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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More playful than reputation as 'realistic' classic suggests, January 10, 2001
A more entertaining treatment of the theme of the transgressive individual and hypocritical society than Camus' 'The Outsider'. 'The Red and the Black' is often held up as the starting point of 19th century European realism, and the book has the socio-historical breadth, narrative variety, powerful set-pieces and vivid characterisation we expect from such a term. But in its breathless speed, deceptively casual style and weightless movement, making it read more like a thriller than a novel of social mores, it is a world away from the works of Dickens, Tolstoy or Balzac, which are too often grounded by detail; and closer to the Voltaire of 'Candide'. Similarly, Stendhal's supple psychological analysis is not the rigid speculation of these masters, but a recognition of shifting, provisional consciousness more usual in James and Proust. finally, the novel's formal playfulness, the interplay between narrator and his material, his ironically 'heroic', Dumas-like approach to his hero and the more bathetic reality foreshadow the 'anti-fiction' procedures of Nabokov. The difference between the Oxford World's Classics tranlation (Catherine Slater) and the Everyman (Scott Moncrieff) is that the former is unpoetic, serviceable, but a great, lucid pageturner, while the Moncrieff is poetic, often beautiful, but frequently stumbling, tripping up over the Stendhalian pace. Roger Pearson's OWC introduction brilliantly reveals the intricate patterning and allusiveness inherent in Stendhal's seemingly rushed prose; Everyman has a useful selection of major critical responses to the book (Balzac, Zola, Sainte-Beuve, James etc.).
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHATEVER IT TAKES, December 9, 2001
Some things never change. In the world today we're used to hearing about corporate climbers who are willing to do anything to move up in the company. Sacrifice their wife or husband, time with their children, and sometimes even their soul. All in pursuit of the American Dream, a.k.a. materialistic eden. In THE RED AND THE BLACK Stendhal shows us that things weren't much different in 1830, when the book was published in France. Julien Sorel is a young man who was cursed with a scumbag, loveless father who has no interest in his family except in what they can do for him financially. After bargaining with the local mayor of his hick town, his father negotiates Julien to be the tutor of the prestigious house of Renal. One thinks of a slave auction as his father milks the mayor for all the money he can connive out of him in return for Julien's services. Of course Julien has bigger plans, after all, his idol is the great destroyer of the aristocracy, Napoleon. Julien glances over the fact that Napoleon set up his own aristocracy. Yes, Julien is a closet revolutionary who despises the very people he has to serve or suck up to. This brings up the largest idea of the book. Namely, that to get ahead in the world, you have to be a chameleon who changes shades according to what influential man or woman's favor you are trying to curry. Kissing butt is a polite way of phrasing it. While he is being bored by the Renal's children he falls into an affair with the mayor's wife. While this might have helped his career he unfortunately falls in love. He seems to start all of his plans of advancement pretty well, but in the end he always messes it up by actually having a conscience. By showing the superficialities of love, he falls in love. One of the most ironic points in the book is when he starts studying to be a priest when in actuality, he is an atheist. Even with this against him, he shows more morality and godliness than his colleagues at the seminary. Julien is feared no matter what circle he travels in, because who better to recognize his below level rebellion than the hypocrites of every level of society. This is ultimately the horrible conflict of Julien. At what point will he be unable to retain his identity? At what point does acting like a sellout make you a sellout even in your own heart? This book is divine. I am shocked that only 4 reviews have been written about it. It is hard to know what to make of it because it is so futuristic, looking more towards the 20th century than the 19th. There is none of the crippling sentimentalism of Dickens or Eliot here. He is more comparable to Thackeray or Balzac. This is a powerful book with flashes of erotic power which I am surprised made it through the censors of his time. It looks more towards Camus but Stendhal is ten times the artist. I highly recommend reading this and will soon move on to THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA. Almost forgot, Catherine Slater does a great job translating this work from French to English.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best ever., December 3, 2001
This is one of the finest novels of the 19C. It chronicles the relentless rise - and inevitable, brutal fall - of a talented and highly ambitious young man during the French restoration. You witness Julian, from his abusive childhood at a sawmill, as he gains the position of a tutor with the local gentry on the strength of his having memorised the entire Vulgate Bible, into the highest ranks of the aristocracy. All around him, there are characters in equal parts fascinating and pathetic, perhaps more interesting than he and yet eventually his victims. The protagonist Julian is at times cold, calculating, shrewd, a fool, and very sad, desperately in need of love. But he is always realistic psychologically and cunning, if lucky and then very unlucky. Julian bursts all of the limits imposed on him and in the process indicts the society from which he sprung and gained. This is utterly spellbinding fiction, into which you can go as deeply as you wish, from simple emotional reactions and an exploration of a rigid society, to structuralist symbolism if that is your bag. I started reading this in a bout of insomnia and continued, rivetted and repelled, through the entire night. Highest recommendation.
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