This is one of those little remembered novels whose remaining fans firmly believe it to be one of the unacknowledged masterpieces of the 20th Century. Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy and Halldor Laxness's Independent People inspire similarly fanatical devotion in small groups of faithful adherents. In this case though, one of the devoted fans just happens to be the great novelist John Fowles who proselytizes relentlessly for it, including writing the afterword to the edition I read, and crediting it as the inspiration for his first novel, The Magus (itself a Modern Library Top 100 entry). I don't know that I'm willing to join them yet, but all three of these cults may have a point. At any rate, The Wanderer, or, Le Grande Meaulnes, to give it the original French title, is certainly a unique and wonderful book.

The Wanderer of the title is Augustin Meaulnes, a charismatic, restless, youth who transfers to Sainte Agathe school in Sologne and befriends Francois Seurel, whose parents are teachers at the school. Meaulnes quickly earns the nickname Le Grand, or The Great, both because of his height and because he is the kind of natural leader who other boys flock to and emulate. The author portrays the school as an island, cut off from the rest of the world, and Meaulnes as the castaway who is most anxious to get off. He runs away several times and on one occasion has a mystical experience which will shape the course rest of the rest of the boys' lives.

When Francois's grandparents come to visit, another boy is chosen to accompany the cart to town to get them, but Meaulnes sneaks off in the carriage. Irretrievably lost, he stumbles upon a pair of young actors who take him to a dreamlike masquerade ball at a sumptuous estate. There he meets Yvonne de Galais, a beautiful young blonde, with whom he becomes hopelessly infatuated. They spend only a few moments together and do little more than exchange names, but this fairy tale adventure becomes the pivotal experience of his life, one which he, with the help of Francois, will spend the rest of his life trying to recapture, with tragic consequences.

Alain-Fournier was the pen name of Henri-Alban Fournier (there was another, already popular, writer of the day named Henri Fournier.) The novel is apparently very autobiographical : his parents were teachers; the boys supposedly incorporate aspects of his own character; and, most importantly, he had an experience on June 5, 1905, wherein he, age 18, encountered a beautiful young woman named Yvonne in the streets of Paris. This event became a central moment in his life. He imagined a parallel reality, or Domain, which we only come in contact with during such transcendent moments and he became obsessed with recapturing his. This imbues his writing with a profound nostalgia, a melancholic sense that those moments of epiphany that we experience can never be retrieved, that the best parts of life lie behind us, not ahead.

Fournier was killed in battle on September 22, 1914, fighting on the Meuse. Dead before his twenty-eighth birthday, this was his only finished novel, though Fowles suggests that his letters are also worth reading. In a sense, this is a novel that we would have expected from someone who survived WWI (see Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier), harkening back as it does to departed days of youth. His obsession with one event in his life suggests that Fournier might never have done much more than rewrite this story in subsequent years, but it's useless to speculate. What we do know is that he left behind one poignant and haunting novel which, rightly or wrongly, captures the inchoate sense of lost innocence and opportunity missed that we all feel at one time or another. Masterpiece or not, it is certainly unforgettable.

GRADE : A

If you've read Le Grand Meaulnes and liked it, then I can highly recommend Robert Gibsons superb biography of Alain Fournier (alas out of print) called "The Land Without a Name". As haunting and evocative as the novel itself, Gibsons chronicle of Fourniers life gets as close to the heart of his obsession with the Lost Domain as anything I have read. The best literary analysis of the novel (in English at least) is Stephen Gurney's book length study simply titled "Alain Fournier" (also out of print!). Many critics consign Le Grand Meaulnes to the "minor masterpeice" category, however Gurney provides a compelling argument for regarding it as one of the great novels of the 20th century. For another novel on a similair theme, I can also recommend "Picnic at Hanging Rock" by the Australian writer Joan Lindsay. This is a book which bears an uncanny resemblance to Le Grand Meaunles, both in its plot, and in the effect it has on the reader (similairly the brilliant film based on it directed by Peter Weir).

