The Red and the Black (Modern Library) [Hardcover]

Stendhal (Author), Burton Raffel (Translator), Diane Johnson (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Modern Library | Publication Date: June 24, 2003

A Major New Translation

The Red and the Black, Stendhal’s masterpiece, is the story of Julien Sorel, a young dreamer from the provinces, fueled by Napoleonic ideals, whose desire to make his fortune sets in motion events both mesmerizing and tragic. Sorel’s quest to find himself, and the doomed love he encounters along the way, are delineated with an unprecedented psychological depth and realism. At the same time, Stendhal weaves together the social life and fraught political intrigues of post–Napoleonic France, bringing that world to unforgettable, full-color life. His portrait of Julien and early-nineteenth-century France remains an unsurpassed creation, one that brilliantly anticipates modern literature.

Neglected during its time, The Red and the Black has assumed its rightful place as one of the world’s great books, and Burton Raffel’s extraordinary new translation, coupled with an enlightening Introduction by Diane Johnson, helps it shine more brightly than ever before.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Burton Raffel’s translations

For Balzac’s Père Goriot

“Raffel’s Père Goriot is both faithful and beautiful, and that makes it a masterpiece.” —Alain Renoir

“I predict that this translation will give Balzac’s great novel a new life for English and American readers. . . . The definitive translation for this generation.” —Peter Brooks

“[Raffel’s] translation has the vigor and elasticity of Balzac’s style, and catches with uncanny accuracy the tone of the period.” —Guy Davenport

For Cervantes’s Don Quijote

“[Raffel’s Don Quijote] recasts the original into lively English, without losing the complexity and flavor of the Spanish. . . . This Quijote flows smoothly and reads, in fact, like original prose rather than a translation.” —Adrienne Martin

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (June 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679642846
• ISBN-13: 978-0679642848
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #814,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lloyd C. Parks's Still the Best Translation, January 9, 2006

By 

Bookman (California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red and the Black (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

The Red and the Black is the greatest novel ever written. I first began reading it six years ago, and I've read it twice a year ever since. I own five different translations: Robert Adams (Norton Critical), Lowell Bair (Bantam Classics), Catherine Slater (Oxford World's Classics), Burton Raffel (Modern Library), and Lloyd C. Parks (Signet Classics).

I use the Parks version as my reading text and use the others for comparison, whenever a particular word or passage seems odd. The Raffel translation is an acceptable substitute, if you're only buying one version; but I like it less because it lacks depth, texture, and flavor, like those bland lattes they sell at Starbucks. It's almost as if Raffel wants you to forget that Stendhal was French, that the characters are French, and the action takes place in France. You could easily switch character and place names and never know the book had been penned by a foreigner.

Note the differences between these two versions of the same passage. Raffel at p. 88 (paper): "She loved him a thousand times more than life itself, and never gave a thought to money." Parks at p. 102-3: "She loved him a thousand times better than life, would have loved him had he been ungrateful and untrue, even if he had belonged to the opposite party, the Bonapartists... and her money meant nothing to her." (Elipsis in original.)

I keep giving Raffel a fair shot at becoming my primary text, but I keep coming back to Parks. Page for page, it's a better read.

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Wretched "Translation", September 22, 2006

By 

rater25 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red and the Black (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

The Modern Library "translation" by Burton Raffel of THE RED AND THE BLACK is actually a vulgar, anachronistic retelling of Stendhal's novel. I recall abandoning it in disgust when the main character refers to his life as a total "blast". MTV was obviously very popular in 1830 France.

Instead, the brilliant Moncrieff translation, as revised by Stendhal scholar Ann Jefferson, is highly recommended (Everyman paperback, ISBN 0460876430).

June, 2001 update: Just read the translation Roger Gard did for Penguin just before his untimely death. It is accurate, fluent, free of Briticisms and has excellent and extensive notes. Highly recommended!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raffel Does It Again, August 11, 2003

By 

David Curry (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red and the Black (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

Readers in my generation grew up with some pretty awful translations, with even the French and Russian writers often coming off sounding Victorian. We should be grateful for Burton Raffel and other currently active translators (including Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky, who got the vernacular back into Dostoievski) for changing that. It was Raffel who finally enabled me to read and savorDon Quixote, and I'll always thank him for that. Now I also owe him thanks for making Stendahl's uneven but nonetheless great tale of Julien Sorell so engaging and readable.

If any reader out there can make any sense of the mystifying jacket photograph on this book, please share that sense with us. What does it have to do with the book? More to the point, what IS it? Do the torso and the oversized hand belong to the same person, or what?

But, hey, the Modern Library gave us a full cloth binding on this one, so we can forgive the jacket.