Rating: 
Summary: realistic, not realism per se
Review: naturalism does not tell, action for action, word for word, what is occurring, it would take the fiction out of fiction. rather, like in the visual arts, it took the abstract ideals out of everyday life and art. we are forced to see the world as it really is, not through the rose-colored concept of the world we are told to possess. this is why maggie must give in and lose herself in order to keep herself. a flower out of the mud, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Naturalism to the tee.....
Review: Stephen Crane does a superb job of displaying the qualities of Naturalism in this story. He focuses on the lower classes, deals with an amoral set of ideas/decisions, displays a blatant attack on false values, a reformest agenda, imagery that is either animalistic or mechanistic, and a plot of decline that often leads to catastrophe through a deterministic sequence of causes and effects. Crane attacks both the romantic idealism and the moral posturing of the church in this novel. The animalistic imagery, displayed in the Darwinian landscape of Rum Alley, is significant, for it reinforces the work's naturalistic orientation: humans are viewed as extensions of the animal kingdom engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival. This novel assails the hypocricy of the priest who offers condemnation instead of compassion, who claims to help people, yet turns a deaf ear to their pleas for help, and whose moral posturing encourages others to do the same. BRAVO! Crane....If you would like to discuss this novel in greater detail, email me.
Rating: 
Summary: Badly written and in need of disposal
Review: Stephen Crane is a sham of an author. By overuse of hyperbole and a difficult to follow dialect, the reader is left groping for direction. As you can see, I was not pleased with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written book about 1890's slum life
Review: This book was well written. The naturalistic setting and expressive use of slang transport you back to the nasty means streets of New York at the turn of the century. Some of their values seem kind of quaint and rustic as compared to 100 years later, however the realism is staggering. One can feel the despair of a terrible life that never gets better. Death and disease are the only fates that await and there is no release. This is not just a book to be read as an assignment, read it for the realistic view of history as a slice of life to understand what New Yorker's were going through then, and as a parable to ghetto life today. Some things have changed but some still stay the same......plus ca change.......
Rating:
Summary: Well written book about 1890's slum life
Review: This book was well written. The naturalistic setting and expressive use of slang transport you back to the nasty means streets of New York at the turn of the century. Some of their values seem kind of quaint and rustic as compared to 100 years later, however the realism is staggering. One can feel the despair of a terrible life that never gets better. Death and disease are the only fates that await and there is no release. This is not just a book to be read as an assignment, read it for the realistic view of history as a slice of life to understand what New Yorker's were going through then, and as a parable to ghetto life today. Some things have changed but some still stay the same......plus ca change.......
Rating:
Summary: A bleak uncompromising novel of New York's "lower depths".
Review: This is a great book,I love this book,though it is almost unbearably sad.The novel's uncompromising realism in its portrayl of stunted,wasted and degraded lives in the New York tenements of the 1890's,horrified many of Stephen Crane's contemporaries,and he initially had to pay to have it privately published(it was his first novel).Only when he became famous as the author of "The Red Badge of Courage",was there a proper edition.Crane railed at "sentimentality",which he saw as an artistic curse.There is no sentimentality in this book,and Crane proved that a good writer could still move the reader to tears without purple prose.
Rating:
Summary: Finding the Lost Text
Review: Unbeknownst to many, Dr. Kevin Hayes has included "lost" text that has never been printed in Maggie. If you are looking for a reliable source on Stephen Crane's "Maggie," this is the one. I personally know Dr. Hayes and can tell you that his research is solid and trustworthy. Congratulations on another wonderful book!
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