s y b i l’s Reviews > The Red and the Black > Status Update

I find myself again and again reproaching Julien's thoughts and actions, but immediately after, I pity him and smile. He is but a child, or at least in the grand scheme of life (20 or so) and as I am 26, his thoughts seem to be ludicrous sometimes. However. I must remind myself of my own imaginative thoughts and disdain against the machine at that age, and the boundless imagination that swam through me just as him.

every chapter is just julien sorel's first day on earth

When two extremely ignorant and sheltered people from the opposite ends of financial standing have a lust for eachother, it is the blind leading the blind.

Though Julien Sorel is young and is blinded by heroic thoughts of Napoleon, almost idealizing him as a god, prostrating himself to this murky idea of himself as an icarus with no qualms of the sun, I find him incredibly irritating. Yes, he is in youth, and learning. Unbeknownst to him or not, he is machiavellian as it gets, using people as tools, and being a people pleaser to obtain his hypocritical goals.