I was interested in reading "Le Grand Meaulnes" after seeing that the English novelist John Fowles cited it as a major influence on his masterpiece "The Magus." I'm not disappointed, to say the least. This is a rare gem of a novel that weaves mystery, adventure, intrigue, romanticism, and realism into a unique package that must have been way ahead of its time and still puts many modern "suspense" novels to shame with its superb prose and sheer elegance.

The novel takes place in a rural French village in the 1890's. The narrator, Francois, is a young teenager who lives and studies at the village school, where his father is the headmaster. One day a boy named Augustin Meaulnes, a couple of years older than Francois, enrolls as a new student and boarder. Meaulnes is somewhat quiet and aloof, but he soon becomes popular with the other boys in the school.

One day Meaulnes expropriates a carriage to go to a nearby town on an errand and mysteriously disappears without explanation. He returns to the school a few days later, but he admits that he doesn't know where he's been. All he knows is that somehow he found himself in a strange, vague place -- a surreal, dreamlike realm that seemed to exist outside of the real world -- where he met a beautiful girl named Yvonne. He pores over maps and searches for clues about this place -- the "mysterious domain" -- so that he can see Yvonne again, while Francois, fascinated by the story of his adventure, is determined to help him.

I would be doing a disservice to the potential reader by revealing any details of the nature of the "mysterious domain" or any more of the plot; so I will only say that every aspect of this novel is nothing short of brilliant, not only in its invention and unpredictability, but in the way it transforms itself by highlighting the contrast between the carefree dream-world of adolescence and the harsh realities of adulthood, and how our childish pastimes and fantasies inevitably give way to our sense of responsibility as we grow and mature. In this manner, the plot actually "matures" with its characters, so that by the end, we see how "grand" a person Meaulnes really is.

Brother Lawrence can be of enormous help to those of us seeking to grow closer to Christ. For one, there is no complicated methodology behind practicing the presence of God.

As Brother Lawrence says, "Lift up your heart to Him ... the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we are aware of."

And so, the practice of the presence of God is to simply think of him often. As Brother Lawrence says, your friend (God) is always with you. Why would you cut off conversation with God when you would not be so rude to another person.

I enjoyed this book. It takes maybe one hour to read, but I have a feeling it will have a lasting impact on my life.

I am constantly is search of books that will help me advance in the spiritual life. I find alot of books that I read are repetitive. This short book by Brother Lawrence shows a simple, direct, effective way to strengthen your spirituality without losing you halfway through the book. Through the practice of one simple method we can be in continual union with God. All we need is the perseverance to continue practicing it!

This is one of the three greatest Christian books besides the Bible that I would recommend for all to read, the other two being "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life" and "Pilgrim's Progress". Brother Lawrence seems to have found a heavenly type of life on earth and describes his experience in this very short and simple book that other's may partake of this blessing also. The life he portrays is one of continual communion with God in that all our daily mundane works are intimately connected with Him. One interesting comment he makes, and which perhaps best serves as the central thesis of this book, is that he feels no less closer to God when he is busy doing his earthly chores than in his set time of devotions. The Christian life he found is the one God intends for all belivers to have.

This is a good book to rummage around in and to pick through, depending on your interests. The book has a strange kind of ebb and flow to it, alternating between straightforward biographical information, entertaining and easily comprehensible, and some very difficult philosophical sections on what these four disparate people were trying to achieve in their work. The book is very good but in some ways doesn't quite hold together because of the alternating style. And, quite honestly, in some of the analytical sections I sometimes wasn't sure what Mr. Shattuck was saying! If you want something that is entertaining but also very thoughtful without lapsing into the obscure you might want to try David Sweetman's "Explosive Acts" instead. That book seems to me to be more comprehensive and to give you a better feel for the times. Shattuck's book is more narrow in focus. A big drawback for me is that I have never heard the music of Erik Satie. As far as I know it is unavailable. This makes it a little tough to follow Mr. Shattuck's analysis of the music. So, "The Banquet Years" has got a lot of rich, dense prose but you'll need to beware if you are watching your intellectual weight!

