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A review by trin
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
3.0
Julien Sorel feels like an impressively modern sort of character. Or perhaps, depressingly, mediocre white men have simply been failing upward for centuries, while somehow making women swoon with their average at best dick game; the shocking thing about Sorel, maybe, is that he is eventually made to face consequences for his misdeeds.
He's supposed to be a deliberately ambiguous figure, but to be honest I mostly just thought that he sucked; Stendhal's depiction, especially in the earlier Madame de Rênal sections, is at least amusing, as Sorel first puts his budding MRA routine into action. He reminds me of no one so much as Rimmer from Red Dwarf -- self-impressed and obsessed with Napoleon -- although distinctly less likable or sympathetic. And more successfully heterosexual, for some reason.
Eventually, I did get a bit weary of the novel's various political machinations, as I rarely knew precisely what Stendhal was satirizing -- I'm sure in the 1830s a lot of this material killed, though. Stendhal's meta-commentary and fourth-wall breaking is still delightful today.
This was not an easy read, nor a book I see myself returning to, but I am glad I read it. And I intend to give The Charterhouse of Parma a shot at some point in the future.
He's supposed to be a deliberately ambiguous figure, but to be honest I mostly just thought that he sucked; Stendhal's depiction, especially in the earlier Madame de Rênal sections, is at least amusing, as Sorel first puts his budding MRA routine into action. He reminds me of no one so much as Rimmer from Red Dwarf -- self-impressed and obsessed with Napoleon -- although distinctly less likable or sympathetic. And more successfully heterosexual, for some reason.
Eventually, I did get a bit weary of the novel's various political machinations, as I rarely knew precisely what Stendhal was satirizing -- I'm sure in the 1830s a lot of this material killed, though. Stendhal's meta-commentary and fourth-wall breaking is still delightful today.
This was not an easy read, nor a book I see myself returning to, but I am glad I read it. And I intend to give The Charterhouse of Parma a shot at some point in the future.