Customer Reviews (5)

Thoroughly orientalist, of course
"Let me begin by giving you a great hug, holding my breath as long as possible, so that as I exhale onto this paper your spirit will be next to me."

This is the book I read the most. I read it at random, sometimes rereading passages I read only days ago. It's not the exoticism that allures but the colonial/imperial mind at work comprehending and quantizing the East. Read Said's Orientalism to better understand the situation under which these journals and letters were written. Flaubert cuts through Egypt like a shark, almost in on his own joke. Initially he seems to take a typically orientalist posture scandalizing the sexuality of the savages. Upon further investigation one can see that his tone is ambivalent yet cooly giddy at the thought of westerners being perturbed at such behaviour. It's almost as if he knows that the West is the oddball out and everyone else is normal.

an example of Orientalism and racism, and its effect on Western perception of the East.....
I was required to read Flaubert's account of his travels in Egypt, when I was in my senior year of college.We were doing an extensive study on the effects of the mentality of "us" versus "them."A prime example was in the travels, made by Europeans, to the East, as well as to other countries that became colonized parts of North and South America.Though, many people consider this a classic novel (hence, it is one of Penguin Classics' "classic" pieces of literature).

I found Flaubert's observations of Egypt to be pretentious, arrogant, chauvinistic and offensive.His approach was one of several ignorant examples demonstrated amongst other Europeans, who went on to colonize countries, as part of a movement of rescue and possession.As we read of his numerous sexual exploits with the local women, his responses (often of distaste) to the local customs, and his general air of boredom, he epitomizes the example of a bored, rather spoiled man-child, with nothing better to do but objectify and criticize the customs of a culture foreign to his own.

Best Travel Journal Book Ever
Kerouac isn't qualified to hold Flaubert's pen.
This is the real deal. From Christendom to the Orient Flaubert sails and records his thoughts, observations and indulengences in his usual excellent prose.
A must read.

Orientalism
In 1849 Gustave Flaubert was twenty eight.He had an air of athletic vigor.He was the son of a doctor.He had always written.At this point he had finished THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY.Friends suggested he use a story known to him, perhaps through his father, that became the basis for MADAME BOUVARY.

Maxime Du Camp accompanied Gustave to Egypt.France had maintained a controlling political interest in Egypt.Flaubert wrote that in Egypt everyone with clean clothes beats everyone with dirty clothes.Europeans were called Franks.

He wrote that the desert began at the gates of Alexandria.It is suggested that the very act of keeping a travel diary moved Flaubert from being a Romantic to becoming a Realist.There was a sunrise.They saw from the top of pyramids the valley of the Nile being bathed in mist.

The young men stared at the Sphinx.They visited the Coptic Church in Old Cairo.There were jugglers and acrobats and those very feared persons, snake charmers.Maxime Du Camp busied himself with photography throughout the trip.They saw dervishes.Flaubert described the water of the Nile.It was yellow and carried soil.

They took a trip down the Nile.They passed Luxor.The mountains were dark indigo.They arrived at Thebes.They saw towns whose buildings were made of dried mud.They saw and described dancing in their writings.They traveled to Assuan.Du Camp's photographic record of temples became famous.Flaubert reported to his mother that there always seemed to be a temple buried up to its shoulders in sand.

From Luxor to Karnak the great plain looked like an ocean.One's first impression of Karnak was that it was a place of giants.They went to the Red Sea at Koseir.Flaubert found the boats terrifying and was pleased that he did not have to use one.He thought that they carried the plague.

Flaubert's impressions of Egypt returned to him when he wrote SALAMMBO according to Du Camp.It seemed to Du Camp that Flaubert disdained the journey and looked at nothing.On the contrary, Egypt gave Flaubert his first comprehensive view of colors.

This is an elegant account of a writer's response to an alien culture.The book consists of journal entries and letters of Flaubert, writings of Du Camp, notes of the editor, and pictures.All in all it is a most interesting compilation.