Since encountering this wonderful and fascinating book during my first year in college, I have felt its influence in many parts of my life. My nickname shows the influence of Alfred Jarry and his Dr. Faustroll, even though I often identify more with the character Panmuphle. Just for introducing and explaining Jarry, Roger Shattuck's book is worth a good look. Yet another phenomenon that is more complex than its surface first suggests -- the painting of Henri Rousseau -- becomes better understood and more deeply appreciated through Shattuck's chapters on art in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. He certainly educated and influenced my own artistic preferences. And there is more, on poetry and music, but enough said. This is a book of enduring value.

I first came across this book when assigned it in college, and I return to it every few years. I found this a bracing book when I first read it and still to this day. Anyone who thinks Andy Kaufman was the first person to cross the line of performance art into life should read the section on Alfred Jarry. Indeed at a certain point Jarry became irretrievably blurred with his creation Pere Ubu (whom he took to "impersonating" in real life to an extent that must have been quite a trial to his friends). Yet there is something very moving and affirming about the often tragic story presented here. Jarry lived in a half sized room and became a chronic drunk yet he retained an impeccable dignity despite feeling trapped in a savage and absurd world. His last words were for a request for a toothpick. Jarry returned the insult of life with perfect poise.

The other portraits are equally incisive, the Satie portrait particulary haunting (its hard to listen to his music without thinking of the tiny room he lived in and never let another sole visit during his lifetime).

Shattuck gives the historical background that gives you fascinating insight into the social/cultural conditions behind the emergence of what have to be considered highly idiosyncratic artists.

For anyone with bohemian inclinations or posturings this book is essential, perhaps making your own little room shine with a little solidarity for those who have trod before you...

Catherine thhe Great, the little teenage Princess who came from germanic heritage, developed into a scheming, pitiless, yet loving ruler. The author takes us through her development with wonderful descriptions of those times. One can compare her reign in Russia with the development of the American Revolution and be astonished at the paths of the two nations. It is well worth reading and helps us understand the Russia of that time and of later times.

This is a book about a woman who wasn't perfect but had great intentions and made the best of her situation. I admire Catherine the Great immensely

The daughter of a minor German prince, it almost easy to imagine Catherine the Great came to the throne by accident. But Catherine had a mission. Almost from the day she was chosen to be the wife of Grand Duke Peter, Catherine set her sights on greater power. She suceeded, some say by murdering her own husband, Tsar Peter III.

Catherine lead the Russians in the battle for the Crimea, eventually winning the region for the empire. The book also goes extensively into the many loves of Catherine. But short of using them to define who the Tsarina was, Troyat treats them as the diversion that Catherine saw them as.

Catherine saw herself as a liberal monarch. In fact, she regularly corresponded with Volraire and Diderot. But in the end, Catherine's main accomplishment was the maintain the power of the monarchy.

This is my second taste of Nouwen, and it has been even better than the first ("The Inner Voice of Love"). This book is a valuable component of the amazing turnaround of my depression.

Some Christians say that when you find yourself burnt out and needy, you should go back to the basics. They offer no new solutions, and point you back to daily quiet times and church attendance and service. But here is a book that offers a completely new and refreshing look at God and life. It offers a chance to slow down, to deal with your own heart and soul before rushing to "perform" as a Christian should. Nouwen shows that only when we take time to love and hear ourselves, to become comfortable with who we are and be content with solitute, only after those steps are taken can we reach out to others in true love. We simply must love ourselves and deal with our hurts and needs before we can help and learn from others.

We often reach out to others when we are hurting. We are afraid to deal alone with our needs. We are desperately seeking someone or something to drown out our own voice, to give us new answers. We watch television, listen to music, read books, socialize. This book points us back into ourselves. For we are indeed God's children, and the Spirit is in us. When we learn to be still, we can offer that very stillness and peace to others. We can commune with God in prayer. We can break the illusions of business, of our circumstance ruling us. And we can once again be in touch with ourselves, others, and our God.

This is a life-changing, pain-shattering book. In these pages, we meet the Healer, the God who loves us infinitely and takes the time to fill us up and heal our wounds. We meet the God who gives us the peace to live a centered life, not a chaotic one.

