Finished: The Red and The Black (Stendhal). A pretty good book, but not one of my favorites. Stendhal was not on any of my "top authors" lists, but this book has been sitting back in our study and has been tempting me to read it for awhile. The book takes place after Napoleon's downfall, during the Restoration, and leading up to the 1830 French revolution. The red and black in the title refer to the military and the clergy. The "hero" of the book is Julien Sorel, a poor peasant...a carpenter's son, who daydreams of being in Napoleon's military and loves reading books instead of working at his father's sawmill. Because of his low social status, there are only two choices for his adult "career"...the military or the clergy. He is terribly abused by his father, who wants nothing to do with him. Julien ends up in the clergy as a young abbe who is hired to be the tutor for the town mayor's children. His character is complex, but for the most part very bitter to me. He detests all the people who are richer and higher up in society than he is. He doesn't show this emotion on the outside as he does his tutoring, but he is always seething on the inside. He'd much rather be a great military leader, but knows officer positions come only to the rich and upper crust...another reason to hate them. He is only 19 at the beginning of the story, and due to his abusive upbringing, I can cut him some slack...however, I'm not really pleased with the way his character develops throughout the entire story.

Julien falls in love with the mayor's wife, Madame de Renal. Actually....I don't think it's love at first, but he just wants to seduce her and "conquer" her. The reader is privy to all his thoughts and emotions as he makes his conquest, so it's hard at times to know if he's truly sincere or not. There is a bit of jumping around in this book. Anyway....at the risk of being caught by the entire household, Madame de Renal and Julien carry on an affair for several weeks, right in her bedroom. After those weeks, he has definitely fallen in love...and, he even loves Madame's children. When an anonymous letter is written to Mayor de Renal about his wife's affair...Madame de Renal ingeniously creates a second anonymous letter and in a bit of a convoluted plot, convinces her husband the town is just jealous of him and wants to deride her. However...after being so close to getting caught, and after her youngest son falls very ill, Madame de Renal insists that Julien leave town at once. She's desperately in love with him, but fears that God is punishing her for her affair by taking one of her children away from her. She comes close to confessing everything to her husband, but then the youngster recovers. Julien, however, does leave and go to a seminary to continue his education. Once there, Julien is an outcast and ridiculed by the other seminary students. He is very intelligent and makes the highest marks in all the classes, but this alienates the others. Madame de Renal actually writes to Julien several times, but her letters are confiscated by the seminary director, Pirard, who doesn't think the relationship is good for Julien. Pirard, who is also not well liked, becomes rather like a father figure to Julien. Before Pirard leaves the seminary, he secures for Julien a position in Paris, as the secretary for a nobleman, Marquis de la Mole. Julien is thrilled with the prospect of going to Paris, but again...he displays an ongoing internal monologue of disgust and disdain for the rich family he works for.

Julien is known for his ability to memorize great lengths of passages and for his book and Latin knowledge. He soon becomes indispensable to the Marquis. Every evening, though, the noble acquaintances of the Marquis and his family come to the house for socializing. Though Julien can actually hold his own in the conversations, they all treat him like the lower servant that he is and he always feels their disdain for him. The son of the Marquis does give Julien some nice attentions for awhile, and takes him horseback riding, etc., but he soon becomes jealous of how his father praises Julien and has come to depend on him, so his friendship towards Julien cools off. The daughter, Mathilde de la Mole, however, is another story. She's witty, intelligent, an avid reader, like Julien, and one of the most sought after young ladies of society. She keeps several of "her kind" on a string while her father tries to decide which one would be the better marriage for her. Meanwhile....Julien and Mathilde fall in love. Mathilde succumbs to her feelings and allows Julien into her room one night, but then regrets her decision the next morning as her haughtiness returns and she can't believe she let herself have relations with someone of such a low class. Julien is heartbroken...especially when Mathilde changes her mind again, and they spend a few nights together before she once again slams the door on their relationship, treating him unbearably in front of her rich friends.

