and) Black in the 21st Century

Julien Sorel: Every Artist With a Pure Spirit Turned (Red and) Black in the 21st Century Genna Rivieccio

It used to be that you could, if you really wanted it and had some modicum of talent beyond the basic ability to craft a sentence, break into the VIP area called “literary success” without having to rely solely on money. Just look at Allen Ginsberg. But those days (mainly the 1960s-1980s in San Francisco and New York) have long dissipated into the ether like the U.S. presidency. For every artist requires a wealthy family or the rare bestowment by fate and fortune of a patron usually seeking an even higher emotional cost than the one an artist might pay financially—if she actually had the means, that is. A running theme throughout the history of literature has been our collective ability to romanticize the “profession” (except use of that word would entail actually getting paid for one’s painstaking and fruitless labors, and, yes, in the true spirit of embodying the hypocrisy of Julien Sorel, The Opiate is a party to not paying its writers...one requires a patron for that). But what is romantic about dying in poverty? Most especially as a woman, who, unless she’s as committed to her art as Valerie Solanas, tends to exhaust a large portion of her already scant budget on toiletries. With this in mind, is it any wonder that someone as faint of heart and malleable in character as a man would fall prey to the post-Napoleonic era called the Bourbon Restoration and all of its urgings to rise through the ranks by any tactless means 107.

necessary? Still, despite all his very best efforts (mainly in seduction), Julian will never be good enough to those who “matter.” For just as “Restoration France will not accommodate a low-born man of superior intellect and æsthetic sensibility who possesses neither money nor social connections,” neither will the twentyfirst century accommodate a decent fucking writer with the same qualities at war with circumstances that render these qualities irrelevant. That the first fake epigraph (Stendhal was a tongue-in-cheek pioneer of the made-up quote) is credited to Hobbes and is as follows: Put thousands together less bad,/ But the cage less gay” speaks to Stendhal’s own contempt for this idea of needing to be a part of collective in any aspect of life (be it art, work or government). And not just because of being “antisocial,” but because of an ire for pandering to this herd mentality as a means to succeed when one already has the intellectual and aesthetic superiority that should get her ahead in life without having to trouble herself with the wasted breath and dignity of kowtowing to those— by sheer good fortune of birth—who are blatantly and objectively inferior in every way. Yet, grudgingly, this is precisely what Julien must do, and, as it happens, it must be through the conduit of two women of higher standing, first Madame de Rênal and then Mademoiselle de la Mole. Mathilde, if you will. Who, as a concept, most accurately embodies this societal construction of knowing what is actually “good” but not being permitted to say as much because that which is “good,” in this case, Julien, is not collectively deemed so by those with influence and power. While Mathilde is having difficulty grappling with her uncontrollable emotions for Julien (which, if you see him as rendered in filmic form by Kim Rossi Stuart, you’ll understand),

“But what is romantic about dying in poverty? Most especially as a woman, who, unless she’s as committed to her art as Valerie Solanas, tends to exhaust a large portion of her already scant budget on toiletries.”

let us take pause to consider one of the earlier sentences in the book: “The tyranny of public opinion (and what public opinion!) is as stupid in the little towns of France as in the United States of America.” So yes, it’s something of a challenege as a human being, particularly one “of standing” to overcome what has been indoctrinated in us all since the dawn of “civilization”: to allow other people to get into our head in a way that negates how we truly feel. Letting them tell us how we should be and who we should accept. Mathilde does away with these brainwashings,

only to find herself, like a publisher that took a gamble on a project everyone knew wouldn’t give a return on investment, burned by the risk. All the while, Julien’s own inner struggle intensifies as he comes to terms with the hypocrisy of gratifying the very sort of people he despises, including the mayor of Verrières and, to boot, the husband of Madame de Rênal, who gives him a leg up toward entering the aristocracy by himself foolishly attempting to use Julien for the benefit of appearing “liberal” and “charitable” to his equally affluent friends. Playing the part of the fool to perfection, he never sees it coming that, in hiring a tutor for his children (as a means for Julien to simultaneously pursue the priesthood), he is also hiring Madame de Rênal’s lover. Nay, her one true love. Though she might have bizarre ways of manifesting it later on. And likewise with Julien. But isn’t that another mark of true love as we’re conditioned to believe in it by literature? Colored with just a slight undertone of contempt. If that’s the case, it could very well describe the writer’s lifelong commitment to an endeavor that invokes more headaches than rewards. Such is love, n’est-ce pas? Or at least the kind of love they tell you is worth fighting for. In Madame de Rênal’s instance, Julien certainly is based on her vague syndromes Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterly: fucking bored as shit and looking for some young dick to mold. Which she does, ever so caringly. It is, in fact, what prepares Julien for his greater ascent after he’s summarily kicked out of the house upon the discovery of his affair. Even despite these somewhat selfish motives in falling for Julien (like a dinosauric editor finally having read some “refreshing” manuscript), Mathilde’s are more selfish still. By virtue of her wealth, narcissism and youth alone, she ultimately sees her relationship with Julien as just one more “interesting” thing about herself to add to the list of her mostly physical attributes. It is her reaction to his death that is most telling of this, reinventing him in her mind as her ancestor, Boniface de La Mole, who was also beheaded and subsequently visited by his lover, Queen Margot, so that she might kiss the lips of the detached head. Looking to create a spectacle much? In contrast, Madame de Rênal, purely blackened spirit that she is, mourns for her fellow black soul in silence, letting it kill her just three days after Julien is executed (a vague sense of relief emanating from him as a result of his low birth never truly permitting him acceptance or a rise to the top without unforeseen caveats (does one need to make the writer/publisher correlation once more?). So maybe there was good reason for Julien to be initially hesitant and mistrustful of Mathilde’s genuine interest in him, ultimately coming to find that she’s only “in love” when he seems unavailable (just like an agent and/or publisher). Mathilde is the metphor for the life as a writer you think you want, discovering only too late that maybe it is purer to live and die in poverty without ever having compromised your integrity for the sake of the brilliant and ephemeral flame of success that burns out as quickly as it comes. Your spirit might be black from rejection and lack of appreciation. But it will be even blacker with compromisation. With bending over to the “right people.” In the twenty-first century, this form of temptation is even easier to encounter, and it’s called grad school, which, it would seem, only someone as cunning and adept in the art of fakery as Julien can gain entrance into. There is no shortage of cons and false assurances in this thing that has made itself into an industry so bankable, essentially anyone of the “professorial” bent can offer retreats and seminars insisting they can help you and your writing become “better.” All while your nonexistent income gets worse in its diminishment as you pray that you might be able to at least buy your dream. To add to the illusions one must be wary of, any agent or publisher’s “sincerity” in wanting to aid you is predicated solely on the same mimetic desire that drives Mathilde to “want” Julien. How can anyone—any writer—remain pure under these conditions? They usually can’t and don’t, eventually either giving up, surrendering to madness or surrendering to some entity that will taint what they’ve created. When no one will love the work because it hasn’t been sanctioned by the “correct” sources, I guess what I’m saying is: I will. If no one loves you, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.