Stendhal (1783–1842)

Oh love, love, love! Just like Love in the Time of Cholera, this is book has absolutely nothing to do with it. It has plenty though to do with what people confuse love to be: infatuation and sex.

Julien Sorel is a man born out of time. He’s vain, intellectually gifted, ambitious and foolhardy in his attempts to realise this ambition. But the entire class structure of the re-established post-Revolutionary French class system stands in his way. Blind to social barriers, he ploughs on and, in show more a few short years, burns his candle to its base. In doing so, he lies, cheats, betrays, plots and puts on such a kaleidoscopic display of hypocrisy a chameleon would be proud. All along the way he drags two women from the same family and leads them on a merry dance from the heights of fashionable France to the depths of the dungeons of prison.

This has been described as satire, but it is by far the darkest satire I’ve ever read. Swift’s satire, which I love, is so light and airy. Cervantes lighter still. But Stendhal’s is depressing realistic. The church and clergy come off particularly badly. Mind you, he had plenty of material to work with there. Where I think Swift would have made a character a buffoon, Stendhal makes them archly demonic. I don’t think there was a single character in this long and well-populated novel that wasn’t repugnant to me in some way. Yuck!

Yet despite the depressing backdrop and vile characters, you’re able somehow to continue reading to the end. It’s a bit like a literary version of those police camera videos; you know it’s all horrifying and destroying people’s lives but you’re somehow captivated. Perhaps this is Stendhal’s genius? He’s painted my own heart as dark as those of his characters! Ha!

So, a few shivers later, I can lay this one aside for good… show less

An Angry Young Man in 1820s France
More than 35 years after first reading it, I revisited this classic. And it's always striking how many other things you then notice. This, of course, has to do with my own life and reading experience, but certainly also with the rich content of this novel, the ultimate hallmark of a true classic. What struck me most this time was the unique character of the protagonist, Julien Sorel: his inferiority complex, his intense aversion to almost everyone superior show more to him, his boundless, Napoleonic ambition, and finally and above all, his manipulative behavior, especially with women. Perhaps I'm wrong, but in many ways, Sorel is what we would now call a narcissistic character.
A second striking feature of this novel: Stendhal constantly delves into the minds of the various characters, extensively presenting their observations, reflections, considerations, and endlessly meandering reasoning in the form of indirect interior monologues. I don't know if he's the first to do this so emphatically, because at times I saw a kinship with, for example, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which the protagonists' perceptions and internal ruminations also play such a significant role. I must add, however, that in my opinion, Stendhal does exaggerate this feature: the constantly meandering, tormented, and at times almost paranoid reflections of his characters, and especially the ebb and flow of emotional attraction and repulsion between Julien and his female "conquests"... it was sometimes a bit much for me. This is also coupled with the very exaggerated pathos we know from Romanticism.
The third thing that really struck me is the socio-political context and message. Stendhal, like Balzac, illuminates French society during the Restoration, the period 1815-1830, when the monarchy had been restored, conservative forces seemed to have the upper hand, but the revolutionary fire still smoldered. He highlights the struggle between liberals (supporters of the Enlightenment and the Revolution) and the ultras (the mostly Catholic conservatives), even in the small provincial town of Verrières, where the first part of this novel takes place. In the second part, a veritable conspiracy of the ultras is revealed, in which Julien becomes involved. In these narrative elements, but also in many other places, Stendhal paints a disconcerting picture of the narrow-minded bourgeois, aristocratic, and clerical milieus in which Julien moves. What is particularly striking is that Julien himself, as a character, embodies the smoldering revolutionary fire that was not extinguished in 1815 and will undoubtedly resurface. This had already happened before 1830, the year this novel was published, and it would erupt that very year, and later, especially in 1848. To a certain extent, one can attribute prophetic gifts to Stendhal, but his merit lies primarily in the unique way he incorporated this into a novel.
This brings us back to Julien Sorel: from the very beginning, it is clear that a raw sense of revolt prevails within him, a sense of inferiority compared to the "ruling classes." Throughout the novel, this will surface in Julien's feelings, thoughts, and actions, culminating in the dramatic event at the end. But it is especially afterwards, during the judicial trial against him, that this revolutionary feeling is made explicit in the form of an unadulterated “J'accuse” addressed to his judges and by extension to the ruling class: “I see men who, without considering what my youth might deserve in terms of pity, will want to punish in me and discourage forever that class of young people who, born into a lower class and somewhat oppressed by poverty, have the good fortune to obtain a good education and the audacity to mingle with what the pride of rich people calls society.”
With this fragment it seems that Stendhal attributes Julien an idealistic attitude. But nothing could be further from the truth: from the very beginning, he makes it clear that Julien is focused on making a fortune in everything he does. And fortune here must be understood in its dual sense: honor and fame, certainly, but primarily money. Almost every observation, almost every reflection, almost every action of Julien is aimed at acquiring prestige and, above all, a lot of money. He shares this with almost all the male characters in this novel: they are foremost concerned with everything and anything for what it will bring them. To the point of absurdity. Disconcerting.
And so we arrive at what I believe to be the true protagonist of this novel: Napoleon Bonaparte. Long dead by the time this novel is set, but still all-consuming and, in that sense, alive. His name still burns on everyone's lips, especially Julien's, for whom Napoleon is the founding example. In this novel, his shadow is visible on almost every page. And I don't think Stendhal meant that in a positive way: power and wealth consumed Napoleon, just as they consume the characters in this story, and—in Julien's case—lead to their downfall.
My second reading of this novel made it clear to me that it is considerably "richer" than I had perceived almost 35 years ago. At the same time, the exaggerated pathos and some less developed characters (especially the female ones are almost all consumed by their emotion and passion) also frequently caused irritation and frustration. But I certainly find Stendhal more digestible than most of Balzac's novels, and his stylistic genius is undeniable. In other words, this is still worthy of the status of a classic work. show less

