Rating: 
Summary: This book should be entitled The Red Badge of Boredom.
Review: That's what my classmates and I referred to it as while we were reading it in my eleventh grade English class. While I understand that the novel is complex in certain ways, it is very monotonous, and it drags. It is definitely one of those books that made me smile...because it was over.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent novel
Review: I read this book only recently. Many people could be lost in the simplistic setting and plot but if you look deeper you realize the true complexity of the novel.Crane uses this novel to ironically view the art of war. His vivid imagery and the actions of young Henry Fleming provide you with the progression of a soldier from an innocent to a seasoned warrior. Crane uses this book to make us view civilization as we know it. Are we really civilized? If so, why haven't we stopped practicing the primitive art known as war?
Rating: 
Summary: Novel would be better wriitten like so: War=Tragedy
Review: Don't waste your time reading about how bad war is! It is nice to be sensatized to its calamities, but one can get the same feeling of sympathy by watching SCHINDLER'S LIST, a movie that features calamities that are of more immediate concern, especially with the new Neo-Nazi movements forming in Germany.
Rating:
Summary: Great piece of literature, but not Crane's best work
Review: I have read the "The Red Badge of Courage" several times since I was 16, and have grown more fond of this piece each time I have read it. In many ways however, it does not capture the essence of Crane's vision into the psyche of the desperate human spirit. A far better and more representative piece of his incredible talent can be seen in his novella "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." For me, "Maggie" is a piece of literature second only to Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables." Other great Crane stories include "The Monster" and "The Open Boat."
Rating: 
Summary: This book was very realistic.....
Review: I thought this book was a very realistic view of war. Crane's sense of naturalism really comes through in his portrayal of Henry Fleming. Henry must go through the trials and tribulations of war, just like any other soldier. This book shows how Henry must mature from the glory seeking soldier to the life-seeking soldier.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Description of Battle
Review: I must say that this book was not my favorite and not my least favorite. I was required to read this "classic" in my 11th grade Gifted/Honors American Literature class. To be honest with you, I am not into war novels, and never held an interest in them, but this story was different. The description of the battles were outstanding, and it made me realize what war can do to a person's psyche, and that it isn' always "glory."
Rating:
Summary: Fence Sitting
Review: This book, like any has it's merits and faults. The naration is a bit unconventional in form, and the transitions are a bit confusing at times, and some imagery is strongly overused, but the intreaging character development and rich detailed descriptions make this book worth reading. It is true Crane never saw battle in his life, publishers have never made a secret of this, but after the book debued he was congradulated by war veterans for his accurate depictions and even consulted by various periodicals as a war coorespondant. If you are unconceded enough to get passed grammatical errors in the narration, and see the book for what it was when it was written, then you should enjoy it. Happy reading.
Rating: 
Summary: red badge on the rappahannock
Review: chancellorsville is right here outside my windows, and the rappahannock just past the pine grove. when i walk over to the fields that crane sets you in, the ground resonates with the shadowy movements of his scenes. his incredible sense of time & place lives a century or so later. what other books can do the same? red badge defines a moment and it defines us. what more can anyone ask?
Rating:
Summary: Why the fuss?
Review: A book chock full of wartime struggle, its great...if you like that sort of thing. To a reader unaccustomed to almost unbearably slow pace and metaphoric, confusing language, the book will bore you to tears.The first time I read the book was for a school requirement, but years later, it still bores me, even reading it on my own will. I do not reccomend it unless you enjoy these types of books. To the average reader, this will seem like a waste of time and a book who doesn't deserve it's classic standing.
Rating:
Summary: If you were bored by the book, learn to read first!
Review: To those of you who have barbed The Red Badge of Courage with the unintelligent epithets of "boring," "hard to read," and/or "pointless," need to learn how to read. This is not a book about anything except war and one boy's attempt to endure it. The criticisms of Crane's characters being "boring" and "nameless" are true only in the sense that he gives them no discernable identity--the only things discernable in war are the exchanges of gunfire and death, which Crane's soldiers meet. Life is not a splendor; it is a charnal on the battlefield. As for Crane's style, the only valid point that I believe has to be made is that Crane had an imperfect sense of grammar: but what does it matter--who in our world today could write the definitive novel on war in English? Who could write this passage, one of the most beautiful opening paragraphs in the language: "The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadows of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when it had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eye-like gleams of hostile campfires set in the low brows of distant hills. . . . " This, fellow readers, I hope, will rectify these ignorant condemnations of Crane's masterwork (The above passage was memorized, by the way; if any of you are unbelieving, check a copy of The Red Badge or e-mail me: I can try again if there are any mistakes in punctuation or--hopefully not!--a misplaced word.
|
