Last week I finished Stendhal’s The Red and the Black. I liked it a lot, but I am not entirely sure what to make of it. It is, of course, ironic but not, perhaps, in the way we always expect. The target of much of Stendhal’s satire is, of course, upper class French society in the 1830’, yet at the same time me thinks he pokes gently at cross currents of Romanticism as well. Let’s be perfectly clear: Julian Sorel is a deeply compromised individual, morally dubious at best. He is hard to latch onto, so to speak. While anyone who has felt out of place will identify with some of his behavior, the end to which it is directed seems petty and hollow. Perhaps this is Stendhal’s point. Perhaps, in the end, the entire societies behavior collapses into Julian’s botched murder attempt and his sucidal defense at his own trial. Perhaps Stendhal uses Sorel to expose the sucidal impulse of the very society that both condems Julian’s birth and affirms his behavior. The challenge they face is not of a commoner evidencing more nobility but of the realization of the complete ludicy of nobility as a construct at all. Anyhow, was a good read, glad I read it, and would recommend to others. I wish I could read it in French.