|
|
 |
Red & the Black, The (Everyman's Library) |
| |
|
|
Author:
Stendhal
By Orion Publishing Group, Ltd.
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $6.50
Our Price: $48.71
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Product Description
In The Red and The Black (1830), young Julien Sorel nurtures anachronistic dreams of Napoleonic glory. However, a post-Revolutionary world of patronage-by the Church, politics, social arrivisme and women-points him toward more orthodox enterprises. This ambitious misfit is nonetheless feared and desired; and his inexplicable attempt at murder turns out to be an unparalleled way of extracting himself from convention. Stendhal, one of France's greatest novelists, fashions this story with a riveting psychological accuracy and a passionate awareness of political exigency.
|
|
 Neither particularly enjoyable nor especially significant, 2008-06-25
Julien Sorel devotes his life to self-advancement in this classic novel of French Restoration society. Stendhal's thought-by-thought analysis of human motivations invites comparison to Henry James, but the comparison is not very favorable, as James' prose is miles beyond Gard's translation of Stendhal (although admittedly the latter is much easier reading). Overall, this book about a basically bad man who comes to a bad end is not very satisfying, compared to a true masterpiece like Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, for example. Which is not to say it's a bad book, or even a poor one; but it's neither particularly enjoyable nor the great moving revelation that one looks for in a classic. Book One, which focuses on Julien's relationship with Mme de Renal, is much pleasanter reading than Book Two, which is more scattered, and gets bogged down by the disdainful Mathilde. In particular, the political sub-plot seems hopelessly out of place.
In sum, the hopelessly self-centered Julien is not a nice man, Madame de Renal is perhaps not very bright and too easily succumbs to her feelings, while Mathilde's emotional transformations defy credulity. How many of these people will get what they deserve? Ultimately, this reviewer didn't find any of these characters appealing enough to care. Frequently slow-moving and dry, this is a fine example of why so many people don't read the classics. Recommended only to the most resolute devotees of serious literature. For the more casual reader, there are hundreds of classics out there that are both more enjoyable and more significant.
Difficult to get captivated by his writing style...did not like it...., 2008-05-21
If you like the endless verbosity and meaningless realism of Balzac, you'll like Stendahl. I found him BORING....Before you jump to conclusions, I've thoroughly enjoyed works by Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Voltaire and other French and Russian authors of Classics. I just wasn't captivated by it and found his writing style average for a supposed CLASSIC.
Surprisingly modern voice, 2008-04-08
Among French novelists Stendhal's reputation falls short Hugo's, Balzac's, Flaubert's or even Dumas's. Nevertheless Stendhal stands quite on his own; his prose offers unsuspecting readers a surprisingly modern voice and his psychological insights are unrivaled.
For example, when Hugo in "Les Misérables" presents Valjean or Javert wrestling with themselves, he announces his intent and theme boldly and uses strong imagery, e.g. by entitling a chapter "A storm within a brain". On the other hand, Stendhal merely presents his main characters having interior monologues as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And so it is, but 19th century novelists had not the audacity to present the world naturally. The French Romantic writers saw heroes everywhere and matched their prose to the interior grandeur of the characters they depicted.
Stendhal's prose resembles Vermeer's subdued lighting--elegant and understated, magnificent in its effect rather than in itself.
But when all is said and done, the novel disappoints. Oh, the plot works itself out well enough, but one is left with the feeling Stendhal's world is small and petty. Stendhal probably intended this. There's no one to like in "The Red and the Black". Not the ambitious but continually disappointed Julien Sorel, not his two loves, Madame de Rênal and Mademoiselle de la Mote. The first is older yet naive while the second is young and brilliant but capricious.
As an anti-hero Julien is closer to a Peer Gynt rather than to a Faust, but even then I found it hard to care much for him. Julien does seem to sell his soul to his ambitions, or would have seemed so if Stendhal's rather cynical world admitted such things as souls worth selling. Julien's wasn't.