As a Christian for 40 some years, I have searched for ways to more effectively live out my devotion to God. Nouwin's book Reaching Out came into my life after 40 some years in a legalistic cultish church and about 3 years in a more grace-filled church where I made some major moral mistakes.

Nouwin's perceptive and astute words described my experience so well. "...we constantly find ourselves clinging to people, books, events, experiences, projects and plans, secretly hoping that this time it will be different. We keep experimenting with many types of anesthetics, we keep finding "psychic numbing" often more agreeable than the sharpening of our inner sensitivities."

His prompting to turn loneliness into solitude where I can possible hear myself and God has been like water in the desert to me. I look forward to the time usually each day where I set the timer and try to empty my mind of noise and hopefully "descend with the mind into the heart"

Henri J. M. Nouwen opened the path for me to understand how I interact and react to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the things and people of our world. For many years I have worshipped God. I never realized that I was doing so on my terms, not His. My interaction with other people was based on my need for control, not the needs of others even though I considered myself a caring person. Henri Nouwen opened my eyes to damage I was doing to others and myself. "Reaching Out" changed my attitudes, understanding, and heart.

If you are serious about walking in Jesus's steps, try "Reaching Out". Your walk with God will never be the same.

What does it mean to be a minister (a healer, if you will) in the world of today, to a rootless generation, to people who suffer loneliness and alienation? Henri Nouwen proposed that the wounds of the "wounded healer" can be a source of healing for others. Although this is a short book, it is very profound, and I'm not sure I totally grasped everything Nouwen was trying to say. He moves from the very practical third chapter (a case study of a one-on-one encounter between a clinical pastoral trainee and a lonely dying patient) to the rather esoteric fourth chapter (focusing on the wounded healer) which could have used more practical illustrations. This is a book that probably needs to be read several times, but it can be extremely valuable for the minister, and for everyone else.

Nouwen, in this classic work, explains how in one's weakness, one can still participate in the healing of others. A major theme of most of his books, Nouwen stresses that only in one's brokenness before God and humankind can people really transform community. Admittedly, the philosophy of the wounded healer offered at the beginning and end of the book gets a little thick, but both portions offer excellent insights that make it a great read. The great benefit of the book is the clear examples offered in the middle of the text. Examples of people dealing with terminal patients and the like really clarifie the condition that Nouwen addresses. A must-read for people in the helping professions and anyone else looking to impact people!

Henri Nouwen has been blessed with true vision of the human condition. Mr. Nouwen has also been gifted with the answers to solve the condition of "Nuclear Man" and isolation. Anyone who is a minister or healer of any kind should read this book. It is a "must read". I appreciated Mr. Nouwen's synopsis' at the end of each chapter. This truly helped me to "drive the point home". I thank Mr. Nouwen for writing this book. I am presently reading his "Return of the Prodigal Son" book. Another "must read" book if one is interested in reaching the center of man.

Gratefully, Teri Lynn Schons

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) came from the somber northern region of France. The landscape of his youth was sketched in the somber colors of a provinical childhood. His family were seed merchants, sober and no nonsense in their approach to the realities of life. As Matisse grew his art expanded as he journeyed to Paris and to the South of France where he discovered the glories of coloration in his art. Matisse was the greatest of the Fauvist painters; the chief rival of Picasso and the grand old man of French painting.
In this first volume of her life of Matisse, Hilary Spurling the British born biographer draws France in the dawn of the 20th
century as we see Matisse struggle from poverty to stability. He was supported by a loving wife, good friends and a genius which
burst forth in all its glory as the great master continue to grow in his art.
The book is well illustrated, detailed in its description of Matisse's families, friends and opponents and well worth the reader's time.
With the current exhibition of Matisse-Picasso at the Metropolitan Museum of Mordern Art it is a pleasure to turn to Spurling's fine volume on Matisse to gain further insights into this giant of modern art. I recommend this book to everyone from art expert to the educated general reader seeking further insights into the evolution of a painter of genius.

