In spite of how gratifying it was to read Suite Française in French, I didn’t feel compelled to do the same with the Red and the Black (I hate to think how long it would have actually taken me to motivate myself to get through its 600+ pages) and I listened to this as an (English) audiobook instead. This was definitely a good choice, because even listening was tedious.
The Red and the Black (le Rouge et le Noir – sometimes translated as the Scarlet and the Black) was published in 1830 in two volumes, and is by French author Stendhal (real name Marie-Henri Beyle). It follows Julien Sorel, the son of a provincial carpenter who is more interested in reading and learning Latin than joining the family business. After the local Abbé takes him under his wing, Julien is able to instead get a job as a tutor for the Mayor’s children, through which he begins an affair with the Mayor’s wife, Madam de Renal. Despite deciding to seduce Madam de Renal he doesn’t appear to have any particular affection for her – instead, he sees the seduction as a way to prove to himself that he is a man. She begins to fall in love with him (and hates herself for it), but as far as I could tell Julien doesn’t especially reciprocate and his actions are in contrast to his thoughts. I should perhaps also mention that he isn’t an especially good teacher either, but manages to negotiate his salary to an extreme high largely through his haughtiness. In the second volume, Julien is sent to a seminary where he finds himself not very popular, but escape soon comes in the form of another appointment – this time as private secretary to the Marquis de la Mole. Julien’s great talents are his knowledge of Latin and his ability to remember things by rote almost immediately, and the Marquis uses both of these skills ultimately to his own personal gain, however, Julien once again sets about another seduction – this time of the Marquis’s daughter, who, by his own admission, he finds very annoying.
Reading that back it’s very poorly written and I can’t bring myself to revise it – this was extremely tedious to listen to and the tedium continues in attempting to summarise it. I felt no affection at all for Julien – I didn’t even especially feel contempt, he provoked no strong feelings at all. Perhaps this would have been more enjoyable if I had absorbed myself in the history of the time a bit more thoroughly first, but I doubt it. I felt sorry for Madam de Renal and to some extent Mathilde (the Marquis’s daughter), but not really – and I was puzzled that Julien did seem to genuinely love Madam de Renal at the end but perhaps I missed something because I’d become really disengaged by that point.
1/5
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