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Three Tales

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In 1877, twenty years after the publication of "Madame Bovary," Gustave Flaubert published "Three Tales," a thin volume containing the stories "A Simple Heart," "The Legend of St Julian Hospitator" and "Herodias." While Robert Baldick's introduction to the Penguin edition says that "Three Tales" is "still generally regarded as [Flaubert's] most successful and most representative work," it is by no means his best work and does not approach the level of literary genius displayed in "Madame Bovary," "Sentimental Education," or "Bouvard and Pecuchet."

The best of the tales is "A Simple Heart," the story of Felicite, a simple and pious servant girl who "loved her mistress with dog-like devotion and veneration." Orphaned at a young age, she is first taken in by a farmer who, "small as she was, [sent] her to look after the cows in the fields." It is a miserable life:

"She went about in rags, shivering with cold, used to lie flat on the ground to drink water out of the ponds, would be beaten for no reason at all, and was finally turned out of the house for stealing thirty sous, a theft of which she was innocent."

Felicite fortunately enters the service of another farmer who appreciates her devoted, unquestioning work habits. She grows into her adult years working for that farmer and then is retained as servant to Madame Aubain. Felicite's life with Madame Aubain forms the heart of the story, the first sentence of Flaubert's narrative adumbrating the whole: "For half a century the women of Pont-l'Eveque envied Madame Aubain her maidservant Felicite."

Felicite's life is a series of loves: of Theodore, a man whom she falls in love with at the age of eighteen and who leaves her for an older, wealthier woman; of the two children of Madame Aubain, who depart her world in different ways; of a nephew, who leaves on a sailing ship; of a poor old dying man who lives in a pig sty; and, finally, of a green parrot named Loulou. Throughout all these loves, "the years slipped by, each one like the last, with nothing to vary the rhythm of the great festivals: Easter, the Assumption, All Saints' Day."

It is interesting to quote what Flaubert had to say about the end of "A Simple Heart," because it is not entirely clear whether it reflects his true feelings or an ironic denial of irony: "When the parrot dies she has it stuffed, and when she herself comes to die she confuses the parrot with the Holy Ghost. This is not at all ironical as you may suppose, but on the contrary very serious and very sad. I want to move tender hearts to pity and tears, for I am tender-hearted myself."

While readers have struggled with whether the three tales are connected in any way, the confusion of Felicite suggests a Flaubertian irony (or perhaps cynicism) that runs through all the stories: that people who live their lives based on religious belief are living lives based on illusion. In the case of Felicite, it is an illusion that is suggested by the confusion of a stuffed green parrot named Loulou with the Holy Ghost. In the remaining two tales, it is suggested in other ways.

"The Legend of St Julian Hospitator" tells the story of Julian, who grows up in a castle and lives a life marked by violence and mysticism. It is the reworking of a well-worn medieval tale depicted in thirty scenes of a stained-glass window Flaubert saw in Rouen Cathedral. It is also a tale that suggests again that the Christian founding myths are perhaps not what they seem. Thus, Julian's dream of life in the Garden of Eden and of Noah's Ark seems like the dream of a world created by a demiurge, a kind of Gnostic vision of brutality rather than harmony and salvation:

"Sometimes, in a dream, he would see himself like our father Adam in the middle of Paradise, with all the birds and beasts around him; and stretching out his arm, he would put them to death. Or else they would file past him, two by two, according to size, from the elephants and lions down to the stoats and ducks, as they did on the day that they entered Noah's Ark. From the shadow of a cave he would hurl javelins at them which never missed their aim, but others would follow them, there would be no end to the slaughter, and he would wake up with his eyes rolling wildly."

There is, finally, "Herodias," in which Flaubert relates the story of the beheading of John the Baptist at the request of Salome. Like the other two tales, "Herodias" is unsettling to the Christian mythos insofar as it emphasizes verisimilitude and the mundane. Instead of painting a picture of a great historical event, "Herodias" tells a very human tale of politics, jealousy and factionalism in ancient Israel. By doing so, it brings the reader back to the original historical touchstones of writers like Josephus and other contemporaries of Herod, thereby attenuating the centuries of religious mythmaking that followed the real world events. Perhaps this is why no less a critic than Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, commenting on "Three Tales," said that, "these eighty pages teach me more about the circumstances, the origins and the background of Christianity than all of Renan's work."

