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Stendhal - a German pen-name for a French writer who hated the English. Contemporary to some of the great names of French literature like Balzac and Flaubert, Stendhal is quite often considered a writer that doesn't seem to fit a defined genre. Some say he's a Romantic, others that he's a Modernist and that Le Rouge et Le Noir is the first modern novel. On one point they are all agreed: the novel is a masterpiece that shows a young theology student - Julien Sorel - intelligent, handsome and who is determined to rise above his humble peasant origins. Stendhal presents the reader with a satirical plot that will involve you in passions, intrigues, last-minute reversals and, mostly, the hypocrisy by which society operates. (Summary by sailormoon)

Stendhal - a German pen-name for a French writer who hated the English. Contemporary to some of the great names of French literature like Balzac and Flaubert, Stendhal is quite often considered a writer that doesn't seem to fit a defined genre. Some say he's a Romantic, others that he's a Modernist and that Le Rouge et Le Noir is the first modern novel. On one point they are all agreed: the novel is a masterpiece that shows a young theology student - Julien Sorel - intelligent, handsome and who is determined to rise above his humble peasant origins. Stendhal presents the reader with a satirical plot that will involve you in passions, intrigues, last-minute reversals and, mostly, the hypocrisy by which society operates. (Summary by sailormoon)

This book is more often called <i>The Charterhouse of Parma</i> in English, because "Charterhouse" is the English word for a Carthusian monastery, whereas "Chartreuse" is the French word.<br><br> The book tells the life of a Lombard nobleman, born soon after the appearance of Napoleon's army in Italy. He has many adventures in love, war, politics, and the Church. The politics and the Church part of his life result from his doting aunt's becoming the Prime Minister's mistress, and the power behind the throne, in the Duchy of Parma.<br><br> The Prime Minister is a wish-fulfillment depiction of the author. Although nobody lives happily ever after, it is a happy book to read, quite unlike "The Red and the Black". (Summary by Antony Brown)<br><br> Proof-listened by abigayl & Kimberly Krause

4Rouge et le noir

By Stendhal

Julien Sorel, ambitieux fils de scieur, fait son entrée dans le monde de la bourgeoisie comme précepteur. Où son ambition le mènera-t-il et à quelles obstacles fera-t-elle face ? À vous de le découvrir. <br>Résumé par Ezwa.

In an astounding act of literary improvisation, Stendhal dictated this complex and innovative novel, combining political and psychological realism with wit, irony and romance, in only 54 days. The result, which Henry James regarded as one of the dozen best novels of all time, feels in many ways like grand opera, an art form to which Stendhal himself was greatly attracted. The tale is set in northern Italy in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The plot revolves around Fabrizio del Dongo, an idealistic young nobleman, his aunt Gina Sanseverina (who loves Fabrizio more than perhaps she ought) and a large cast of other figures (many of them associated with the court at Parma) who have their own designs, romantic and otherwise, upon Fabrizio and his dazzling aunt. Readers who wish to avoid the spoilers in Balzac's delightful but detailed introduction to this edition should begin at section 5. (Summary by Peter Dann)

6Red and the Black

By Stendhal

It is a brave author indeed who gives his hero as many flaws as Stendhal bestows upon young Julien Sorel, an ambitious young carpenter's son turned priest who secretly models his behaviour after the heroics of Napoleon, in an era when the great man had only recently died at St Helena, and French society has grown stultified (for all its still vivid memories of the Jacobins' excesses and fear these may be revived). With remarkable skill, Stendhal manages as once to hold Julian's character up to excoriating examination while leaving us with some measure of sympathy for his young hero as he romantically pursues, first, the wife of his local mayor, then the haughty young daughter of a nobleman who has employed him as a personal secretary. Combining penetrating psychological insights with scathing social satire, The Red and the Black is rightly regarded as one of the great classics of French literature. (Summary by Peter Dann)

Julián Sorel es un joven plebeyo de una gran inteligencia, tan grande como su ambición. Su tiempo es el de la Francia post-napoleónica (1814-1830) y su objetivo en la vida es luchar contra las limitaciones a que se ve sometido por su condición social. Hijo de un carpintero en la campiña francesa, vive un tiempo donde las elites del viejo orden aristocrático que representan el conservadurismo monárquico se enfrentan a las nuevas fuerzas burguesas y los ideales napoleónicos. Julián es simultáneamente una persona calculadora y verdaderamente pasional, admira a Napoleón y hubiera deseado estar a su servicio en la carrera militar, pero a falta de ello sigue un derrotero eclesiástico, pues es el que más mano tiene para progresar en la escala social en momentos de la Restauración Borbónica. Dotado de gran inteligencia, una memoria prodigiosa, pulidos modales y buena presencia, Julián no pasa desapercibido para las mujeres y la relación con dos de ellas domina todo el relato. El amor cortesano es entonces uno de los condimentos principales de la novela que tiene en Julián en una lucha entre su pasión y su inteligencia puesta al servicio de su ambición. Stendhal a través de su héroe crítica a una sociedad acartonada y rígida en cuanto a las estructuras de las clases sociales, resaltando la hipocresía y escasa moralidad de los que están en la cúspide de la pirámide social. El autor desarrolla su obra apoyándose en la dualidad de su héroe respecto de la pasión que en varios tramos del relato lo domina, su faceta calculista y egocéntrica, la corrupción social frente a los valores morales que las clases privilegiadas pretenden defender y sostener, y la imposibilidad del auténtico y verdadero amor cuando todas esas circunstancias lo atraviesan. En síntesis, Rojo y Negro es una novela fundamental de la literatura universal que todo amante de la lectura debe tener en cuenta a la hora de transitar por los hitos literarios universales. (Introducción por Carlos Lombardi)