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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It is reported that Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in the course of about 11 days. I can kind of see where that comes in. It's a rather breezy writing style and moves quickly and boldly through its plot. It's pretty genius for writing a book in 11 days, but did I enjoy reading it? Not as immensely as I thought I would.
Stendhal'ın kalemine eleştiri yazmak haddime değil.
Kısa öz göre değildi diyeceğim. Hala yeğen arası "duyguların" gelişiminden rahatsız oldum...
Üzgünüm.
Kısa öz göre değildi diyeceğim. Hala yeğen arası "duyguların" gelişiminden rahatsız oldum...
Üzgünüm.
Read in Morocco, particularly along the Atlantic Coast, I found Fabrice's childish worldview refreshing, almost an antipode to Julien Sorel.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
1.5/5
Long, long ago, I found myself reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black through some non-school related yet still highly peer-pressured reason or another and thought, maybe, just maybe, there was actually something to all this highfalutin "classics" nonsense. Years later, I finally got around to reading this, acquired before TRatB but long postponed and something that the general public would consider his other major work, and thought, hm. Now, I'd like to think that I'm not the only one who indulged in the first and was let down by the second, especially when my feeling that a certain sardonic Stendhal-specific joie de vivre of side commentary is desperately lacking was confirmed by at least one other review, but that doesn't do much to quell the bafflement that arises when confronted with the fact that, apparently, more than a few tossed around (albeit white boy) names such as Balzac, Gide, H. James, Proust, and co. held both by Stendhal and this work in particular. The afterword goes into raptures about "mirroring" and "restlessness of a superior mind" and demands that a reader do away with all the particulars and submit entirely to symbolism, but all I see is interchangeable characters, hilariously self-absorbed plotting, and a narrative that, with its empty references, sloppy logic, and complete and utter lack of credible development, resembles an average week of Twitter drama than anything whose maintenance would be a credit to future generations. My second star is given for the sake of the early scene at the Battle of Waterloo, which gave me the hopes that ended up mostly dashed, but also made me wonder if there's some alternate universe script that continued in that particular vein of singularly biting wit and gave the world something of the human, rather than the set piece. It's not a possibility I have any interest in excavating, but it is a shame to contemplate.
I understand that it's quite unfair to judge the merits of a work simply because it doesn't do what a work you just read and absolutely loved did, which is why I've expanded my scope of evaluation to two pieces rather than one. The first is [b:Traveler of the Century|12510878|Traveler of the Century|Andrés Neuman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325310312l/12510878._SX50_.jpg|6710647] by [a:Andrés Neuman|1169715|Andrés Neuman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1417150277p2/1169715.jpg], which grapples with both the ideas and a similar venue to that which this work encompasses, but has the benefit of almost two centuries of hindsight when it comes to constructing human beings who happen to be characters, rather than vice versa. The second is [b:Les Liaisons dangereuses|49540|Les Liaisons dangereuses|Pierre Choderlos de Laclos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1298425654l/49540._SY75_.jpg|3280025], published a year before Stendhal's birth and thus immune from criticism that runs along the lines of "too modern and thus too "woke"" or whatever is bandied about these days to maintain the past in an immoral vacuum and the future in a form where everything is for sale. The two works concern themselves with very different initiatives, both ideological and practical, as well as settings, character sets, and general plots, and yet both succeed when it comes to detailing the psyches of the rich and powerful in all their predations, foibles, and even humanity. It's a hard and tricky thing to accomplish in any kind of writing, classic or otherwise, but once it's done, the world, narrative, and suspension of credibility have a good chance of coming together in glorious harmony for a reader and generating a work that need rely on neither plot twists nor dire conclusion to keep one turning the pages. In contrast with this work here, once the Battle of Waterloo is through, good luck determining why one should care about empty vessels of heroes, cartoonish masochists of villains, women that are stock cut outs of the fainting mess that are only desirable when underage and dead of consumption at 32, and a series of dramatic escapes that happen for the most inconsequential of reasons and are magically transmitted to an enraptured audience of bourgeoise and lower class types that apparently have nothing better to do than to "stan" their employers and government officials as illogically and rabidly as certain fans do on social media today. There's certainly something of "realism" in the sheer amount of details and certain constructions of social interactions in various echelons of society, but there's a difference between demonstrating the ridiculousness of certain political scenes and recounting a fantastical clown show, and Stendhal's self-reflexive wit came in too rarely and too briefly for me to believe he knew what he was doing. Analytical pieces at least have the decency to mention the slipshod nature of certain major plot points and the absurdity of the last ten pages being worth more than the previous 300, but the symptoms of complicated yet vacuous writing appear much sooner than that, and if you asked me what the difference between this piece and a reactionary polemic equipped with strawmen and highfalutin cultural references is, I'd be hard pressed to answer.
This was one of the few remaining works that I committed to way back in 2010 and have a copy of, so I suppose it was unlikely that it would have done well in my estimation given my usual track record. In any case, it's one less work that I have tickling at the back of my mind, along with the fact that the read gave me a more nuanced, if not improved, view of Stendhal and the coterie of authors whom this edition namedropped in close succession. Sure, there are several scenes of derring-do that could be and have been easily adapted to the big screen, and there's many a reference to annotate and a paper to write for those inclined to the New Criticism lien of seeing things, but does that mean this work is worth keeping around? Perhaps a curio when it comes to comparing and contrasting the emptier forms of writing that both the 21st century and the 19th are prone to spawning every once in a while, but as is the case with other pieces that show up on various lists of varying repute, I don't see this being the fittest in its survival once it's removed from the rarefied artifice of its typical habitats. All in all, I'm not so comfortable with the results of this reading to not have some half-concrete plans of eventually giving TRatB another, much more educated go, but that'll be for when I've knocked quite a few other long delayed initial readings off my shelves. Stendhal's already received two chances in my book, and in order for him to earn the possibility of third time's the charm in the face of so many unread others, he'll have to earn it through more than a few auspicious namedrops and complacent list placements.