While not his best work, "Three Tales" nonetheless provides remarkable insight into Flaubert's narrative style and his view of literature. It is a style and a view that consistently departs from romanticism (even though the casual reader perhaps thinks of "Madame Bovary" as a romantic story), using techniques and images that draw meticulous scenes of the real and plumb the psychological depths of the mundane. By all means, read "Madame Bovary" and "Sentimental Education," but don't forget "Three Tales" because it is an equally provocative example of Flaubert's literary endeavor.

Three tales: One "modern" short-story, one medieval legend, and one historical sketch. Three diverse tales, all colorful and engaging. Reading these tales makes one wish Flaubert had written more. Other reviewers have described each story in more detail so I'll keep my descriptions brief. Beginning with "A Simple Heart", the story of a lonely servant-girl named Felicite who devotes her life to helping a single mother raise her children in a small Normandy village; moving back in time to the medieval era and a capitvating re-telling the legend of "St. Julian Hospitator" who devotes himself to God after being haunted by the thousands of animals he'd hunted and killed as a brash, arrogant youth; far back to the time of Christ, when "Herodias", King Herod's head-strong wife, instigates the beheading of John the Baptist, unintentionally paving the way for Jesus Christ himself; Flaubert has created three "religious" tales that plainly and simply illustrate the status of Christianity at different times, in different places. Some readers of Flaubert find undertones of sarcasm in these tales (more prevelant in "Sentimental Education" for sure), but I really believe he's attempting to be as non-judgmental as possible, simply telling it the way it is; or was. It seems to me that Flaubert's intention with these stories (especially "A Simple Heart" which to me has the most character depth & uniqueness of the three) is to not only showcase his literary skills, but to challenge himself to write about three seemingly unconnected eras and linking them by a common thread. Flaubert's descriptions and details are always of the highest caliber (although sometimes tiresome if one's not used to his style) but ultimately, each tale stands on its own, making "Three Tales" an excellent introduction to one of the most influential, and talented writers of all time.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) published Three Tales in a magazine in 1877. Flaubert was already a rich and famous author. The meticulous master had already produced "Madame Bovary" and "A Sentimental Education" ensuring his elevated place in the annals of literary greatness. The three short stories in this tiny book are memorable, moving and beautifully rendered in classic Flaubertian simple, poetic and realistic prose.
A Simple Heart is the first and best of the tales. It tells the sad story of Felicite. She is an illiterate and religious orphan who grows up in northern France. She works hard on a farm where she is beaten by her master; has a sad and short love affair and becomes a maid in the home of an austere and cold widow. Her happiest days are taking care of Paul and Virginia the two children of the widow who has hired her to work in her small home.
Her nephew dies while in the French navy breaking her heart. Her happiest moments are spent in the company of Loulou a big green parrot she is given by a friend. When the great parrot dies he is stuffed and kept in Felicite's modest room. Felicite befriends the poor and old. She becomes deaf and dies with a vision of her parrot Loulou as an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Felicite is a portrait of a good human being and Loulou is the most famous parrot in all literature. This is a wonderful little story of Christian faith put into action by a kind woman. One of my favorite all time short stories.

St. Julian Hospitator is a story reminiscent of a fairy tale. Julian grows up rich and coddled by his parents in a castle. He is a sadistic hunter who enjoys killing thousands of animals. This part of the story was very disturbing to me as an animal lover. By a tragic mistake he kills his own parents. This murder had been predicted by a large elk whose family had been brutally slain by Julian. He spends his life in remorse serving as a soldier and later a beggar. He also serves as a boatman who delivers travellers across a dangerous body of water. One night he cares for a leper giving him shelter, food and drink. The leper is transformed into Jesus Christ as Julian is forgiven and taken to heaven. The story was inspired by a stained glass window portraying Julian which was located in Rouen one half mile from Flaubert's boyhood home.

Herodias is the final story. It tells the story of Herod Antipas who married his brother Phillip's wife Herodias. Herod Antipas is the tetrarch of Galilee who rules from the fortress Machareus. He gives in to the desire of his sexy stepdaughter Salome's wish to have the head of John the Baptist on a platter if she will dance for him. Flaubert has done his homework and describes in detail life in first century Israel. The most memorable character who is John the Baptist who condemns the hedonistic and cruel Herod. John proclaims the coming of Jesus Christ the Messiah and Lord of Life.

These three short stories by Flaubert are excellent and well served in this handsome Penguin edition!