This is a genuinely inspiring biography, clearly written and deeply felt, powerfully communicating the revolutionary ideas of what painting could and should be that drove, and were driven by, Henri Matisse. Spurling vividly describes Matisse's struggles to balance his need to paint with financial reality and his society's disdain, often using the artist's own letters and recollections to depict his growing obsession with color and impatience with representation.

Although I eagerly await the second volume, the true measure of Spurling's success is my anticipation in revisiting Matisse's paintings -- my enjoyment of his work has been increased immeasurably by reading this book.

I read this book last year and have been anxiously awaiting the next volume. A marvelous examination of Matisse's start, the development of his passion for art and the complex personal life that made the journey extraordinary and, at the same time, ordinary. The images of his parents, their scandalous employers, his wife, his children, and his remarkable artistic peers remain very vivid for me, as each are really intriguing in and of themselves. Spurling is enormously engaging as a writer, and this book takes you to France at the turn of the 20th century and present time and place in a way that stays with the reader. It's a fantastic work.

"The Inner Voice of Love" is a collection of "spiritual imperatives." The author suggests not to read too many of these spiritual imperatives at once, as do I: read one daily, and meditate on it throughout the day, and again at the end of the day. Although they do not need to be read in the order in which they appear, I recommend doing so, for their order follows the path of Nouwen's spiritual growth through this time of depression for him.

The overall theme of these spiritual imperatives is how to grow from being a needy person to trusting that God will and does fill those needs in us that no human can possibly fill: hence the title, "The Inner Voice of Love." Over the course of this journey, Nouwen seemed not only to learn but to trust that love comes from within, rather than outside of ourselves. There is a place for human relationships in our lives, but it is also necessary to have a relationship with God, and how often these two relationships get confused. What does "a relationship with God" imply? Nouwen explores this question throughout his book.

Each spiritual imperative is a return to God, a grasping of distracting and worrying emotions and handing them over to God in a refreshing, insightful, and compassionate way. Each one brings God back to the center of one's life.

I have read several of Henri Nouwen's books, and find him to be a compelling, compassionate, spiritual, and thought-provoking writer. "The Inner Voice of Love" is an autobiography of one period in the life of an exceptional priest! Nouwen's willingness to be completely vulnerable and honest is absolutely refreshing. His courage to speak about his "dark night of the soul" helps us to realize that what seems most personal truly is universal. His lessons can help others transform their lives! This book is an absolute gift!

You do not have to be Catholic to learn from and appreciate what Henri Nouwen has to say. He will touch your soul. Demonimational differences are moot. You do not have to be suffering from personal anguish to relate to Nouwen's words. His hunger for relationship with others and God are part of the common human experience. This book is a gift of "words". Words we have, at one time or another, tried so inadequately to find to explain our hunger to ourselves. Read it piece by precious piece and keep going back to it. It will keep you in touch with your own humaness, sensitive to the humaness of others, it will sand away the callouses of life and help you to focus on what is really of value.

As the back cover of the book says, Nana by Emile Zola is the story of a woman of very low birth who uses her beauty to conquer the high society men of Paris on her way to becoming a courtesan of immense power and attraction. Nana takes place during the final days of the Second Empire of Napoleon III and actually ends with the event that would herald the downfall of the empire: the declaration of war against Prussia.

Zola is considered the leading member of the naturalist group of writers. Naturalists are concerned with real worldliness. They wish to portray a sense of what life is really like for their characters. They tend more to concentrate on the type of character that they are writing about instead of the character's uniqueness. As such, Nana becomes a story more about courtesans from lowly births than it is about Nana.

Naturalist writing also tends to lend itself to subjects of societal ills and debauchery. Naturalists seek to show the world in all its filth and depravity. To do this they must go where one finds this stuff: in the gutters.

Unfortunately, in his attempt to portray the character types one finds in the company of someone like Nana, Zola has created more caricatures than characters. Few of the characters in Nana where credible participants. Nana herself is unlike anyone you would find in sane society and seems more like an amalgam of various real world influences than a person of one mind.

