Modern Library
2 total works
Richard Howard's exuberant rendition of Stendhal's great tale has caused a classic to be reborn for modern readers Stendhal narrates a young aristocrat's adventures in Napoleon's army and in the Court of Parma, illuminating in the process the whole cloth of European history. As Balzac wrote, "Never before have the hearts of princes, ministers, courtiers, and women been depicted like this...One sees perfection in every detail".With beautiful illustrations by Robert Andrew Parker.
It mirrors, rather than paints, mobile and revealing glimpses of life as it was whiled away in the climate of fear and greedy drawing-room conformity that followed Waterloo. Julien Sorel, the novel's restless, ambitious hero, rebels against his circumstances and wills himself to make something of his life by adopting a code of hypocrisy. On the road to the surprising crime he commits (out of passion, principle or insanity), he turns into Stendhal's greatest and most completely human creation.