Flaubert's collection of "Three Tales" brings together a wonderful set of short stories. Working from contemporary to ancient and in various modes of realism, Flaubert delves into the spiritual depths of his characters. The first story, "A Simple Heart" is the best of the group. In this story, Flaubert tells the story Felicite, a loyal servant to an uninteresting patron. Flaubert quickly covers her whole life, from her difficult childhood and through her many attachments to her death. Felicite is a woman who feels love deeply, but Flaubert's presentation is very detached and never maudlin. The last great love of Felicite's life is a parrot (which also inspired Julian Barnes' "Flaubert's Parrot") who comes to symbolize the holy spirit for her. It would have been easy for Flaubert to portray Felicite's simplicity as an object of scorn or irony, but he treats her faithfully and never passes judgment on her actions or thoughts. Her story is beautifully told and stands up well to any short story I know.

The second tale, "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller," is a retelling of the legendary Saint's life. Flaubert is in a completely different mode here; he is comfortable in the quick and magical progression typical of medieval tales. Flaubert's eye for detail makes some of the scenes more horrific and as such more effective. In particular, the scenes of carnage while hunting and the scene with the leper are particularly well drawn.

The final tale, "Herodias," is a retelling of the story of John the Baptist's execution. Here, Flaubert delves into the emotions of religious fervor and political intrigue. He focuses not on Herodias or John, but on Herod. He portrays Herod as caught between competing forces: Rome and the tribes outside his kingdom; his wife and the proconsul; pharisees, essenes, and the fledgling movement spawned by Jesus. All of these competing voices make the story a bit disjointed at times, but once again Flaubert's realism lends a detached feel to the entire story.

Margaret Drabble's introduction to the volume is useful in how she ties the "Three Tales" into Flaubert's career and surroundings. The cathedral at Rouen, for example, has a series of stained glass windows depicting Saint Julian's story, and it also has a statue of the beheading of John the Baptist. Such details help bring the stories into greater clarity, though I recommend reading the introduction last if you have never read the stories, so as to be able to come to the stories fresh.

N.B. THIS REVIEW REFERENCES ST. JULIAN AND A SIMPLE SOUL ONLY.

The role of the Catholic Church in the daily lives of 19th century French provides the underlying basis for the characterizations in these two Contes. Whether high-born or lowly, Flaubert's two disparate protagonists are deeply influenced in their actions and attitudes by their faith. Making no moral judgment on their response to Christianity the author simply depicts their spiritual development as extensions of the Church, which permits readers of various religious backgrounds to draw their own conclusions.

THE LEGEND opens with elaborate exposition of the family's
grandiose castle. Divided into three titled chapters (CURSE, CRIME, REPARATION) this tale was inspired by the story depicted in the stained glass windows, which impressed the author in his boyhood. Wealthy, pampered only-son Julian graduates from torturing small animals to a frenzied obsession with all manner of hunting: when wild game eludes him, he seeks out human prey to satisfy his bloodlust. But he must fulfill several, contradictory prophecies in his lifetime, before the final apotheosis of his twisted soul. He chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice in atonement for a lifetime of savagery. This legend explains why Julian became the patron saint of ferrymen and innkeepers.

The second short story features a humble woman (ironically named Felicity--happiness) who proves the antithetical protagonist. In five chapters (FELICITY, THE HEROINE, DEATH, THE BIRD, THE VISION)Flaubert offers a grimly pessimist view of life in a coastal village. Rarely acting upon her own initiative this poor old "simple soul" is ignored by most, mistreated by her family, unappreciated by her mistress, and barely noticed by the villagers. Her generous nature gradually increases in piety, culminating in a confused Vision which--if nothing else--grants her a few moments of celestial bliss before extinction of her mortal but unremarkable life. Flaubert's purpose in this depressing tale is oblique; refraining from direct social and religious commentary, he is content to paint the canvas, allowing viewers their private interpretation. Felicite acted as a mother by proxy, denied a fully dimensional life of her own; perhaps her personal view of heaven's reception proved bizarrely "true."

Who knows what was going through the mind of this most enigmatic of modern writers, Monsieur Flaubert, when he came up with these stories? Reviewers have speculated about the only common thread that could link these three extremely different tales: Christianity and what it has meant to the people in different historical times. Each tale is completely different in approach and style from the other two.

"A simple heart" is easily the best of the three, in fact a masterpiece of Flaubertism, that is, a subtly ironic and totally dispassionate and realistic account of some provincial character. Felicite is a "simple heart", a woman of miserable origins who spends her life in servitude, contemplating the years go by, each one identical to the next. Felicite has a simple faith in God, unquestioning, unphilosophic, the kind of faith every priest dreams about for his flock. The tale is perfectly written, utterly sad and desolate, but being written by Flaubert, there's a cold irony beneath. Some people think this tale represents Christianity as it came to be in Modern times (XIX century).