Long, long ago, I found myself reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black through some non-school related yet still highly peer-pressured reason or another and thought, maybe, just maybe, there was actually something to all this highfalutin "classics" nonsense. Years later, I finally got around to reading this, acquired before TRatB but long postponed and something that the general public would consider his other major work, and thought, hm. Now, I'd like to think that I'm not the only one who indulged in the first and was let down by the second, especially when my feeling that a certain sardonic Stendhal-specific joie de vivre of side commentary is desperately lacking was confirmed by at least one other review, but that doesn't do much to quell the bafflement that arises when confronted with the fact that, apparently, more than a few tossed around (albeit white boy) names such as Balzac, Gide, H. James, Proust, and co. held both by Stendhal and this work in particular. The afterword goes into raptures about "mirroring" and "restlessness of a superior mind" and demands that a reader do away with all the particulars and submit entirely to symbolism, but all I see is interchangeable characters, hilariously self-absorbed plotting, and a narrative that, with its empty references, sloppy logic, and complete and utter lack of credible development, resembles an average week of Twitter drama than anything whose maintenance would be a credit to future generations. My second star is given for the sake of the early scene at the Battle of Waterloo, which gave me the hopes that ended up mostly dashed, but also made me wonder if there's some alternate universe script that continued in that particular vein of singularly biting wit and gave the world something of the human, rather than the set piece. It's not a possibility I have any interest in excavating, but it is a shame to contemplate.
I understand that it's quite unfair to judge the merits of a work simply because it doesn't do what a work you just read and absolutely loved did, which is why I've expanded my scope of evaluation to two pieces rather than one. The first is [b:Traveler of the Century|12510878|Traveler of the Century|Andrés Neuman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325310312l/12510878._SX50_.jpg|6710647] by [a:Andrés Neuman|1169715|Andrés Neuman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1417150277p2/1169715.jpg], which grapples with both the ideas and a similar venue to that which this work encompasses, but has the benefit of almost two centuries of hindsight when it comes to constructing human beings who happen to be characters, rather than vice versa. The second is [b:Les Liaisons dangereuses|49540|Les Liaisons dangereuses|Pierre Choderlos de Laclos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1298425654l/49540._SY75_.jpg|3280025], published a year before Stendhal's birth and thus immune from criticism that runs along the lines of "too modern and thus too "woke"" or whatever is bandied about these days to maintain the past in an immoral vacuum and the future in a form where everything is for sale. The two works concern themselves with very different initiatives, both ideological and practical, as well as settings, character sets, and general plots, and yet both succeed when it comes to detailing the psyches of the rich and powerful in all their predations, foibles, and even humanity. It's a hard and tricky thing to accomplish in any kind of writing, classic or otherwise, but once it's done, the world, narrative, and suspension of credibility have a good chance of coming together in glorious harmony for a reader and generating a work that need rely on neither plot twists nor dire conclusion to keep one turning the pages. In contrast with this work here, once the Battle of Waterloo is through, good luck determining why one should care about empty vessels of heroes, cartoonish masochists of villains, women that are stock cut outs of the fainting mess that are only desirable when underage and dead of consumption at 32, and a series of dramatic escapes that happen for the most inconsequential of reasons and are magically transmitted to an enraptured audience of bourgeoise and lower class types that apparently have nothing better to do than to "stan" their employers and government officials as illogically and rabidly as certain fans do on social media today. There's certainly something of "realism" in the sheer amount of details and certain constructions of social interactions in various echelons of society, but there's a difference between demonstrating the ridiculousness of certain political scenes and recounting a fantastical clown show, and Stendhal's self-reflexive wit came in too rarely and too briefly for me to believe he knew what he was doing. Analytical pieces at least have the decency to mention the slipshod nature of certain major plot points and the absurdity of the last ten pages being worth more than the previous 300, but the symptoms of complicated yet vacuous writing appear much sooner than that, and if you asked me what the difference between this piece and a reactionary polemic equipped with strawmen and highfalutin cultural references is, I'd be hard pressed to answer.
This was one of the few remaining works that I committed to way back in 2010 and have a copy of, so I suppose it was unlikely that it would have done well in my estimation given my usual track record. In any case, it's one less work that I have tickling at the back of my mind, along with the fact that the read gave me a more nuanced, if not improved, view of Stendhal and the coterie of authors whom this edition namedropped in close succession. Sure, there are several scenes of derring-do that could be and have been easily adapted to the big screen, and there's many a reference to annotate and a paper to write for those inclined to the New Criticism lien of seeing things, but does that mean this work is worth keeping around? Perhaps a curio when it comes to comparing and contrasting the emptier forms of writing that both the 21st century and the 19th are prone to spawning every once in a while, but as is the case with other pieces that show up on various lists of varying repute, I don't see this being the fittest in its survival once it's removed from the rarefied artifice of its typical habitats. All in all, I'm not so comfortable with the results of this reading to not have some half-concrete plans of eventually giving TRatB another, much more educated go, but that'll be for when I've knocked quite a few other long delayed initial readings off my shelves. Stendhal's already received two chances in my book, and in order for him to earn the possibility of third time's the charm in the face of so many unread others, he'll have to earn it through more than a few auspicious namedrops and complacent list placements.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
adventurous
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This ridiculous book set my standards for French novels