The Red & The Black (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Stendhal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1840225831 ISBN 13: 9781840225839

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 2015

Synopsis

Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (revised by Moya Longstaffe). With an Introduction and Notes by Moya Longstaffe.

The Red and the Black has been hailed as the first great ‘realist’ novel of the nineteenth century, offering a lively and detailed picture of social and political life in the provinces and in Paris towards the end of the 1820s, the close of the stifling reactionary period of the Bourbon Restoration. Stendhal himself claimed that no-one before him had ventured to portray with such verisimilitude the ‘moral and morose’ France of 1830. However ‘moral and morose’ his novel is definitely not. Ironic, fast-moving, entertaining and incisive in its social criticism, it is a novel of ambition and passion, of indignation and tenderness, of polemic and poetry, which speaks to us today, as clearly as it did to the author’s contemporaries, of the heights, depths and idiocies of which our human nature is capable or culpable.

About this title

Review:

Stendhal's wonderful chronicle of the nineteenth century tells the story of his hypocritical protagonist, Julien Sorel. A poor youth and brilliant scholar, Julien begins a career in the church despite his liberal views and his disgust for his superiors. His pious front gives him access to aristocratic households as a tutor, but his ambition for social prestige leads him to scandal and ruin. British actor Bill Homewood has a deep, sonorous voice and narrates with almost musical refinement. He is chameleon-like in his versatility for vocal characterisations, easily switching from the youthful Julien's timid, earnest voice to the condescending tone of Monsieur de Renal. Homewood is masterful in his narration, capturing all the nuances in the tone and language of Stendhal's writing. --AudioFile

About the Author:

Marie-Henri Beyle (23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism, as is evident in the novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839). Stendhal was a dandy and wit about town in Paris, as well as an inveterate womaniser who was obsessed with his sexual conquests. His genuine empathy towards women is evident in his books. He suffered miserable physical disabilities in his final years as he continued to produce some of his most famous work. As he noted in his journal, he was taking iodide of potassium and quicksilver to treat his syphilis, resulting in swollen armpits, difficulty swallowing, pains in his shrunken testicles, sleeplessness, giddiness, roaring in the ears, racing pulse and "tremors so bad he could scarcely hold a fork or a pen." Indeed, he dictated Charterhouse in this pitiable state. Modern medicine has shown that his health problems were more attributable to his treatment than to his syphilis.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1840225831
• ISBN 13: 9781840225839
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576