Book
Le Rouge et le Noir
by Stendhal · 1830 · 1 reading card · public domain
1 card
Le Rouge et le Noir · 1830
A mirror that picks what to reflect is no longer a mirror, it's a lie.
Stendhal borrows an epigraph to state his theory of the novel: the mirror chooses nothing. If the road holds mud, the mirror must show the mud, or it lies. That was a radical stance in 1830, when fiction was treated as frivolous entertainment and critics demanded exemplary heroes. Julien Sorel, the carpenter's son who climbs through hypocrisy toward salons and power, is mud and sky in one person: capable of genuine passion and cold calculation at once. Stendhal's method is clinical observation. He records the small gestures through which people hide their real motives, even from themselves. The novel thus becomes an instrument for knowing human beings, not merely a story.
“A novel: it is a mirror carried along a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the sky, sometimes the mire of the puddles along the road.”