Three Tales/Trois Contes
Gustave Flaubert
Vivid imagery
I read Gustave Flaubert's Three Tales for the first time in English translation at the age of 17 in spring of 1973. I remember this precisely because I was a freshman at Cornell University, and Three Tales was required reading for a freshman seminar I took. I read it again in French (Trois contes) in Oct 2020, partly because I wanted to see if my fifty-year-old impressions were still valid, and partly as a challenge to myself. I had not read much in French recently and wanted to see if I could.
What I remember best about Three Tales is not the stories, but the mental images they evoked. The first story is "A Simple Heart". I see that many reviewers consider it the best story in the book. Perhaps it is, but I found it dreary (in the way that Flaubert often is -- no author is more adept at making a reader feel awful). However, it does end in a famously vivid image the apotheosis of the protagonist's parrot. The second story, "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier" is an extremely violent and gory tale, and was the one whose images remained most vivid in my mind over the course of fifty years. The final story "Herodias", is a retelling of the famous story in which the princess Salomé demands the head of John the Baptist.