Sex and Mischief Abroad
Strange, honest book of the young author galavanting around Egypt in an era of white men's assumed world domination.

In a way, it is very much like Jack Kerouac's On The Road, with Flaubert himself as the freewheeling Neal Cassady.Actually, the two books could be an interesting comparison study. It would also be a useful reference for critiques of Orientalism and Colonialism.

If you like reading travel accounts, this is at times a very engaging one.His tales herein have a powerful lingering effect.But the sex and masturbation and reckless fun got tiresome in a hurry.After reading this, I lost some respect for the man who was Flaubert, even though I continue to find his writing irresistible. ... Read more

Book Description
Three Tales offers an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world's greatest novelists. A Simple Heart is set in the Normandy of Flaubert's childhood, while Saint Julian and Herodias draw on medieval myth and the biblical story of John the Baptist for their inspiration. Each of the tales invites comparison with one or other of Flaubert's novels, but they also reveal a fresh and distinctive side to the writers's genius. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

An Introduction to Flaubert
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.

Three Friendly Short Stories - That Is All
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Three Tales," written 20 years after "Madam Bovery," this from a well known French writer, Gustave Flaubert, like many others, becomes more valued years after his works in French literary importance.

His first story, "Simple Heart," appears to relate a life of both ignorance and acceptance that endures in suffering. Although a life with obstacles, it ends with a somber type of happiness and sense of completeness that elevates loyalty, simplistic ignorance and childlike acceptance that paradoxically ends in futility, the futility of life itself. "Ignorance is both tragic and bliss."

In the seconds story of St. Julian, it contains similarities with the ancient Greek tragedy of King Odepius, told by Sophocles. For in both Flaubert's story of St. Julian and Sophocles story of King Odepius, the tale begins with an oracle that predetermines the character's fate with his subsequent attempts to alter his destiny. Both stories relate how destiny and freedom exist in relative degrees and are thus illusionary in the absolute sense. It's a matter of accepting such destiny and working within the limitations to make the changes that prove human dignity can never be erased. It is the freedom within boundaries that can never be crossed. If I had to compare these two stories, St. Julian is far inferior, but an entertaining read. St. Julian, a killer of a man who becomes the most empathetic, forgiven by God and carried away like Elisha.

The third story, Herodius, is an extension or more detailed, fictious, story of the gospel account of John the Baptist and his subsequent execution.

All three stories are short and flow.

The progression of Christianity -or maybe not-.
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?

Not Flaubert's Best, But Worth Reading Nonetheless
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.

Tired intellectual superiority.
The only tale of the three that I enjoyed here was "Herodias," although I must admit that all three are very well-written. In "Herodias" the reader gets to see, or understand, very little of the woman after whom the story is named. Herod is presented from an angle different to that we have become used to, and that in itself is commendable. The terrible problems of governing a small, peripheral state, and having to please powerful enemies, dangerous allies, and fanatic compatriots, appears as the unbearable burden that the king, Herod, deals with. His dealings with enemies camped literally outside his palace, his plotting wife, the Roman envoy, and with John the Baptist, make Herod more human than monstruous. Even if the historical king is not close to Flaubert's representation, this fictional account is superb.

I culd not identify very much with the other two tales. "The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitator" is written in the hagiographical style common to the medieval "lives of the saints" that it copies and, to a great degree, mocks, with traces of influence from other sources, such as Marie de France's "Lais." The story of the cruel and spoiled Julian is interesting, but his conversion from a joyful killer of animals, to a man who believes has killed his mother, to a mercenary, to a jealous man who commits a terrible murder by mistake, and finally to a "living saint" who helps people cross a river on his raft, is not only difficult to swallow, but very obviously told in a very special way by Flaubert (no friend of the Church) in order to send a message. The ending, a bizarre epiphany with strong homoerotic aspects where Christ appears as a very demanding leper who wants Julian naked on his bed and on top of him, may be exactly what Flaubert says it is: a faithful rendition of Julian ascent to Heaven, according to the stained-glass window in the author's "part of the world." But this is most probably Flaubert attempting to be provocative.

