Great old books are like old best friends, and I just had an opportunity to reacquaint myself with a best friend, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. Forget that Crane wrote the book in ten days when he was 21 years old. Forget he had never been to war. Forget Europeans immediately compared him to Tolstoy, Zola, and Kipling. Forget that Hemingway called this the first modern war novel. Forget that you probably read the book as a high school student where, I’ve always contended, it is chosen for its brevity and non-threatening vocabulary. Read it now as an adult in a very troubled world. What an eye-opener into genius of authorship! It is spare, tight, filled with vivid images and memorable characters interacting in a world gone to hell!
The Red Badge of Courage occupies two scant but tense, bloody, relentless and exhausting days in the life of a youth gone to war for imagined glory who learns how to rely on himself and to be a man. On his journey he meets some interesting people who impact his life and thinking. He learns about fear, and he learns about passion. He is guided to an insight into human nature, and he does something he finds hard to forgive in himself. Small in scope but monumental in meaning, the tightly woven fabric of interaction between War, the blood-soaked animal, Nature, the religion of peace, and Man with all his variety, makes for adult reading and pondering.
All characters in this novel become symbols. Enjoy unraveling the puzzles. Take the time to close your eyes and visualize the magnificent word pictures Crane creates with his vivid, clear language. Some of them are beautiful. Some of them are horrific! Travel the journey from youth to manhood that Henry and his friend, Wilson, take—perhaps by following different paths but each coming to a place in life’s road where he understands himself.
And when you’re done with this remarkable journey, get on the web and google the words The Veteran Stephen Crane, and read the short story Crane wrote a year later which takes Henry to old age. Find out what becomes of this Civil War Veteran.
The Red Badge of Courage occupies two scant but tense, bloody, relentless and exhausting days in the life of a youth gone to war for imagined glory who learns how to rely on himself and to be a man. On his journey he meets some interesting people who impact his life and thinking. He learns about fear, and he learns about passion. He is guided to an insight into human nature, and he does something he finds hard to forgive in himself. Small in scope but monumental in meaning, the tightly woven fabric of interaction between War, the blood-soaked animal, Nature, the religion of peace, and Man with all his variety, makes for adult reading and pondering.
All characters in this novel become symbols. Enjoy unraveling the puzzles. Take the time to close your eyes and visualize the magnificent word pictures Crane creates with his vivid, clear language. Some of them are beautiful. Some of them are horrific! Travel the journey from youth to manhood that Henry and his friend, Wilson, take—perhaps by following different paths but each coming to a place in life’s road where he understands himself.
And when you’re done with this remarkable journey, get on the web and google the words The Veteran Stephen Crane, and read the short story Crane wrote a year later which takes Henry to old age. Find out what becomes of this Civil War Veteran.
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