Name: The Red and the Black
Rating: 3.525 (60 reviews)

Stendhal

James Madden

A major new translation of Stendhal's masterpiece by acclaimed, bestselling translator Burton Raffel, "The Red and the Black" tells of Julien Sorel, an ambitious young man from the provinces fueled by dreams of Napoleonic heroism.

A Chronicle of 1830

The Red and the Black

Ilya

I love the freshness of the woods and the peacefulness of the fields, exactly as you say. You’ve often accused me of being a romantic. For the whole rest of my life I don’t want to hear anything about politics, and yet it’s politics that’s chasing me away.

I think people should be reading more of the classics, least of all because a lot of them contain a good amount of humour. "The Red and the Black" is one of those - which is particularly impressive given that the tone of the prose does not appear to take away from the salaciousness of the plot and the portrait of French society that Stendhal paints.

That being said, random things that gave me whiplash and made me reconsider my ordering of historical periods in my mind:

- Cropped out printed words (from a book), pasted to form an anonymous letter

And at the end of the day, part of me cannot believe how Julien had so many people wrapped around his finger at an age of his early 20's. But at the same time, only someone extremely pretty 

 intelligent could cause such mayhem - and it was still not enough when faced with a society stratified by class.

I think there are several modern novels that I have read over the past couple of years or so trying to explore similar ideas - about the materialism of those who fashion themselves spiritual, about corruption, about the societal disadvantage in which poverty places people. "The Red and the Black" has made me realise that a big element that was missing from them, that could have made them into better novels, was a larger overview and commentary on society and historical context, replaced instead by too much internal retrospection of their respective lead characters.

And while I have reduce my rating as the novel failed to retain my attention at several instances, I still think that maybe "The Red and the Black" is the next great classic that derserves its revival.

I think people should be reading more of the classics, least of all because a lot of them contain a good amount of humour. "The Red and the Black" is one of those - which is particularly impressive given that the tone of the prose does not appear to take away from the salaciousness of the plot and the portrait of French society that Stendhal paints.

That being said, random things that gave me whiplash and made me reconsider my ordering of historical periods in my mind:
- The mention(s) of the USA
- Cropped out printed words (from a book), pasted to form an anonymous letter
- The amount of pistols in this

And at the end of the day, part of me cannot believe how Julien had so many people wrapped around his finger at an age of his early 20's. But at the same time, only someone extremely pretty and intelligent could cause such mayhem - and it was still not enough when faced with a society stratified by class.

I think there are several modern novels that I have read over the past couple of years or so trying to explore similar ideas - about the materialism of those who fashion themselves spiritual, about corruption, about the societal disadvantage in which poverty places people. "The Red and the Black" has made me realise that a big element that was missing from them, that could have made them into better novels, was a larger overview and commentary on society and historical context, replaced instead by too much internal retrospection of their respective lead characters.

And while I have reduce my rating as the novel failed to retain my attention at several instances, I still think that maybe "The Red and the Black" is the next great classic that derserves its revival.

Le Rouge Et Le Noir

arwen

praying that i wont have to write an essay on this for my exam bc ...

ephe

waste of my precious time, dont read that book the main character is distasteful and the whole plot is fucking boring.

Le rouge et le noir

Abigaël Chevillard 

I loved this story.
It was really interesting to see what were the relations between liberals and monarchists in the ninetieth century in France. And I loved the love story! I was so engrossed and amazed by this book!
Unfortunately, I think I missed and didn't know some historical events even though I studied it. Thus, it altered my reading and that's why I only give it four stars.
I would recommend this book only if you know well the beginning of the ninetieth century in France otherwise you would fastly get lost.

The red and the black

suspiria

Danielle Martin

Je m'identifie beaucoup trop a Julien, extrêmement soucieux du regard que lui porte les gens, et ambitieux jusqu'a la mort.

Melody Izard

I don’t like to finish a book by counting the number of pages left to go. But that’s what I found myself doing with The Red and the Black. Wondering, “when the hell is this going to end” and wishing that Julian would just die already. 

The first half of the copy of the book I checked out of the library included the penciled notes from someone who felt that even though the book wasn’t THEIR personal copy, they had the right (or probably, the need) to write things such as the definition of “Fie!” (expression used to express wild disgust, disapprobation, annoyance); “Wretch! (a person of despicable or base character); faldstool (chair used by Prelate when officiating in a church away from his throne). They also made these sorts of comments in the margin: When Julian and the mother of the children he is tutoring (Madame de Rênal) are in her bedroom and she is supposedly resisting his advances (that’s when the word Wretch! was used), the previous library patron wrote in all caps, SEX. It floated around at least 4 times in the margins as we read about Julian and Madame de Rênal in her bedroom alone, and even though we didn’t get any graphic details, it was pretty clear what was going on – and if it wasn’t clear you could just refer to the helpful little notes provided by this former reader who liked to read with her pencil in hand. Another comment appeared when the author referred to Julian as “extremely wretched" My friend (and I consider this former reader a friend) wrote: “J. for real!”. So the note taking reader would make little observations throughout the book and just write them out there for you. 

