Julien is an interesting character, even if he’s a thoroughly dislikable prick. Everybody in his podunk town mistook his amazing memory for genius, nobody more so than Julien himself. Which isn’t to say that Julien is dumb. But thinking he’s something he’s not fosters an arrogance and ignorance that fuel all sorts of misunderstandings and troubles. He covets the women of his employers, leading to doomed-from-the-beginning relationships which effect his own demise. He is everything he despises in his “betters”, and yet he’s never more than an epigone by dint of his birth and, ultimately, his very actions. Instead of the Midas touch, he has manos de estomago - everything he touches turns to shit. He’s sort of an Anti-Emma. The two books came out at roughly the same time. I have no clue as to whether either one of the authors was aware of the other, mind. I just kind of link Emma and Julien because they’re polar opposites. I will say that it’s been roughly 30 years since I read it, so I’m not sure how it’d stand up to a re-read. Larry posted a discussion on it back at wotmania, one which Sareitha and I chimed in on. All three of us really liked the book, but we didn’t much agree on thoughts about Julien. I was pretty negative, Sareitha was slightly negative, but Larry was quite positive, to the point he somewhat self-identified with Julien, mostly in the sense of yearning to move on to something bigger, something better.

And just for the heck of it.

1. Romola Garai
2. Kate Beckinsale
3. Anya Taylor-Joy
4. Gwyneth Paltrow

You?

View original post

View original post3. The Red and the Black ~ Stendhal

The others on your list that I've read make sense to me... this one, I'm not sure I've ever seen listed on anybody's top ten. I've read it and didn't hate it, but it just didn't leave enough of an impression either way for me to even remember much about it... Care to elaborate on what exactly made it so good for you?