The authentic protagonist of all that Flaubert wrote

When you start reading any narrative by Gustave Flaubert, it's inevitable to think of Madame Bovary. The reasons are obvious: this prodigious novel, a founder of modern literature, is the compendium of all the wisdom of the realist novel, and I assure you that it is a great deal of wisdom. Implicit in it, moreover, is the entire cinematograph, which would use and abuse Flaubert's techniques: the parallel montage of the conversation between Emma and Rodolphe at the agricultural fair, the enigmatic itinerary of the fiacre through Rouen (the same Rouen as Claude Monet) with Emma and Léon inside as the mystery of seduction is reawakened (which makes me think, incidentally, of the scene in James Cameron's Titanic, when Jack and Rose make love for the first time in a car), or Emma's visit to the tax collector with the aim of avoiding seizure, observed through the point of view of two neighbors.Everything in this marvelous novel, in effect, foreshadowed cinema. But if in anything Flaubert proves himself a master, it is in the rhythm of narration, with the perfect management of summaries, ellipses, and amplifications. It is curious because, years ago, Quim Monzó introduced, as a preliminary quotation for a volume of his stories (Guadalajara), the following quotation from the Flaubertian masterpiece: "They began slowly, then they went faster" (ch. 8 of the first part). As I read in an interview, it seems Monzó wanted to mock the custom of "preliminary quotations." But the fact is that, whether he wanted to or not, he chose a sentence (from the ballroom scene at the Marquis d'Audervilliers' house) that could be understood as a summary of Flaubert's attitude towards narration, which is nothing more than knowing when to summarize and when to make moments last. In fact, on one occasion when Emma walks with Léon, the narrator repeats the same sentence structure: "For a time she walked quickly; then she slowed her pace" (ch. 3 of the second part). Perhaps Monzó wanted to mock it, but he surely understood very well the invaluable narrative lesson it implied.With all this in our baggage, undertaking now the reading of the Three Tales that Georgina Solà has magnificently translated for the Flâneur publishing house is to reconnect with the immortal style of the also author of Sentimental Education. Because there is no need to look for plots, nor to confuse oneself with the genealogy of the characters. The authentic protagonist of everything Flaubert writes is his style.A description, for example, of Julià's wife, the hero of the second story: “She was very pale, a little proud, and intelligent. The horns of her coif brushed the door lintels; the tail of her woolen dress dragged three paces behind her. Her house was run like the inside of a monastery; every morning she distributed the work to the maids, checked the jams and ointments, and spun or embroidered altar cloths. By dint of praying, a son came to her”.“A force of praying a son came to him”. Only the sagacity of a born storyteller is capable of condensing irony, time, and syntax into just nine words. This is Flaubert, without a shadow of a doubt.Of the three stories in the collection, the first, A Simple Heart, is the one that most resembles the world of Madame Bovary. It is the France after the Napoleonic dream, the arrière-pays populated by petty bourgeoisie, widows, maids, and rectors. In this provincial universe, the characters dream, save or squander, and struggle to survive without ever cheapening their dream. Like Emma Bovary.