Personal Library -- Red and Black

Author: (French) Stendhal
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: The ancients said, "Travel ten thousand miles and read ten thousand books." For modern people, traveling ten thousand miles is easy, but reading ten thousand books is difficult. The wheels of technology are sweeping across the world at an astonishing speed. The modern people, busy in front of computers and all kinds of machines all day, have turned the earth into a village with wires, optical cables, tracks, or air routes. With a click of the mouse, we can paste ourselves anywhere in the world. However, facing the vast civilization, without the foundation of reading ten thousand books, we not only frequently encounter the awkwardness of "meeting face to face but not recognizing each other," but we also keep accumulating the strangeness that comes from the bottom of our hearts. For this, we long for a deeper understanding, for a connection of the soul; we long for a return to a way of traveling—before traveling ten thousand miles, put a few books in our spiritual backpack so that our steps and souls can go further. A spiritual journey does not require "writing essays in youth and exhausting oneself in studies in old age," nor does it require hanging the head on the beam, chipping through the wall to steal light, nor does it require a red sleeve adding fragrance and never putting the book down. A spiritual journey only requires reading a few classics in the leisure of life. Novels, essays, and poems can all be made into soup for the soul; buses, subways, and even the palm of your hand can be our desks. Therefore, we have tailor-made a "pocket library" for busy urban dwellers. Classics are the soul of the library; easy to absorb is the essence of the library; carrying it with you, reading anytime, anywhere, and in any way is the purpose of the library. The selected titles in the library are all the timeless classics that have been refined after exposing their hearts and souls to the waves of different civilizations; the illustrations, carefully selected and painstakingly collected from hundreds of rare books and private collections, are a true restoration of the essence of the classics. The small format design makes it as clever as a wallet; the special printing technology makes every book exude a subtle fragrance. Classics are not afraid of time, but life cannot withstand the erosion of "the passage of time is like this." The charm of classics is better seen than heard. It is better to use them to mend the gaps in our time, to add value to the fragments of our days; it is better to use on-the-go reading to gather wisdom piece by piece, and to understand life in the spiritual journey. Reading classics, with the least travel expenses, to reach the furthest distance of life. The Red and the Black is the foundational work of European critical realism in the 19th century. The novel revolves around the personal struggles and eventual failure of its protagonist, Julien, particularly his two loves, widely depicting the "social atmosphere imposed on the French people by the governments of the early 1830s," strongly condemning the reactionary aristocracy, the darkness of the church, and the vulgarity and greed of the new bourgeoisie. Therefore, although the novel takes Julien's love life as its main theme, it is not a love story but a "political novel." Stendhal was a master at reflecting major social issues through love. Both of Julien's loves are closely tied to the political climate of the time, representing a form of class struggle. He did indeed develop genuine feelings for Madame de Rênal, but at first, it was driven by the petty bourgeois's desire for revenge against the nobility. Therefore, when Julien first took Madame de Rênal's hand, he did not feel the happiness of love but rather the victory of Napoleon-like ambition, a "revelry" and "joy," and the satisfaction of his desire for revenge. If Julien's pursuit of Madame de Rênal still contained some genuine emotions, then Julien's love for Mademoiselle de Mathilde was purely a political struggle. Mademoiselle de Mathilde possessed the proud and willful temperament of a noble girl but was deeply influenced by the French Revolution. She believed that if there were another revolution, it would be young commoners like Julien who would dominate society. Marrying Julien would not only add a romantic touch but also provide a strong backing. On the other hand, Julien believed that marrying Mademoiselle de Mathilde would elevate him to a high position and bring him success, so he was willing to deceive her love. However, Julien's two loves ultimately failed. This was because during the Restoration period, feudal forces fiercely retaliated against the bourgeoisie. Julien was not part of the ruling class, and that class would never tolerate someone like him achieving his ambitions. The Red and the Black achieved outstanding success in shaping typical characters in typical settings, its well-balanced artistic structure, and the use of the white-wash technique. Stendhal was called the "father of modern novels" by critics because he demonstrated exceptional talent in psychological description in The Red and the Black. Realist writers emphasized the realism of details, but Stendhal was different from Balzac. He focused not on the objective environment but on the meticulous and realistic portrayal of characters' inner lives. The author often briefly described the characters' actions and the surrounding environment, while elaborating extensively on their inner thoughts, especially in the depiction of love, which was intricate and moving. In the plot where Julien learns that Madame de Rênal is writing an incriminating letter and kills her, Stendhal used only three pages, whereas his love story with Mademoiselle de Mathilde spanned hundreds of pages, meticulously detailed. The portrayal of Madame de Rênal's complex emotions—joy, pain, remorse, and unwillingness to give up happiness—when she fell in love, was also truly remarkable.