What recourse for the rural, ambitious and abused son of a French sawyer who wants to rise above his station but to join the army? Except that France is embroiled in a time of peace in the 1820s, so he turns instead to the church though Napoleon is his hero. He will be a man of peace, though he doesn't believe a single word of liturgy or of the Latin Bible he's memorized word and verse. Soon after he is entering Parisian society in the company of the nobility, where his own brand of innate show more pride suits the company. His own pride is more genuine, being based neither on birth nor wealth. It is both a flaw in his character and a strength as well. His lack of self-doubt - or self-awareness - gives him an edge in his ambitions. In fact it is probably their entire impetus, driving everything he does. He does experience real love, but only after his pride leads him into it; never does it come first.

Stendhal's failing is his pacing, especially in the early chapters. He breezes over incidents that could have yielded an abundance of drama, and dwells for pages mining it from scenes that have little to offer. Consequently I'd find myself struggling through it one day, then more deeply absorbed the next. For a man so driven by his ambition, it's curious to observe how little of Julien's story is actually driven by himself. Nearly every step forward is achieved either through chance or by the good will of a mentor. His prodigious memory and a strong work ethic win him recognition, but Julian has no plan. When he does indulge a willful passion, it is only one liable to place all of his gains at risk. These insights are beyond his means to apprehend, given his lack of self-reflection. As things turn out, it's a mercy the illusion holds. show less

I have never been able to read this in translation, so I finally picked it off a shelf in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and was surprised to find it seemed written in haste, almost breathlessly. Maybe no translator can aspire to breathless rendering. This intrigued me, and I read it in a couple weeks, with my "B" level comprehension, but my "A" background in literature.
I found it atmospheric, urgent, engaging. Typically, he starts with a provincial portrait built upon Hobbes, the provincials show more themselves "less bad, but their cage less gay." The respect of fools, the amazement of children: importance (of a provincial mayor)--is it not something? The puzzle is the contentment of these provincials. Julien Sorel is surely not so.
Well, his saga, his ironic take on the decadence of the society he claws his way ahead in, sometimes on a lover's parapet, is gripping today as it was when written. (My missing fifth star may well be due to the level of my French comprehension--I may be grading myself, as Julien Sorel seems to now and then.) show less