The Red Badge of Courage (2024)

I feel almost guilty about how much I disliked this book. I know it's an important piece of literature, that it changed the way people viewed war, it's an American classic, etc. etc. But I could NOT stand it. I thought it was boring and I didn't really care what happened to the main character. I was totally distracted by how the author called him "the youth" instead of his name and I had to have my brother-in-law explain to me what the point of it was since I just couldn't tell. Maybe my tastes will mature someday, but I wouldn't count on it.

The Battle of Chancellorsville in northern Virginia 1863 is one of the bloodiest 24,000 casualties of the war between the states, the focus of this novel. Henry Fleming a naive restless farm boy not yet a man from New York State, goes off to fight during the American Civil War. Against the tearful pleading of his widowed mother not to, Henry out of patriotism or boredom wants to join the Union Army. Many months pass of training and marching before Fleming gets into action. Some of his friends, boys he grew up with are in the 304th regiment with him. Camp life is very harsh living mostly in dirty tents little food and nothing to do, unsanitary living conditions, the constant marching to different sites; the veterans call the newcomers "Fresh Fish". Wondering if he'll be brave or a coward in the conflict dominates his thoughts, finally the youth sees the ugly war. The charging yelling mobs of rebels from out of the woods brings fear to his very soul and Fleming caring little about glory, his friends or the regiment runs away , runs like the little boy he really is only just wants to survive...Meeting many wounded soldiers in the back of the line. Some who will not live long, including his close friend who Fleming watches fall mortally down on the ground, they ask him uncomfortable questions where was he hit ?...Leaving them as fast an unobtrusively as possible, wandering around aimlessly Henry heads for a nearby forest trying to get away from the savage war. The sounds of brutal battle are muted by the trees only a short distance from the struggle, as if all the world was a peaceful quiet place, a sanctuary for him to calm his shaky nerves. But Henry can't get far from reality, a Union soldier propped up against a tree stares with his dead eyes at the miserable deserter. An insect crawling over his ghastly face, Henry decides to get back to his regiment yet ironically is hit in the head, with a rifle butt by a vicious man fleeing in a blue uniform, Fleming was in the way, causing blood to flow freely...
His desired " Red Badge of Courage"... Arriving home helped by an unknown soldier nobody had noticed his cowardliness they thought he was dead, bandaged his "war wound". Next day another scrimmage Fleming feels different, comradeship with his fellow soldiers close as brothers now Henry never experienced such emotions before, even leads the charge has he become a man ?

2.5 stars

Intellectual Thomas thinks this story changed people's perception of war and made them think about the individual psychological processes involved in combat. He thinks that this book had a nice flow of thought that concluded with the narrator learning to be less whiny.

Thomas Thomas - the college-student Thomas that has almost no free time to read for fun, and therefore only wants to read satisfying books - feels that The Red Badge of Courage was super frustrating in that its author, Stephen Crane, clearly had never gone to war before writing this book. Thus, the novel's imagery and overall characterization of the narrator came across as juvenile and simplistic.

Thomas Thomas regrets that he has nothing novel to contribute about The Red Badge of Courage, and he apologizes for using the third person to entertain himself enough to complete this review.

An odd book

One of my partners in investigations was a retired general. Erudite, wise, knowledgeable about many things, he hated this little book. Called it a celebration of cowardice. I can see his point but in the end the youth, Henry I believe he was called, is at least partially redeemed, though I never warmed to him. My objection to the book centers upon Crane's use of strange descriptions and odd metaphors. I highlighted some of those. I also found it overly verbose in many passages. Still it seems to contain some truths about soldiers in combat. Two and a half stars rounded up to three.

It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.

The Red Badge of Courage tells the story of Henry Fleming, a young recruit who’s gearing up for his first battle in the Union army. Over the next two days he flees, then returns, then fights, and by the end is raising the flag and leading his regiment in victory. On one level, it’s a traditional hero’s journey that had been told for thousands of years. But that traditional arc is subverted throughout this story. Most of the ‘action’ takes place in Henry’s mind, so we see him in all of his flaws. He is hopelessly naïve at the beginning of the book. At his first taste of battle, his cowardice causes him not only to flee, but later to abandon an injured comrade. The fighting itself is presented as chaotic, with the characters and the reader generally in the dark about how the battle is progressing. Finally, the soldiers don’t talk about grand causes or motivations for fighting—like preserving the Union or ending slavery—they simply fight for each other.

Written today, I’m sure Henry would have been presented as even more disillusioned, and the fighting even gorier and move hectic. Still, The Red Badge of Courage was way ahead of its time. It’s the forerunner of the modern American war novel (and movie). And, I’m happy to say, was better than I remembered. Recommended.