Instead of reviewing the book, I’d rather just tell you more about the notes I found throughout the novel, but that’s not what I’m supposed to be doing – and you probably won’t read this copy of the book anyway – so you wouldn’t have the benefit of these amusing and sometimes helpful little notes – but even more noteworthy is that the notes stop before Volume I is complete. And I’m assuming this previous reader stopped reading the book too – because there is as much need for little notes in the second volume as the first. I’m just assuming that she (and I feel like I can call this reader a she) just got plain tired of the damn book and quit. 

But I didn’t quit (although I did get tired of it). I read while Julian went to the seminary and met up with this abbé or that Perfect and then ended up at The Hotel de la Mole and first he really, really didn’t like the Mademoiselle de La Mole (Mathilde) because she looked rather masculine and she was arrogant and she had rather colourless hair. And then suddenly he loved her more than the moon and the stars. And Mathilde would be having these same thoughts about Julian – first she loved him, then she loathed him – then back to love (usually when she was convinced that he didn’t love her) and finally, I’m pretty sure they have sex – even though there were no helpful little notes in the margin – because she announces later that she is pregnant. 

I think the book is a satire about French society and the church and about the silly class system. I did find myself amused at some of the writing – and not just the observations of my reading friend (who abandoned me half-way through). The end of the book has a note from Stendhal “To the Happy Few”. To the happy few who finished the book? Or who understood what he was really trying to say? Or to those few who were wealthy? I’m not sure. I was just happy I was finished.

Hannah Myhre

Very well written and interesting book, took some time to read, but it was worth it. The changes of point of views in the book and the parallel stories makes this book a very good and powerful read

Jeni Enjaian

I struggled with this book. The narrative is beautiful and flows well. However, the content of that narrative gave me pause. The main reason for the two star rating? The protagonist, Julian, is completely unsympathetic. The only thing that elicited the slightest amount of sympathy was his maligned childhood which occupies less than 10 pages of the 500+ page book. All of the characters appear weak and without strong values and convictions. 
Additionally, the narrative though quite descriptive lacks concrete details that help the reader understand the major events and relationships of the book. Many of these events happen without warni, explanation of motive or clear delineation of what exactly happened. 
All this makes e wonder why Stendhal even bothered writing the book.

Jeune ambitieux nourri à la légende napoléonienne, Julien Sorel entre au service du maire de son village, Monsieur de Rênal, comme percepteur de ses enfants. Cet ombrageux mais séduisant jeune homme, soucieux de faire oublier ses origines modestes, ne recule devant rien pour assouvir ses désirs d'élévation sociale. Deux femmes l'aimeront, qu'il aimera également : la douce Madame de Rênal, dont il devient l'amant, et l'intense Mathilde de la Mole, toutes deux instruments de son ascension - et accessoires, passionnés, de sa chute.

Chronique de 1830

Le Rouge et le Noir

Mathilde Fichant

Novela concluida en 1829, ROJO Y NEGRO (1830) trasciende el propósito declarado por STENDHAL (1783-1842) -escribir una crónica de costumbres de la sociedad francesa auspiciada por la restauración borbónica- para convertirse en un portentoso relato de los movimientos del corazón humano y las pasiones del alma. La Francia desilusionada y prosaica del periodo postnapoleónico, donde los caminos del heroísmo han quedado cerrados, es el escenario de los esfuerzos de promoción social de su protagonista, Julián Sorel -uno de los personajes mejor dibujados en la historia del género novelesco-, plebeyo cuyos ensueños y ambiciones resultan frustrados por un mundo dominado por las jerarquías, el dinero y el clero. Prologada y traducida por Consuelo Berges, complementan la obra unos interesantes apéndices que incluyen una sinopsis autocrítica del propio autor y las actas del juicio cuyo caso le sirvió de inspiración.

Rojo y negro

Iker Valcarcel 

Sarah Sammis

Nihan 

Emma

Ibragimova Renata

Maurice FitzGerald

Jm Stendhal

Le roman est divisé en deux parties : la première partie retrace le parcours de Julien Sorel en province à Verrières puis à Besançon et plus précisément son entrée chez les Rênal, de même que son séjour dans un séminaire ; la seconde partie porte sur la vie du héros à Paris comme secrétaire du marquis de La Mole.

The Red and the Black A Chronicle of 1830

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