A study of Stendhal

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 8

A study of Stendhal

Stendhal. By Michael Wood. EM Books. 208 pp. “The scholarly and critical literature on Stendhal is immense,” writes Michael Wood in presenting his very select list of critical works on the great French novelist, “and on the Whole rather depressing.” The remark may well be true—it is for most great literary figures, French, English or whatever—but it is a dangerous one to make, for it demands that we look at the speaker’s own work to see whether it is not depressing too. In the present case the answer is definitely not. On the contrary, Mr Wood’s study, the first in a new series under the general editorship of Professor Graham Hough of Cambridge University, is refreshing in its approach, and rewarding in its insights into the man and his work. The title of the series is ‘.‘Novelists and Their World.” Its purpose is to “relate important novelists to the social and political world in which they lived and from which they drew their inspiration.” In the hands of the incompetent or merely uninspired, such a rubric can result in a life composed of potted facts and a little speculation followed by a melange of borrowed critical opinions. Mr Wood’s book tells us all we need to know, in such a brief compass, about the life of MarieHenry Beyle, but never offers biography for its own sake—the critical concern with the works which constitute the point of a life of Stendhal is everpresent, as are the works themselves. Whether taken up by the undergraduate or the general reader curious to find out more, biographically and critically, about the novels he has read, Michael Wood’s Stendhal will afford stimulation and enjoyment.