Three Tales (Oxford World’s Classics) by Gustave Flaubert (PDF)

Description

This collection of three tales, “A Simple Heart,” “Saint Julian,” and “Herodias” offers an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world’s greatest novelists. In settings as familiar to the author as Normandy or as distant as biblical Palestine, these three stories reveal a writerskilled in narrative concentration and intensity of focus.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expertintroductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A. J. Krailsheimer’s new translation adheres more faithfully to Flaubert’s idiosyncratic sentence structures…authentically captures the original’s elliptical nature, with its ghostly authorial voice.” ―Sunday Telegraph”Intensely brilliant prose from the acclaimed author of Madame Bovary. These classic tales reflect Flaubert`s talent as a witty narrator and in particular A Simple Heart presents a wonderfully evocative portrait of 19th Century France.” ―Wales on Sunday From the Back Cover Flaubert’s Three Tales offer an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world’s greatest novelists. About the Author A. J. Krailsheimer is a former tutor in French with Christ Church, Oxford. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I only read the first two tales, so my review focuses on them. Flaubert is a skilled, evocative writer (Madame Bovary is one of my favorites), but not much of interest happens in these two tales. Sure, they’re tasteful, and crafted with the precision and method one expects of Flaubert. But when all is said and done, they’ve said very little. The best of the two stories – A Simple Heart – has some good and semi-absurd content on the pet parrot of the main character, but that’s about it. Not bad, but for Flaubert fans only.

⭐A Simple Heart must be one of the best short stories I have ever read. Flaubert’s detached narration makes a masterpiece of the final scene, blurring the distinction between events as they occur objectively and events as the dying Felicite experiences them, raising but never answering the question, does she imagine her final vision or does God condescend to appear to her in the image of a familiar object. Answering the question would make the conclusion either trite or cold, but the ambiguity artfully avoids both.

⭐Still a great book because it is Flaubert.

⭐Not what I expected. Difficult to get into.

⭐I enjoyed it as it was for a book club selection.. I found the differant points of view from differnt educators amusing. No one seemed to be able to relate that it was the 1800s.When I read something from another time, I try and place myself there. In doing this I get to be one of the prime charcators.

⭐A fine addition to my 1000 volume library

⭐Flaubert, best known for Madame Bovary, wrote these three ‘long short stories’ as a package near the end of his career. The first one, A Simple Heart, is the best and the best-known. A simple woman, a maid, has a life of tragedy. One person after another that she loved dies or leaves her. An early male lover runs off with another woman, a nephew she thought of as a son dies, her mistress’s daughter dies, then the mistress. Late in life, even her pet parrot that she confused at times with the Holy Ghost, dies. Through it all the woman remains a devout Catholic. Flaubert, a stickler for factually correct detail, rented a parrot from a museum to serve as a model: thus Julian Barnes’ novel, Flaubert’s Parrot.Flaubert was inspired by the story told in stained glass windows in his cathedral in Rouen to write the second tale, The Legend of St. Julian Hospitator. A prince delights is killing animals. When he becomes ruler he delights in killing men. But, like a Greek tragedy, he is told that he will kill his own parents. He flees and stops all killing but he can’t escape his fate. He turns away from killing and establishes hospitals for the indigent. It’s an interesting story, a fable really, about life in the Middle Ages.The third story is Herodias. She lived around the time of Christ. She was Salome’s mother and conspired to kill John the Baptist. It’s a tale of early Christianity. I couldn’t get into this one. The first four pages give us two dozen names of Biblical and historical characters that I assume we are supposed to know but I suspect even a Biblical scholar would struggle with a quite a few of them. Our obsessive fact-checking author told someone he wished he could get hold of a severed heard to be more accurate in his description. (There’s a translator’s introduction that tells us these things.)I’d rate the stories, in order, 4, 3, 2. But, hey it’s Flaubert so I’ll round up it to a 4. I enjoyed the first two but got lost in the last.

⭐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.

⭐wonderful characterisation, addressing the emotive reasoning of the heart and mind, and through 3 novels, Flaubert discusses the innocent simple human being in the sophisticated world that we have created in Simple Heart, the human engaging with life to the fullest and the irony of events disengaging the same human from the world in St Julian the Hospitallier, and finally in Herodias, a momemtal few hours of a particular day when everything colludes towards a gruesome end, revealing a multitude of prior historical events and diverse dysfunctional personnages. A good read and much to ponder on.

⭐Classic French Literature at it’s best. Delivered sooner than expected in good condition. Can’t say anything more.

⭐A short easy read for me to enjoy

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