Stendhal: The Red and the Black (Everyman Paperback Classics)
by Marie-Henri Beyle (Stendhal)
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Read in June, 2008
recommended to Melody by:
Brian Johnson
I don’t like to finish a book by counting the number of pages left to go. But that’s what I found myself doing with The Red and the Black. Wondering, “when the hell is this going to end” and wishing that Julian would just die already.
The first half of the copy of the book I checked out of the library included the penciled notes from someone who felt that even though the book wasn’t THEIR personal copy, they had the right (or probably, the need) to write things such as the defin...more
The first half of the copy of the book I checked out of the library included the penciled notes from someone who felt that even though the book wasn’t THEIR personal copy, they had the right (or probably, the need) to write things such as the defin...more
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Read in August, 2005
recommends it for:
everybody
Hi ha llibres, com 'El roig i el negre', que sembla que van ser escrits ahir. T'atrapen des del principi i, tot i tenir 797 pàgines, els devores amb pocs dies i encara lamentes que s'hagi acabat tan aviat. Costa de creure que un escriptor francès de la primera meitat del segle XIX, sigui capaç d'escriure amb un estil tan directe, senzill i essencial. Costa de creure que Stendhal ja sabés perfectament que a la hora d'escriure bé les floritures sobren, i l'important és descriure amb els mín...more
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Read in February, 2008
So I couldn't find the actual "The Red and the Black," so this audio book will have to suffice.
"The Red and the Black" was written by Stendahl, and tells the story of Julien Sorel. In the novel, Julien travels from lower-middle class to the socially prominent city of Paris, ultimately to Julien's execution. Inbetween these occurences, however, Julien's climb to the top is rocky. After being hired as a tutor for the Mayor of Verrieres's children for Julien's knowl...more
"The Red and the Black" was written by Stendahl, and tells the story of Julien Sorel. In the novel, Julien travels from lower-middle class to the socially prominent city of Paris, ultimately to Julien's execution. Inbetween these occurences, however, Julien's climb to the top is rocky. After being hired as a tutor for the Mayor of Verrieres's children for Julien's knowl...more
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The city as the site of ‘seeing’ and newness becomes increasingly iconographic in the 19th century novel which draws upon the differential and baroque nature of the city, as it becomes a point of arrival made possible through travel from the province. Modernity’s first antihero, Julien Sorel, shines in Stendhal’s The Red and the Black through the speed of travel increasingly normalized through the re-stabilization of the liberal marketplace following the post-revolutionary French emigra...more
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If nothing else, read Moncrieff's translation to seep yourself in the highly latinate, generally overeducated and comfortably contorted prose ('But the adroitness with the want of which we are reproaching him would have debarred the sublime impulse of seizing the sword which, at that moment, made him appear so handsome in the eyes of Mademoiselle de La Mole') -- it will do wonders for the style of your work emails. Trust me on this one.
What to say about Stendhal? I think he exists halfway be...more
What to say about Stendhal? I think he exists halfway be...more
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Read in September, 1995
Lessons learned: don't sleep with other people's wives, and don't fuck with the class system. Stendhal manages to conflate the two rather elegantly in the social maneuverings of the novel's hero, Julien Sorel. His romantic intrigues are immediately political as well as sensual, encapsulating a good deal of the contemporaneous upheavals in French government, as well as addressing more universal aspects of social tension and class psychology and, of course, the eternal divergence of love and lust....more
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به روایتِ گئورک لوکاچ سرخ وسیاه، نوشتهی هانری بیل استاندال، نیز جز تصویر پستی یک عصر نیست؛ از طریق گذر از زندگی چند شخصیت. در سرخ و سیاه شخصیتهایی چون ژولین و سورل به این قصد به میدان میآیند که تباهی یک عصر را یادآوری کنند. آنها در عصری زندگی میکنند که طبیعت انسان تحقق...more
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Read in June, 2008
It took me 26 years to finish this book, but I finally did. I can't recall how many times I've picked this up and put it down, but this time I was determined to make it happen. Around page 250, I almost gave up. French society in the 19th century? It's boring! And all the cultural commentary was lost on stupid old me, even if I know a thing or two about Franceland. It was like Bovary for me -- the problems of these characters seemed so outdated for me that I couldn't really invest in them. The o...more
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Read in December, 2007
It's a book about the dangers of reading. The novel's characters are seduced by ideas, poetic gestures, tragic endings, narratives they might inhabit and soon find themselves enslaved to them, marching lockstep in the footprints of characters whose stories they've read. Stendhal obviously takes pleasure in his position as most recent seducer of the book's reader and he sugar-coats his narrative pills just enough that it's only later, with the feeling of slight corrosion in your stomach, that y...more
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Read in February, 2008
This is the story of Julien Sorel, a young man from the provinces of France who is inflamed with the passion of youth, a passion for the ideals of the Napoleonic age, but whose greatest passion is his ambition which takes him to the heights and sets in motion his tragic fall. Stendhal is able to present his narrative with unmatched, for his time, psychological depth and realism. The love affairs and political intrigues are spellbinding for the reader even today. This novel truly presents a "...more
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Read in June, 2008
I had high hopes for this book, it sounded like something I'd love, but I found it dull and confusing, and the characters obnoxious and melodrammatic. It went back and forth in time (weeks or months rather than years) with little to guide you, which made it confusing, as was some of the politics, which just seemed obscure.
