Publisher's Synopsis
Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit and self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Renal, and the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime - and brings about his own downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed and ennui, and Julien - the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions - is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature.
About Stendhal:
" Henri-Marie Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839).
" I was taking the train from Geneva to Grenoble, one of the most beautiful routes in the world, and I was reading Le Rouge et le Noir for the second time. I hadn't picked the book because I was visiting Grenoble, it just worked out that way. I was alone in the compartment; it was one of those old-fashioned carriages which still had compartments.
At the fifth or sixth stop, the door opened, and a young woman entered carrying a lot of heavy luggage. She asked me, in French, if I'd mind helping her put it up on the rack, and I did so. She smiled and thanked me, I smiled back. She was small, dark and very pretty in a North African way. We got chatting, and quickly determined that her English was slightly worse than my French; the conversation, which initially had mixed both languages, settled down to being completely francophone. She told me that French was her second language, Berber being the first, but she sounded pretty near perfect to me.
She asked what my book was, and I showed it to her. She'd said she'd never read it. I did my best to explain, while she looked at me with her huge dark eyes. Julien gets involved with two women. Madame de Renal is kind and gentle, and she truly loves him, but he is forced by circumstances to leave her. He then later falls in love with Mathilde. I remember that I described her as bizarre et cruelle, and added that she reminded me of someone I had once loved. She nodded; she had had a similar experience. I apologised for my very insufficient command of French. Vous trouvez les mots, she replied. I have always treasured this compliment. Usually I am inarticulate in French, but just then I was indeed able to find words. "
" The Red and the Black draws a colorful mosaic about the required hypocrisy to climb the ladder of social status in the France of the July Revolution. Chronicled by an omniscient narrator, who meets every requisite to be Stendhal himself, the reader follows the story of Julien Sorel, a young man of humble origins whose only ambition is to ascend in the social hierarchy in a world still dominated by the Machiavellian politicking of the clergy and the nobility after the downfall of the Emperor. Despised by his family because of his "extravagant" taste for reading, Julien makes of Napoleon his surrogate father and plans his future with militaristic, almost obsessive precision. The army (The Red) is no longer in fashion and so he chooses his career among the pious men of faith (The Black). First as a seminarist and then as a tutor of Latin, Julien will learn the bearing, the deferential poise and the conversational skills to achieve his so much desired goal that will lead him to Paris, the capital of sophisticated Savoir-Faire.