The male characters of Nana were particularly egregious examples of overzealousness by Zola. The Comte Muffat is Nana's primary benefactor throughout the story. He withstands great hardships and torments from Nana with nary a protest. This may have been believeable if only Muffat had been the victim of Nana's capriciousness; but, she strings along many more men in this manner, robbing them of their dignity and fortunes without so much as a whimper from them.

Nana is compared to a golden fly who rises from the dung heap to taint the high society Parisian world that she invades with her low birth debauchery and sin. Nana may be a metaphor for the overall breakdown of French society which preceded the collapse of the Second Empire; but, Zola would have done better to lay it on less thick. Nana could have been an excellent statement on the necessity of retaining a moral backbone to maintain the fabric of society. Instead, it reads like a cheap nineteenth century soap opera played out with exaggerated, unreal characters.

No drugs, no rock 'n' roll but plenty of sex. Great entertainment in itself, this book is best read as a sequel to "L'Assommoir" whose tragic downtrodden heroine can be said, in a way, to have got her revenge on society through her daughter, Nana. You might say it's a case of the underclass striking back and one wonders how today's acting and modelling scene compares with Second Empire Paris. Someone once said that every woman is sitting on a gold mine and Nana certainly proves it. Trouble is, she also proves the old saying "easy come, easy go". What would have happened if she'd been inoculated against smallpox?

Emile Zola is credited to have written the first "modern" French novels, that is to say, novels about contemporary subject matter and society, written in a natural style, which is why he is called a Naturalist writer. He was a very observant man, with an eye for detail and realistic dialogue and scenarios. He was a friend of the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas, who himself was considered to be a modern artist for his photographic style of paintings. Emile Zola's greatest novel has got to be Nana.

Far from the sugary and innocent Gigi story by Gabrielle Colette which would come later, Nana takes place as the French Second Empire comes to a close. From 1852 to 1870, France became a capitalistic Gilded Age, a time in which men and women would stop at nothing to make it into high society. The decadence of the period is captured, as well as the poverty and decaying morals. It would not be long before Emperor Louis Napoleon III lost the Franco Prussian War (1870-1871) and the empire collapsed. Nana is the daughter of a poor laundress- a washer woman from the country. She becomes a courtesan, a high class prostitute with many wealthy and powerful clients. These include financiers and even a count. Nana has an influence over all the men she becomes involved with, and they are smitten by her, offering her homes and material benefits from her ... favors. In the end, Nana becomes a symbol for the ... society of Emile Zola's time. This novel is a good read for fans of Zola's Naturalistic style and should be read prior to his "The Debacle" which deals with the Franco Prussian War.

Nana became the subject for a Manet painting. The book and the painting shocked the stuffy Salon society of Paris, especially because Nana is so blatant in her ...feminine powers over men. But the novel is excellent, a masterpiece of French literature, a critique on the ridiculous level of poverty at the time. Mothers were willing to sell their daughters into prostitution. Nana, however much a hold she has over the men, cannot get the one thing she truly wants- a place in decent French society. She was always seen as a courtesan with no real ladylike qualities. They were wrong. Nana is a great character, and Emile Zola takes us to that time with such precison and power that we are as if in a time machine transported to those French streets and to those brothel bedrooms. He writes without any hold bars. His novels should be made into films. I suggest this reading material for any fan of French writers. If you like Honore De Balzac, Gustav Flaubert and the time period of the Second French Empire, this is your book.

The title of this book can refer to the red uniforms of Napoleon's soldiers and the black robes of priests or to colors on a roulette wheel or perhaps the colors of blood and mourning, death. The main theme here seems to be desire, or desire beyond our basic instincts, how we come to desire what we do by imitating culture, history, and selected others. The fictional town Verrieres, a panoramic view of which we see in the opening pages along with hearing the loud sounds of the mayor's nail factory, in French means windows. Stendhal boosts us up to a window and we see Julien Sorel who crafts his desires from Napoleon's Memorial de Saint-Helene, Rousseau's Confessions, and a collection of bulletins of the Grand Army. He moves from being the despised son of a saw mill owner to a tutor for the mayor's children and onward from there as the novel progresses. As we read and the author lets us peer through more windows we realize that we are witness to a comic opera as well as to a study of human motivation and desire. The narrator who often speaks to us and takes us under his wing with a confidence or two likens a novel to a man carrying a mirror on his back down a muddy road, sometimes we see the clear blue sky sometimes the muddy road. Is this a reliable narrator to tell us this? You read and decide. "The Red and the Black" is unlike anything I have read before and it is certainly one of the best novels I have experienced reading. If there is a moral for me to be had from this novel it is that people will always get their desire from somewhere whether it's novels, history, or other people but if we can be aware of this process then we can select our influences more consciously.