And the first tale, "A Simple Heart," laughs out loud at faith once again, since the protagonist "sees" her dead and stuffed parrot as a substitute for Christ welcoming her to the afterlife. This "simple heart" is Félicité, a woman of very limited intelligence that Flaubert uses to poke fun at the unsophisticated faith of the country folk. As an atheist I should have laughed with the author, but I just could not. I can see his undisguised attempt to write, in three tales, a pseudo-history of Christianity, from its beginnings when St. John the Baptist announced the coming of Jesus Christ, to the Middle Ages when hagiography was a very popular literary genre and towns really fought over the privilege of having a Patron Saint, to Flaubert's own time of rational thought and intellectual dismissal of religion. But I found the whole a rather dishonest way to deal with the bother that religion had become in Flaubert's life. "Herodias" is good, but the other two are obvious frontal assaults on the author's chosen enemy. My atheism does not blind me to the evident pamphletary function of "A Simple Heart" and "Julian the Hospitator." They are well-written, but the author's attitude of intellectual superiority is tiresome.

My review corresponds to the Penguin Classics edition of 1961, and the previous reviewer is right: the translator, and author of the Introduction, is Robert Baldick, not Walter J. Cobb. The Introduction is informative and good, even if I cannot agree with Baldick's positive evaluation of these "Three Tales." ... Read more

Book Description
Through close readings of the male characters of 'Madame Bovary' this book opens up the sociological and legal contexts of Flaubert's famous novel and its heroine in new ways. Current gender and masculinities theory is combined with attention to the 19th-century French codification of sex as defined by the Code Napoleon to frame central questions about male privilege, male roles, "successful" manhood, masculinity, and male identity formation. Throughout, the traditional and problematic literary notion of character itself is rethought within the wider generic context of how the masculine is represented in the Realist Novel. Not only does this study then offer a new approach to a well-known novel in its French context, but it also opens up a method whereby the canonical 19th-century European novelists can be reevaluated through their various treatments of the masculine. The tragedy of suppressed and unexpressed individuality so central to both Emma and Charles Bovary as defined in this study then has much to say to the "crisis in masculinity" as experienced in the late 20th-century. ... Read more

Book Description
This Companion's textual analysis of the complete range of Flaubert's work, including Madame Bovary, is accompanied by discussion of broader theoretical issues, including Flaubert's place in the canon of French literature. The series of new essays represents the latest scholarly thinking on the novelist's work and critical legacy. A variety of critical approaches provides insight into the continuing power of Flaubert's writing. An afterword by Mario Vargas Llosa concludes the volume. The book includes a chronology and suggestions for further reading. ... Read more

Book Description
Francis Steegmuller's beautifully executed double portrait of Madame Bovary and her maker is a remarkable and unusual biographical study, a sensitive and detailed account of how an unpromising young man turns himself into one of the world's greatest novelists. Steegmuller starts with the young Flaubert, prone to mysterious fits, hypochondriacal, at odds with and yet dependent on his bourgeois family. Then, drawing on Flaubert's voluminous correspondence, Steegmuller tracks his subject through friendships and love affairs, a trip to the Orient, nervous breakdown and tenuous recovery, and finally into the study, where a mind at once restless and jaded finds a focus in the precisely detailed reality of an imagined woman, utterly ordinary in her unhappiness, whose story was to revolutionize literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This book is an extremely incisive dissection of Flaubert
For anyone who has ever read "Madame Bovary" (arrogant literature professors included), this book is a must buy. Simply put, "The End of Romance" is the master analyzing "TheMaster". Writing with a remarkably clear and economical prosaic style,Mr. Gans shows exactly why most consider Flaubert's masterpiece to be thegreatest novel of the French language. Not only does he give a shortbiography of the author, and analyse the novel's plot and main characters,but most importantly, he presents a thorogh discussion on the originalityof the work (see chapter on the "comices agricoles")! ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

