«Um romance é um espelho que se passeia ao longo de uma estrada. Tão depressa reflecte aos nossos olhos o azul dos céus como a lama dos lamaçais da estrada. E o homem que leva o espelho no seu alforge será por vós acusado de ser imoral! O seu espelho reflecte a lama, e vós acusais o espelho. Acusai antes o caminho onde está o lamaçal, e mais ainda o inspector das estradas que deixa empoçar a água e formar o lamaçal.»

Stendhal, the mononym pseudonym of Henri Beyle, was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and a staunch supporter of Napoleon. He was a sharp critic of the French aristocracy and a supporter of the Restoration following the revolution of 1830. His novel THE RED AND THE BLACK expresses his political philosophy through the tale of an ambitious peasant lad, Julien Sorel, who rises from lowly carpenter's son to, briefly, member of the nobility. He becomes employed first by a local mayor, then by a Parisian nobleman, and seduces women in each household, with a maddening fluctuation in his feelings and an inconsistency in the genuineness of his bond with the lover of the moment. In the end, a moment of true passion leads to Julien's downfall, in a society where appearances carry more weight than reality. Beautifully written, the novel was a powerful influence on writers such as Zola, Balzac, and Flaubert. But I found Julien's inability to maintain a position in his affairs, his constant, minute-to-minute flip-flops between believing himself in love and believing himself the cold-hearted social climber, to be enervating. Every assertion of love is followed, moments later, by its opposite. The inconsistency of thought is a consistent part of Julien's persona, and a believable one, but the number of fluctuations became frustrating for a reader who wanted to identify in some way with the leading character of the story. While there are moments of great power in the novel (especially at the end), and great insights into French society of the time, I did not connect with the novel in the way I had hoped. It is a hallmark of French literature, but not, in my estimation, one of French literature's truly great novels. ( )

I’ve tried before and failed. This time it clicked. The protagonist, Julien Sorel, is torn between the red (the army/the military) and the black (the church) but ambition is what he’s all about. It’s a coming of age tale in its own way, the story of a poor provincial young man whose psychology this is all about. Set in France in the 1820s, Sorel uses seduction as his weapon. The story isn't what matters since it is, ultimately, a very simple story whose focus is Sorel's mind and how his actions proceed from his thoughts. ( )

The perils of being poor, brilliant, gorgeous and well-hung. ( )

A man who wanted to be a soldier finds that, in his time and place and situation, the only way to success is to become a priest, which he does. ( )