Tuesday Book Review - Red and the Black by Stendhal

Red and the Black
Stendhal
Translated Burton Raffel

For many years, with little conviction, I would stare at the Red and the Black, by Stendhal on my book shelf and think, “Yeah, it's getting to be about time I read that”. Well, something always came up, sometimes it was as simple as tying my shoe, other times, I had to scoop doggy poop out of the backyard. No matter how you cut it, I just wasn't finding the time to read Stendhal. Part of it was that it was a vivid reminder of my old pretensions when I was younger.
Well, I passed by our fiction section a few weeks ago and I noticed this really spiffy cover on one of the books – like a half naked person! I took a look and it was my old pal wearing a new translation and cover: The Red and the Black. I glanced through it and it looked intriguing. Actually, a darn sight more intriguing than cleaning out my daughter's room or scrubbing the kitchen floor!

I confess that it took me a couple of weeks to get through The Red and the Black. I was enjoying it, but I wasn't falling all over myself to find out what happens to Julien Sorel. An arrogant little guy with great hair (or so I read into his description). Julien is very smart and knows it, he is also a champion strategist. Sadly, he can't see the forest for the trees and he doesn't even notice that he has found the Love of his Life. He thinks she is silly. It is pretty sweet: Madame de Renal is terribly worried that he thinks she is too old for him and he thinks she is an idiot. How many times has that happened to you or a friend?

Later, when he seduces (kind of) the young daughter of his benefactor and it all turns to crap, he realizes that Madame de Renal was the real deal. He gives himself hell about it and I couldn't help but agree with him.

There is a lot of post Napoleonic fall out in the book. I gathered that after the fall and death of Napoleon, it wasn't good politics to say anything nice about him. Julien is a radical and he admired Napoleon but he has to keep it secret. He worries constantly that he will let something slip and all the upper class Parisians will realize that he has opinions about Real Issues. Having opinions on Real Issues was a social detriment in those days. I imagine it would be like my trying to keep my loathing of our current Bush administration to myself.

I don't mean to mock this at all. There are certainly plenty of moments when I thought to myself, “Wow, so little has really changed since 1830.”. I find Julien at his most human when he is falling in love or having a spell of jealousy. Sometimes, I thought that Julien and I had some of the same problems with always wanting to be the big dog, but not really.

You can see that I didn't fall wholeheartedly into this book, as I sometimes have in the past. I can say that if you have not read this book, or you have always meant to read the Red and the Black, this is a fantastic translation. It makes the world of 1830 feel very here and now. Burton Raffel has a great sense of bringing the often confusing world of Church politics and the rest of France during that time into our world. He is a tremendously gifted translator. I have set aside his translation of Don Quijote for future reading. Another book I have shamelessly pretended to have read many times (!).

Diving into a book like the Red and the Black is like plunging off the beaten path of familiar landmarks. These folks don't run over to Home Depot when they need some stuff. This is an unfamiliar, yet familiar world. As uncomfortable as I was with the differences and the lack of flush toilets, I would love to have cocktails with Stendhal. If the Red and the Black is anything to go by, he was ahead of his time.