I really enjoyed this book. Unlike many reviewers, I feel the book does transcend time. American people and culture today, computers and all, are a lot like those in Stendhal's 19th century France.

The main characters strike me as real, and quite complex. Julien is a typical adolescent/ young adult: Idealistic, searching and unsure of himself. To me, it is amazing to what how the world interacts with and alters his self-image. Mathilde is equally interesting. She reminds me of a flighty alternative girl, looking for a dream of simmering romance. And MME de Renal is a wonderful, believable woman, falling in love late in life, victim of the missing husband syndrome.

Like people today, Stedhal's characters are a bundle of contradictions. Is Julien a villain, an angel, a self-serving climber or a man truly in love, searching for his higher self? Aloof or loveable? Is MME de Renal a devout, moral patroness, devoted to her family, or the vilest of adulators, ready to turn her back on duty for the simmer of love? Is Mathilde submissive, or arrogant and dominant?

The answer to all questions is yes. We are all divided.

Be honest with yourself for a minute. Aren't people sometimes cruel, and sometimes kind; Sometimes, honest, sometimes mildly deceitful, telling white lies, and sometimes bold-faced liars? Since Stendhal is faithful to this, and does not give us character in black and white, he has produced a masterpiece.

One last point: You do not need a lot of historical background to understand the author's critique of society. The basic overview laid out in the introduction, and my college course in Western Civ gave me the jist of the cultural goings-on. I even found French culture around the time of Stendhal remarkably similar to our own. The emphasis on external instead of the internal (Brittany Spears, try as she might, is not near as powerful as Bob Dylan, though a good deal more polished and wealthy) strikes home. In our culture, all heroism is gone, and we are left with shallow clubbers, athletes and supermodels as role models. How like Stendhal's effete social elite.

I highly recommend this book because it does transcend time.

I think this book can be read as a reaction against romanticism, or as exemplified in the character of Julien Sorel, an example of how someone could take advantage of a still lingering romanticism. Stendhal was writing at a time when romanticism had already played itself out and so what could follow that movement. An aftermath movement. Stendhals is a cynicism that naturally follows any idealistic movement that has failed. Julien Sorel is not likeable as Fabrice, his later hero, is. Julien is nothing more than a gigolo and an especially detestable one because he preys on the emotions of others,that is his entree into society, but there is nothing romantic about Julien. He is simply playing the necessary part and that is a theme which is in all of Stendhals work. That strange indefiniteness of identity, as if we are all playing interchangeable roles. Julien works his way up in society by playing with the hearts of the wives of men in influential households but he does not get far and perhaps he doesn't really care or perhaps he does. There is a mystery as to the true nature of this low born soul that is never solved. This is Stendhals tragic hero. He is not romantic, just born to a particular time and forced perhaps to play the only cards he has to play. Charterhouse of Parma is Stendhals comedy. More fun than this work and in recent years it seems to have eclipsed Red and the Black in regards to most favored book status but it is a captivating read about a transitional moment in French society(and literature). Stendahls characters are never as complex as Stendahl himself. Reading him one is constantly wondering just what his literary statements are. Cynical he is, but with a love for drama. Perhaps cynicism allows one the proper distance to really enjoy the human comedy, but ironically it also serves as an impetus to act because action, even misguided action in Stendhals work, is preferable to torpor. So maybe he is a romantic after all but one that has ceased to believe in the direction his heart takes him but goes anyway. There is no other choice.