I did not love this book (The Red and the Black by Stendhal)--when I was reading it, it just seemed like a tragedy of everyone wanting what he couldn't have. It didn't seem like there was love in it anywhere (not that there has to be love in a book to make it good, but there was so much romance in this one that you would've thought he could have slipped some love in somewhere).
The politics were interesting (although they were tied up in early 19th century French politics, which sometimes confused me). I suppose Machiavelli would have approved of the main character, Julien Sorrel (until the end, that is). Julien was the master of making fortune bend to his will.
The women in the novel are pretty passive--Julien's first lover, who is married with children loves him but battles continued feelings of guilt (after he has to leave, as their affair is discovered, she is pushed around by her priest). Julien's second lover is a bored rich girl who begins by playing with him. He discovers this and finds out enough about her to make her fall in love with him and stay in love. At the end, she falls into some over-the-top romanticism, which she's really been boredly longing for her whole life.
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