Red and the Black

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)