggested that Felicite's apparently meaningless life and misplaced worship of the parrot, Loulou—whom she adores and whom she imagines, in her dying moment, to be an incarnation of the Holy Ghost—reflect Flaubert's melancholy and disillusionment with life and with organized religion, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Most critics agree that this is a poignant account of a sweet, simple, and unrewarded life, one which may have been happy precisely because it was unexamined. It does not matter that Felicite may have misinterpreted or simply not interpreted many of the events in her life: she dies smiling, and thus lives up to her name to the last.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 108 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (February 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421806258
• ISBN-13: 978-1421806259
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,446,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the younger son of a provincial doctor, briefly studied law before devoting himself to writing, with limited success during his lifetime. After the publication of Madame Bovary in 1857, he was prosecuted for offending public morals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short But Powerful and Impressive, August 15, 2007

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Simple Soul (Hardcover)

Gustave Flaubert (1821 to 1880) was a French writer who is still considered to be among the greatest western novelists. He authored Madama Bovary which is considered to be the perfectly balanced modern novel. That novel and the author's style and approach has been hailed by a range of writers and critics including, for example, Saul Bellow, who modeled his own novels from Flaubert's works. Fluabert's writings have been referenced by Nabokov and many others as being an inspiration to a whole century of Western writers, and helped to launch the age of realism in novels.

The present story comes from the 1877 publication Three Tales (Trois Contes. It consists of the short stories: Simple Heart, Saint Julian, and Herodias. Dance of Death is another story sometimes grouped with Simple Heart and Saint Julian as Three Short Works.

A Simple Heart was inspired by biographical events in Flaubert's own life: he lived in rural Normandy, he had problems with his studies similar to the character Paul, and he was prone to epileptic seizures similar to the protagonist Felicite.

I read the story first without looking at any analysis, made up my own mind, then read the analysis. What struck me was that Flaubert had crammed a whole lifetime of human emotions into a single very short story. That all by itself was impressive. How could someone come up with that idea? Amazing.

A Simple Heart, also called A Simple Soul or Un Coeur Simple, in French, is a story about a girl named Felicité. She is a servant who has lived with the same family ever since she was betrayed by her lover. She has a strong sense of loyalty and self sacrifice: she lives to help others.

This short story has been admired by many critics over the years and used as a basis or a source of inspiration for other stories.

This takes only an hour or so to read and is highly recommended.