Stendahl's narrative style

Started (re)reading Stedahl's great and strangely-titled 1830 novel, The Charterhouse of Parma, and was (almost) immediately caught up in his unique and headlong narrative style. I say "almost" because the first chapter is a bit of a rough going; S begins his narrative, as he wryly notes, before the birth of the hero, Fabrizio del Dongo, second son (though the patrilineal is in doubt) of an Italian marquis in the late 18th century, more or less shunned by his father and to be provided w/ no education - but adored by his mother and by his beautiful aunt. The first chapter has a lot of background that's a bit difficult to follow w/out knowing which are the key characters to emerge, but the novel finds its footing in chapter 2, which leads up to Fabrizio's heading north to France to join Napoleon's army in a quest for glory and action. Stendahl's narration rushes forward like a stream, a torrent, and it's impossible not to get caught in the flow - and this is not to say that it's in any way like a contemporary "action" novel or best-seller a la, say, Grisham, which is really nothing but a screenplay posing as a novel. Stendahl's style is literary in the highest degree, full of insight and observation and character development, but in tone and temperament the precise opposite of, say, Proust - never dwelling on a moment in time but racing through time - and I think this difference may be in part due to a literal difference in composition: Proust working in a silent room, writing his manuscript by hand, and constantly making corrections and edits; Stendahl dictating his narrative, which to me is most amazing, being able to compose the story as it is spoken with, presumably, almost minimal editing. I believe Dostoyevsky composed the same way, and with the same affect. (So did James, I am told, in his late novels, but if so w/ a different effect, getting lost in the sinuous composition of the sentences.)

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