Vincent Poirier, Dublin
Still the most charismatic novel ever written, 2008-02-20
This novel has everything: political intrigue, the psychological detail of detective work, the ambiguity of love and romance; it's a comedy of manners, but also a saga of helplessness and tragedy, incisive social commentary. Published in 1830, The Red and The Black, is timeless: its relevance to contemporary Westernized or Americanized, bureaucratic, and capitalist-developed nations is both a condemnation and a triumph.
The Red and the Black first caught my attention 25 years ago in January 1983; a stack of copies were set out on a table in the Tattered Cover Bookshop, Denver (then on 1st Avenue in the Cherry Creek area). At that time, the Penguin edition was a new translation to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author, Henri-Marie Beyle, January 23, 1783. I don't know how or why I decided to buy a copy; maybe it had something to do with the brief review on the back cover, which was perhaps then as it is now: "Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins." Maybe I saw something of Julien in myself, or maybe like Mathilde de la Mole, I was looking for a life outside the script dictated by parents and society, or trying to find a world beyond materialism and utilitarianism, something inspirational and possibly Romantic. It was with this novel that I first realized that a writer could communicate intimately across centuries; I fell in love with Stendhal. I wanted to know about his life. He wrote with integrity; he wrote what he knew to be true about life, and he did not let the marketplace dictate what he should write. Beyle was a human being first, then a writer.
In January 1983, as now in January 2008, reading The Red and the Black, I am astounded with the author's ability to move smoothly from the character's interior thoughts into action or landscape while encompassing his characters in their political/social matrix. Whether in a high-society drawing room or in the stillness of night, Stendhal gave his work movement, dynamism. There is something uncanny about the author's ability to draw characters like Madame de Renal and her husband, a small-town merchant, politician, religious hypocrite. It is the Renals of the world who have the power to destroy the Romantically inspired Juliens and Mathildes, and yet a market-driven nation doesn't seem to function without the Renals. An unusual but appropriate companion reading to Stendhal's work might be Tocqueville's Democracy in America; volume one published in 1835.
"Hypocrisy is the respect vice pays to virtue.", 2006-11-21
Hypocrisy, or "frontin," is one of the least respected vices today. However, hypocrisy was much worse during the Victorian age, where its exaggerated concern for the external appearance of virtue led to insincerity and deception. This concept is brilliantly exemplified in The Red and the Black, a magnificent representative of 19th century French literature. Stendhal's claim to immortality lies in his perceptive writing that balances social commentary with psychological insights of the main characters, the arrogant yet clueless Julien, the virtuous Madam de Renal, and the impulsive Mademoiselle Mathilde de la Mole.
What I found most interesting was the portrayal of "hypocrisy" according to the protagonist's perception and as the overall characteristic of society during the Restoration period. The trouble is, Julien despises hypocrisy, but at the same time, he realizes that in order to acquire success he has to give in and be hypocritical. He holds a romantic view of Napoleon, but conservativism has forbidden such sentiments. Since the only possible route for the son of a bourgeois is the priesthood, Julien learns Latin in order to impress Chelan, the local priest, and this is only the first of a long series of insincere acts that helps him to get ahead. Authenticity is cheap.
Rousseau, one of Stendhal's philosophy muses, claims the source of hypocrisy is society itself because it is artificial and its members develop deformed natures. Society is deemed artificial because it imposes inequality among its members, especially when inherited social rank and inherited rank have nothing to do with the innate abilities of the person. Also, the artificiality of language creates a gap between the ideals and behavior in the real world. These ideals such as beauty, freedom, happiness, are all impossible to actualize in the real world because they are indefinable. There is nothing in the real world to correspond to these abstract ideals. The pursuit of abstractions in a socially invented hierarchy of wealth and rank causes psychological damage to people. One cannot truly live in an artificial world and escape the charge of hypocrisy.
Stendhal carefully showed how hypocrisy could betray a secret truth of character, and more importantly how the phony emphasis on piety actually drained all passion from the interactions of people in Parisian society.
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 843.7
EAN: 9780460876438
ISBN: 0460876430
Label: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd.
Manufacturer: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 550
Publication Date: 1997-06-15
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd.
Studio: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd. |
|
