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A review by jason_pym
The Red And The Black by Stendhal
3.0
First half I loved, second half I couldn’t make head or tail of.
Book 1 exposes the failings of provincial 19th century France. The amoral Julien tries to leave behind his peasant background by becoming a tutor in the home of a town mayor. He has an affair with the mayor’s wife, partly out of spite for his bourgeois employer, which forces him to change careers and train as a priest. Then we see the hypocrisy of life in the seminary where it’s unwise to stand out from the mob mediocrity of his fellow students.
This all felt like a real portrait of a young man of poor background trying to get ahead in whatever way he could. I could get the dual motivations in his affair (genuine affection and personal advantage). The portrayal of the seminary, the other students and the abbé Pirard is great.
Book 2 shifts to Paris, where I thought there would be a similar take on the hypocrisy and corruption of the aristocracy, but the book lost me.
Julien now works for the family of the Marquis de la Mole as a secretary. There is an on-off love affair with the Marquis daughter, which goes on for chapter after chapter. She finds him a revolting peasant, he finds her a stuck up aristocrat, but the affair is again a way for Julien to take revenge on the upper classes and a possible stepping stone. Though he seemed to occasionally have genuine affection for the mayor’s wife, here it’s less clear. Although I could figure out Julien’s motivations, it didn’t come across for me in the text, and I didn’t understand the daughter at all…
Eventually he wins her over, and by marrying her get the aristocratic title and army commission he’s always desired. But it is all foiled by a letter from the mayor’s wife (from book 1) who tells the Marquis that Julien just uses women to get ahead. Julien takes revenge by shooting the mayor’s wife in a church. After a hundred pages of an impenetrable love affair, the decision and act of murder is covered in two paragraphs, which felt very odd. The mayor’s wife survives, and still – somehow – feels pity for him, and he decides he genuinely did love her. That really didn’t make any sense to me. Julien goes to the guillotine, she claims his severed head (what?).
In the middle there is a chapter where he goes on a secret mission to deliver a letter to a Duc exiled in England – I don’t have enough background as to why Julien was chosen, or what was going on, but it seemed a bit random in the context of the rest of the book (a welcome break though).
So, I think there’s a lot here that I missed because I don’t have the historical and social background to the story. I will likely give it a go again in a few years when I have more of a clue. If you’re looking for entertainment, and coming at the book cold, I wouldn’t recommend it though.
Book 1 exposes the failings of provincial 19th century France. The amoral Julien tries to leave behind his peasant background by becoming a tutor in the home of a town mayor. He has an affair with the mayor’s wife, partly out of spite for his bourgeois employer, which forces him to change careers and train as a priest. Then we see the hypocrisy of life in the seminary where it’s unwise to stand out from the mob mediocrity of his fellow students.
This all felt like a real portrait of a young man of poor background trying to get ahead in whatever way he could. I could get the dual motivations in his affair (genuine affection and personal advantage). The portrayal of the seminary, the other students and the abbé Pirard is great.
Book 2 shifts to Paris, where I thought there would be a similar take on the hypocrisy and corruption of the aristocracy, but the book lost me.
Julien now works for the family of the Marquis de la Mole as a secretary. There is an on-off love affair with the Marquis daughter, which goes on for chapter after chapter. She finds him a revolting peasant, he finds her a stuck up aristocrat, but the affair is again a way for Julien to take revenge on the upper classes and a possible stepping stone. Though he seemed to occasionally have genuine affection for the mayor’s wife, here it’s less clear. Although I could figure out Julien’s motivations, it didn’t come across for me in the text, and I didn’t understand the daughter at all…
Eventually he wins her over, and by marrying her get the aristocratic title and army commission he’s always desired. But it is all foiled by a letter from the mayor’s wife (from book 1) who tells the Marquis that Julien just uses women to get ahead. Julien takes revenge by shooting the mayor’s wife in a church. After a hundred pages of an impenetrable love affair, the decision and act of murder is covered in two paragraphs, which felt very odd. The mayor’s wife survives, and still – somehow – feels pity for him, and he decides he genuinely did love her. That really didn’t make any sense to me. Julien goes to the guillotine, she claims his severed head (what?).
In the middle there is a chapter where he goes on a secret mission to deliver a letter to a Duc exiled in England – I don’t have enough background as to why Julien was chosen, or what was going on, but it seemed a bit random in the context of the rest of the book (a welcome break though).
So, I think there’s a lot here that I missed because I don’t have the historical and social background to the story. I will likely give it a go again in a few years when I have more of a clue. If you’re looking for entertainment, and coming at the book cold, I wouldn’t recommend it though.