This was not the translation I read of this. I read the Margaret Mauldon one and really loved it. I read "The Read and the Black years ago and was not as into it as I felt I was supposed to be. I had just read "War and Peace" and maybe it just paled in comparison. I will reread that one. As for the Charterhouse it was amazing. So grand and operatic, a common description but so apt. There is so much action and emotion and drama and melodrama on each page. The great line from Balzac is that there is a novel on every page of the book and he is right. Stendhal didn't hold back. He wrote it in a fury of dictation and though there might be slight structural problems the book whisks you away on a crazy adventure from start to finish. So grandly human and political and even Machiavellian.