The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
1830
The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
1830
Translated by Horace Barnett Samuel
In post-Napoleonic France, where merit has been replaced by money and birth, a young man with peasant origins and a brilliant mind decides he will not remain invisible. Julien Sorel masters the art of strategic self-presentation, calculating his every gesture to climb from tutor to priest to Parisian social climber. But here is what makes Stendhal radical: he shows us the machinery of Julien's ambition while also revealing the burning, uncontrollable passions that undermine it. This is not a simple morality tale about a hypocrite getting what he deserves. It is a terrifyingly modern portrait of a man who cannot separate his genuine feelings from his performative ones, who lies even when truth would serve him better. The women he conquers Madame de Rênal's quiet tenderness and Mathilde's ferocious pride both see through him and love him anyway. The Red and the Black is the story of a society so rigid that authenticity becomes impossible, and the brilliant, doomed individual who tries to hack his way through it.
Editions
X-Ray
“A good book is an event in my life.””
— Stendhal
“A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.””
— Stendhal
“Our true passions are selfish.””
— Stendhal
“Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.””
— Stendhal
“A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.””
— Stendhal
“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.””
— Stendhal
“Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.””
— Stendhal
“The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.””
— Stendhal
“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.””
— Stendhal
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830 by Stendhal free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830 by Stendhal free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Stendhal. The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537.Stendhal (1830). The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537Stendhal. The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-red-and-the-black-a-chronicle-of-1830-81c8b0ad-86b9-4709-b164-784e6b604537.
