The Red and the Black
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Red and the Black
| Full title | The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century |
|---|---|
| Author | Stendhal |
| Published | 1830 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Stendhal’s Julien Sorel, a carpenter’s son in Restoration France with a private cult of Napoleon, climbs by way of the seminary and a nobleman’s household and is destroyed by the ambition that lifted him — the red and the black being the army and the church, in a society that has just closed the first. An anatomy of careerism: what happens to talent when merit has no legitimate route upward. |
The Red and the Black
Where I heard about it
- Dissident Teacher — on A Library to Build Great Americans, a 468-title curriculum published on Substack in December 2025, in the Ages 13-99+ band under Fiction.
About this edition
Stendhal was the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), who served under Napoleon and wrote the novel as a “chronicle of 1830,” the year of its publication and of the July Revolution.
Connections
- A Library to Build Great Americans — the 468-title curriculum this card came from; listed in the Ages 13-99+ band under Fiction.
- Stendhal — the author.
- Ambition — the engine of the plot, and its undoing.
- Institutions — the unwritten rules doing the real governing.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.