A Simple Heart

A Simple Heart

Rating

9.5

The Pequod Review:

A Simple Heart is a superb novella, one that is arguably superior to Flaubert’s better-known novels. The book is a character study of a poor rural servant named Felicity, who experiences a life of hardship and poverty, yet remains deeply loyal and loving even to those who do not reciprocate. After the loss of several important people in her life, she directs her affections toward a pet parrot named Loulou; and when Loulou dies, Felicity comes up with the idea to have it stuffed, an act Flaubert treats entirely unironically and as one of simple beauty: “At last he arrived – looking quite magnificent, perched on a branch screwed into a mahogany base, one foot in the air, his head cocked to one side, and biting a nut which the taxidermist, out of a love of the grandiose, has gilded.” Felicity is kind and forgiving, and radically Christ-like – and the book is deeply spiritual in the way it values everyone, especially the poorest among us.