A lovely piece of work
Flaubert was a difficult man: arrogant, anal, irascible, a lonely bear of a fellow with a special gift for making enemies. Yet Geoffrey Wall manages to make him human and sympathetic. This is a first-rate biography, quick, smart, dramatic and often very funny. The MADAME BOVARY years might be handled better by Francis Steegmuller in his excellent double bio of the author and his masterpiece, but Wall's account of Flaubert's later career cannot be improved on. Giving special life to those chapters is his account of Flaubert's friendship with the immensely likable George Sand. If she can connect with this prickly man, why can't the rest of us? Their exchange of letters is one of the great literary dialogues and Wall tells this story beautifully.

I began this book disliking the man despite my love of his novels. I finished it feeling fond of the man, identifying with his faults, and wanting reread everything.

Biographer not up to the job
This is a disappointing biography of Flaubert. It discusses neither Flaubert's intellectual development nor his books in any depth. The author makes much of the silliest and must vulgar aspects of Flaubert's personality (as if he felt a special affinity for these topics) while skirting any serious aesthetic or literary issues. Flaubert was certainly a peculiar, irritating man, but Wall, like most celebrity biographers of our day, stresses these aspects to try to squeeze some cheap laughs and prurient snickers from his subject matter. Flaubert's strange love affair with Louise Colet is narrated so sophomorically that it's practically unreadable. The book ends abruptly, summarizing Flaubert's last few years in a few paragraphs, as if the biographer couldn't stand it anymore himself. The best thing about the book is the sprinkling of excerpts from Flaubert's letters. The worst thing is the biographer's low-brow, childish, psychobabbling voice trying to make sense of a literary genius he had no business trying to write a life of. It's as if Seinfeld tried to write a book about Homer. ... Read more

Book Description
Therse Desqueyroux, Franois Mauriac's stark and introspective 1927 novel, appears to be quite a different tale from Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert's succs de scandale published exactly seventy years earlier. Yet upon closer scrutiny, the two novels' similarities become undeniable. The preponderance of parallelisms surely cannot be attributed to happenstance, nor can one agree with the contention that Mauriac must have been inspired, unconsciously and unbeknownst to him, by the literary model of Madame Bovary. Textual Hauntings examination and reflections on these two novels leads to a deeper appreciation and a better understanding of each work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A modest correction
I need to take exception to the one-star review by l.a.seidensticker in which he complains that TEXTUAL HAUNTINGS is in French.It is not.Quotes from Flaubert and Mauriac are in the French original however.For an actual review of my book, readers can consult the March 2007 issue of the FRENCH REVIEW for David O'Connell's very favorable comments on TEXTUAL HAUNTINGS.Ed Gallagher

they might be giants; but alas depended on amazon
the idea behind this book (that there are unexpected and remarkable parallels to be considered between bovary and desqueyroux) is intriguing. in fact i would love to read about them.however, i am not fluent in french, and Textual Hauntings absolutely requires quite a bit more than mere familiarity with the language.NO WHERE on amazon is it mentioned that gallagher's study is not in english. it seems to me reasonable to assume that unless otherwise noted a book (from Amazon, with an english title) is written in english unless otherwise described. i have been brooding on this for several months now...and still find it scarcely excusable. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first book-length study of Flaubert's use of dialogue, an important but neglected component of his fictional texts. Professor Haig's starting point is Sartre's observation that 'Flaubert does not believe that we speak: we are spoken'. Dialogue in Flaubert does not attempt to represent an individual style but to circumscribe a larger phenomenon of language. Speech defines man both in the sense that it describes him as a set of human characteristics, and inscribes him within a system of social values. The author explores the development of Flaubert's use of dialogue in Madame Bovary, L'Education Sentimentale (both versions), and Bouvard et Pécuchet. ... Read more