technically 3.5 but felt it more appropriate to round it off to 3/5 instead of 4/5. I would say a review would come eventually but we all know how bad I am actually doing that; so let's see.

PS: should I even count this towards my annual reading goal if its only 56-pages?

It’s a simple story, one of repeated heartbreak and a loneliness I fear for myself. Except, for me, cats instead of a parrot. Not a great deal of forward movement but a focused work on one person in a seemingly unimportant life. I’d love to get a different perspective on the same events.

Cuento publicado en 1877, Un corazón sencillo del escritor francés Gustave Flaubert es la historia de una vieja criada al servicio de una acomodada familia, la que narra desde su ingreso al trabajo doméstico hasta su deceso rodeado de pobreza e indicios de demencia, lo último simbolizado en la figura de una peculiar ave disecada que la acompaña en cuerpo y alma en sus últimos momentos de vida.

Dirigida la narración por un pulcro estilo realista, el cuento revela las condiciones de vida de Felicidad, protagonista de la historia, determinada esta por su labor como empleada doméstica y cuidadora de los hijos de su patrona y el apego que siente por su sobrino Víctor. El afecto de los niños con los que se rodea y los diversos sucesos que les acontecen, impactarán la vida de Felicidad y permitirán expresar a los lectores los cambios que se operan en el personaje y en las relaciones que entabla con el medio en el que se encuentra.

Un gran primer acercamiento con Flaubert.

This is a sweet and simple story, or simple in the English translation, about the servant Félicité's life. This short story, as any book that follows a character through life until death, is bittersweet. But the novel is oddly not entirely tragic, as a stronger character might evoke. Instead we regard Félicité and her antics in the same way one would regard a butterfly; with admiration and towards the end a divine pity.

In that regard this slim novella offers a delightful reprieve and insight into an uncomplicated soul or as the book puts A Simple Heart.

A weird little story. But made me think a lot about care labor and the way modernity makes love into something so transactional that it just keeps wounding without really healing and that there are people left it the world with no one who really cares for them or takes care of them.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/269894.A_Simple_Heart?from_search=true#

Crushing

A bittersweet little tale. Wish I had read it in French, I'll have to remember to do so some later time as I really love Flaubert's writing style in his native language.