As all this is happening, then we get a few chapters on the political drama of France as the Marquis actually attends a super secret meeting of powerful men with Julien in tow. Though it was a bit confusing to me, basically I think these men were planning the beginning of the 1830 Revolution. Julien is used to memorize a lengthy super secret message to be delivered verbally to the Duke _______ in London. Yes, this is how many of the authors referred to famous people in their books for fear of being persecuted, I guess. They use blanks instead of names that were known to be the true names of historical figures. This makes it all the more confusing for the reader who is not fluent in French history. :-) Anyway, Julien delivers the message, and when he returns home, puts into play a plan that a Russian officer friend of his suggests to him in regards to Mathilde. Julien suddenly starts ignoring Mathilde, instead of lamenting after her rejection, and he also starts spending all his time with another woman. Of course, this works and Mathilde comes running and begging back to him, saying how much she loves him and besides that....she's pregnant with his child!!! Mathilde writes her father a long letter begging him to understand. The Marquis de la Mole has always wanted his daughter to marry a Duke or some such, and can't fathom her marrying a man of low social birth and no social status. He flies into a fit of rage, but after much cajoling by his daughter, finally decides to establish Julien on one of his properties with a nice yearly income...AND...gives him the title associated with this property. He has really grown fond of Julien, but he can't truly reconcile his social status to what he feels his daughter deserves. Plus, he is still livid that Julien had relations with his daughter. Anyway, he then also secures Julien a spot as a Lieutenant in a nearby military company. All that is left is for the two to get married, and for the father to be there and approve. The Marquis still has his reservations about Julien...wondering if he pursued his daughter for her wealth and status. He writes a letter back to Julien's former employer for a reference, Madame de Renal!

In the undoing of Mathilde and Julien, Madame de Renal writes back a scathing letter about how Julien is a status-climbing seducer of women who isn't even that intelligent, who has a history of working his way through all the "high up" ladies in a household. This infuriates the Marquis and he tells his daughter that he will no longer support anything to do with Julien or his daughter if she has anything further to do with him. What Julien doesn't know is that the letter was actually dictated to Madame de Renal by her clergyman who insisted this hard line be taken as part of her penance for her former actions. She doesn't truly feel that way. Julien, in a rage, goes and buy two guns, heads to Madame de Renal's town, goes to the church where he knows he'll find her praying, and shoots her! Thinking he has killed her, he doesn't put up a fight and goes to jail knowing that he'll be put to death. He decides to face death without showing any weakness.

Thankfully, Julien is a terrible shot. He has only wounded Madame de Renal in the shoulder and she is fine. Madame de Renal rushes to his side in jail and they confess their love for each other. Acckk! Julien says he has never loved anyone but her and all thoughts of his love for Mathilde leave his mind. Mathilde, however, is there at the jail too doing everything she can to get Julien to care about his defense. All Julien cares about, though, is loving Madame de Renal and dying honorably. Oh, and he asks Mathilde to let Madame de Renal raise their son. (He assumes it will be a boy.) He tells her that he knows their child will be an outcast in the de la Mole family and this way Mathilde can go on and marry one of her society suitors and start her life over. Mathilde is jealous of Madame de Renal, but both women still fight to free Julien. The town comes out in droves for his trial, and the general public adores him and wants him free. Madame de Renal, the victim, writes letters on his behalf to all the jurymen. Mathilde assures the judge that her father will find a higher up spot for him in the church if he'll only not pronounce death for Julien. All seems set for Julien to be set free when the jury comes back with a guilty of murder verdict, with a punishment of death! I was a little confused by the guilty of murder verdict when Madame de Renal was alive and well. However...one of Julien's oldest enemies from back in his days when he first seduced Madame de Renal is on the jury and very influential of the others. You see...the juror had loved Madame de Renal back in the day and had been infuriated when Julien won her heart over himself. So.....Julien is put to death. Mathilde goes off with his head (ewwww) to have it buried near her home so she can forever lament. And, Madame de Renal goes home and puts her arms around her three children and dies. Soooooooooooo....that's the depressing ending of the book.

I'm glad I read it, but I can't say that any of the characters really touched my heart or became someone for me to root for. They were all far too self-centered. So many of these books written back "then" seem to glorify characters who fell in love with people other than their spouses. Perhaps it was just how things went back then because so many people knowingly married for money and/or status and not for love? So...when "true love" was found, you were to root for them whether there was a marriage and children involved or not? This was the same problem I faced with Anna and Vronsky in Anna Karenina...I just couldn't justify their behavior in my mind, therefore, they were not the end all, be all romantic couple of all time to sigh over. Stendahl's writing was a bit confusing at times, but I made it through. Yay!

I only noted one line in the book to include here...but it was very representative of how Mathilde talked to herself and how she felt about the social classes when she was trying to convince herself she loved Julien:

"Good birth vouchsafes a hundred qualities whose absence would offend me," thought Mathilde.