There's satire and political and social commentary but I just couldn't get past the awful characters and their tediousness. They forced themselves to fall in love and trea...more
There's satire and political and social commentary but I just couldn't get past the awful characters and their tediousness. They forced themselves to fall in love and trea...more
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Read in August, 2008
If you're looking for an easy read, this isn't the place to start. It's dense, turgid, and sometimes kinda boring. But it's also moving, with currents of irony and self-awareness, and an all-around understanding of love both in a touching, Casablanca way and in a rather funny teenage-melodrama way. Like Flaubert, Stendhal bridges the romantics and realists, although I think he does it better. Problem is I really don't like romantic fiction very much. And this first foray into the tumultuous...more
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Read in January, 2005
I read the C. K. Scott-Moncrieff translation because it seemed more difficult. Which it was, in fact (for me, anyway). This translation used a lot of arcane language and concepts I was not familiar with; but, seeing it as a learning exercise, I carried a notebook all summer and jotted down concepts and words I didn't understand, and then spent the next day or so looking them up and writing them down. Fortunately, my work had a copy of the Murray edition of the OED and with that, coupl...more
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Read in January, 2008
Why didn't I read this sooner? The protagonist Julien is a complicated and contradictory character, but to me seemed so much more alive than, for instance, his pessimistic equivalent in War and Peace, Prince Andre. His ambition and passion are always at odds, and although he's intelligent his vanity and romanticism lead him to act as if he were completely naive. What I like is that we're allowed to see all of his really ugly character traits, some of which are scarily relatable.
It's a dark b...more
It's a dark b...more
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I thought the story was rather frivolous. I wish Stendhal would have put Julien in more ridiculous situations - is that possible? He would have been fun to laugh at, but it didn't really incite that response.
It was an entertaining read, but I was annoyed with some of the characters.
***Update***
I just read Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of his writing and I feel like I should give Stendhal some credit. He is one of the very few writers of his time to potray women realistically a...more
It was an entertaining read, but I was annoyed with some of the characters.
***Update***
I just read Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of his writing and I feel like I should give Stendhal some credit. He is one of the very few writers of his time to potray women realistically a...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Tyler by:
Top 100 listrecommends it for: All; Guys, esp.
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Read in March, 2008
I'm not sure what to say about this book...it was incredibly interesting to read, but some of the details I found mundane. I kept thinking of how much more interesting it would be in French. I love the end of the book and all of the surprised that you never see coming! The characters are petty and I feel like the book is written to enforce their petty bourgeois attitudes, which is an interesting approach. It left me on a bit of a flat note, although I'm sure other people will find it ironically...more
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Read in March, 2008
Not too bad for a book moving well through its second century, and C.K. Scott Moncrieff translates with such chivalrous Pall Mall English the few footnotes become witty asides.
I praise it for something approximating psychological realism. In Dickens we learn what the woman in front of the mayor wore, down to her shoes, but in Stendhal we learn what the woman thought of the mayor and what the mayor thought of her and how the mayor's own thoughts embarrass him and there's always a lock to be t...more
I praise it for something approximating psychological realism. In Dickens we learn what the woman in front of the mayor wore, down to her shoes, but in Stendhal we learn what the woman thought of the mayor and what the mayor thought of her and how the mayor's own thoughts embarrass him and there's always a lock to be t...more
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Read in November, 2007
Simply amazing. Along with Thackeray and Balzac, Stendhal is the first true modern novelist. One critic suggested that he was actually ahead of his time - his concern with psychological states has more in common with 20th century literature than most 19th century literature. But, this remains perhaps a paradigmatic example of that 19th century mainstay, the bildungsroman. Probably the best French novelist of the 19th century, equal to Balzac and Flaubert.
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A typical French classic. This book is about all of the emotions and feelings of life, love, and failure. It is, as they usually are, set in a rural French village where a certain young man, is seeking a better life. On the way, he runs into trouble, falls in love, and all other possible interferences. Though these plots often get boring, especially after ou read 200 books that have the same plot, everyone still has to read this book to be considered educated and intelligent.
Though the plot ca...more
Though the plot ca...more
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