by Stendhal, Diane Johnson, Burton Raffel
I didn't think I'd wind up liking this book much reading the first dozens of pages. The book is centered on Julian Sorel, the brilliant and ambitious son of a peasant in post-Napoleon France. The "red" and the "black" of the title refer to the two routes to power for someone of humble birth in the F...
Brilliant! A must read for all interested in political intrigues. Devlin
This is not at all what I expected. I kind of feared this would a stodgy morality story and in a way it was a morality play but it was far from stodgy. I can't count the number of times it made me genuinely laugh because of the brilliant satire.Our main protagonist Julien seems to be a massive colle...
”Nothing can distinguish a man as a death sentence,” thought Mathilde. “It’s the only thing one can’t buy.”Julien Sorel was a young man with an audacious intellect. Such a gift can be a great resource that can be exploited for financial gain or it can be a burden that keeps a person in perpetual mis...
So I should read this book at some point.
It is a strange book, because, while it is plotted like a 19th century novel, there is something very 18th century about it, that I could not quite put my finger on.The book is good and very French. It is a kind of subtle satire and then also a critique of class and social hypocrisy.However, it fai...
3.5 but closer to 4 than 3 stars. More fun than I'd expected from such a book:) The scene where he uses someone else's letters to court a woman was hilarious!
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