"The Legend of St. Julian Hospitator" is a very strange tale of sin and redemption -the Medieval way. Julian is born rich, but he's a cruel man, fond of killing animals. He has no mercy in his heart. After a strange prophecy which he thinks has been fulfilled, Julian flees home and wanders around for many years, until he finds love. But he will sin again and ruin his life for his impiety. The end is a mystic and chilling one. Some people think this tale represents Christianity as lived by people in the Middle Ages.

"Herodias", is a cinematographic tale which tells the story of John the Baptist's beheading. It is picture after picture of action. The central character is Herod, puppet king of Judea. He's having a hard time watching his numerous enemies camped outside his palace, dealing with the Roman envoy, placating the Jewish priests and wondering what to do with the prisoner he has in a dungeon -John. Then everybody shows up and a party begins. There, his lover's daughter, Herodias, will ask for something from him. Some people think this is the social context of the beginnings of Christianity.

Make your own conclusions: is Flaubert giving us a history lesson? Or savagely attacking Christianity and mocking it? Or simply depicting the different ways Christianity has been lived through the centuries? Or none of the above?

The big mistake that is made about Flaubert is to classify him as a realist, when in fact he was a romantic. It is universally declared that the whole worth of this volume resides in 'A Simple Heart', the only realistic tale. My heretical take on this is that it is the romantic tales 'St Julian' and 'Herodias' which give this volume its worth. Far from being the best tale, I consider 'A Simple Heart' to be the least interesting tale, a boring tale that has been admired only because of its realism, as if realism were the be-all and end-all of literature.

Three Tales is not a classic in the sense that it profoundly influenced writers for generations and somehow still manages to blow away readers today. It is not, in other words, Madame Bovary. When you read that Flaubert allegedly got so emotionally involved in writing about Emma's fate that he threw up, you'd believe it.

These stories don't generate that kind of reaction. In truth, if these did not have the name Gustave Flaubert on the cover, I would have never guessed it. In looking at the other reviews, it seems like readers tend to find the stories uneven though they don't agree on which is best. I wasn't particularly impressed by any of them and would recommend getting this out of the library if you read it all: it's not particularly worth owning and the price is steep for a book that's barely a hundred pages long.

The first story --- `A Simple Heart' --- is about a character who is taken for granted by others. This falls into a problem that hits all but the best realism: if it fails to completely blow away the reader, then it starts to feel like "This happened. . . and then that happened. . ." The main thing I got out of it is background for when I some day read Julian Barnes's novel _Flaubert's Parrot_.

The second story, about St. Julian, has serious potential. It starts off like a twisted medieval fairy tale version of Oedipus the King. And the main character has a love of killing --- obsession, really --- that makes him fascinating in a disturbing way. But the story ultimately becomes unsatisfactory because it becomes unpredictable in a bad sense: the psychology of the main character is never really explained, so whatever he does is unanticipated.

The third story, about John the Baptist, requires having the details of the story at the front of your memory to really appreciate. There's a serious onslaught of names and the endnotes aren't really enough (and the level of detail in them waffles between overkill and none at all, which doesn't help things). This story got more and more interesting as I was able to orient myself. . . and then suddenly it was over. I think if it had been longer, I would have really gotten into it. The main effect of reading it is to put Flaubert's _Salambo_ on my reading list. It always sounded to me like a novelty piece that wouldn't be worth the time. In seeing how Flaubert writes about Antiquity, I'm reconsidering.

I was surprised at the number of biblical references in these stories though I probably shouldn't have been given Flaubert's time and place. He lived in a Catholic country during a religious era. I've read lots of contemporaneous Victorian fiction and though the Brits throw in many bible tie Flaubert out does them. In `A Simple Heart' Felicite is goodness incarnate seeking only to love without seeming to need anything more than an other for which to care. She'll even settle for inanimate objects as long as they evoke someone or something. `St. Julien' was harder for me to enjoy. Apparently in order for him to become a saint he had to first be very, very bad. After enough blood is splashed about he realizes how wrong he's been and becomes good through loving someone `despicable'. My favorite story of the three was `Herodias'. The Middle East of John the Baptist and his nemesis Salome's time was just as tumultuous as today. The story felt immediate and alive.

The Oil Jar and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)
This book of short novels ( not quite short stories, not quite novels)
is very representative of the time it was written. One can't see the wild west in this cultured writing, but that is the time period for America!
Five plays by Oscar Wilde The last one reminds me of the Oscar Wilde play with extremes of descriptive detail that would make the archaeologists angry today. The contrast of realism and religious images in Flaubert makes him interesting as well as being a prose master.