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What You’ll Love about… “A Simple Heart” by Gustave Flaubert
I recently discovered “A Simple Heart,” and it was so good that I wondered why nobody had ever recommended it to me. There is just so much good literature out there that it would be impossible to read it all, and I guess tastes differ, but I would recommend this story to anyone. The style is remarkably matter-of-fact, but “A Simple Heart” treats its subject with astonishing sensitivity and care, and the dry style sets you up for a sucker-punch of sentimentality at the end that is just perfect.
Flaubert’s mode is realism, and “A Simple Heart” (sometimes translated as “A Simple Soul”) is considered to be one of the mode’s masterpieces. Realist art, and realist literature in particular, tries to present human existence in a straightforward and detailed way that mimics the way people experience reality. It’s a bold aim that isn’t easily achieved, and even when it is, the results may not be very interesting. Most realist literature is pretty dull to me, but Flaubert has found the magic formula. It will be useful for you to think about how realistic you think this story is, and how Flaubert’s writing style contributes to the feeling that the story is somehow real.
Another aim of realism was to focus on the lives of everyday people. For a long time, history and literature reflected the interest of the wealthy and powerful…