Most novels about war are broad, sweeping stories that try to capture the big picture of what happened. But what's it like for the individual? What were they thinking, feeling, and experiencing? That's what Stephen Crane brings to life in this book. He shows the fine line between courage and cowardice that exists in everyone. An American classic that has never been out of print.

Revised December 2017.

This book made my heart race and made me hear gunfire.

I think Crane manages to create the perfect visceral novel. Sure there is symbolism if you want it, but at its core this book is about experience.

Like a delicate flower, this book is easily ruined by too much prodding attention. Just read it, take it in, let yourself get dragged into the story and imagery. Don't think, don't read it closely to prepare for a paper or discussion, just experience it.

I would never teach this book in a class. I would just mention it as one of my favorites and possibly leave a few copies around.

Read this book right before I went into the Army; helped me focus and understand that courage can take different forms at different times. If you know a young man/woman entering the military may I suggest this book for them - they will thank you.

The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer, who carries a flag.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1998 میلادی
عنوان: نشان سرخ دلیری؛ نویسنده: استیفن کرین؛ مترجم: غفور آلبا؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، 1335، در 245 ص
عنوان: نشان سرخ دلیری (متن کوتاه شده)؛ نویسنده: استیفن کرین؛ مترجم: جعفر مدرس صادقی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، نشر مرکز، 1374، در 157 ص
نشان سرخ دلیری رمانی رئالیستی و جنگی است که به اعتقاد صاحب نظران نقطه ی اوج خلاقیت، و شاهکار بی نظیر استیفن کرین است، ماندگاری و شهرت آن گواه مدعاست، از عجایب روزگار این که در جایی خواندم، استیفن کرین، در زمان نگارش کتاب، هیچ جنگی به چشم خود ندیده بود. مطالعه ی جنگ و صلح تولستوی و دیدن عکس هایی از جنگ داخلی امریکا و نیروی تخیل قوی نویسنده کافی بوده گویا، کتاب یکی از بهترین رمان های رئالیستی جنگی دنیاست. ا. شربیانی

کتاب را دوست نداشتم و نمی دانم به خاطر ترجمه بود یا نه. ولی فیلم اقتباسی آن را دیدم و دوست داشتم
The Red Badge of Courage (1951) 7.2

I found it disappointing that The Red Badge of Courage, an American classic, was dull, had poor pacing, and lackluster characterization. There might be historical value in this novel, written by Stephen Crane who was born nearly five years after America’s civil war ended, but there is little to enjoy. The novel does focus on the psyche of the protagonist – more so then on the war itself, but I found myself not caring. I didn’t care for the characters nor did I care about the battles or the war. I told myself that I would give the novel a fair review only by reading it in its entirety, which led me to gloss over the last few chapters as to end the torture.

I debated giving two stars as there was one scene that I noted as compelling – the scene where Henry Fleming watches Jim Conklin struggle to continue marching while Jim is dying of wounds from the battle. This was a moment where Henry experiences firsthand that war is hell. However, one powerful scene cannot resurrect this lifeless corpse of a book. I pity the High School student that is assigned this book and question the teacher that does the assigning.

I think I read pieces of this back in school (when we were studying the American Civil War, of course), but reading this as an adult was really rewarding. It's so beautiful, even in the moments of violence, and the psychological roller coaster ride Henry Fleming goes on at such a young age is fascinating.

Click here to hear my thoughts on this book and the episode of Wishbone it inspired over on my Booktube channel, abookolive!

3/5 Estrellas

Teniendo en cuenta que este libro fue escrito en 1893, se trata de un texto de extraordinaria modernidad, del que supongo que han bebido autores como nuestro admirado, a veces, Pérez-Reverte.

Nos narra el comportamiento, los pensamientos, las vivencias, los sufrimientos, los arrebatos de cobardía, de valor y de enajenación de un recluta unionista, en un episodio de la guerra de Secesión americana.

Vamos viendo su evolución en medio del caos bélico, nunca mejor dicho porque es imposible saber que está pasando, desde el pavor inicial durante su primer enfrentamiento, hasta la frialdad que exhibe en medio del zurrear de las balas, pocas horas después.

Creo que es un texto interesante porque se centra en las emociones del soldado y no en lo que está pasando en la batalla o en la guerra. Esto se traduce en un producto literario rompedor para la época, que hizo famoso a este joven escritor (tenía 21 años cuando lo escribió), aunque por desgracia fallecería pocos años más tarde de tuberculosis.

El problema es que desde un punto de vista de disfrute literario es poco o nada disfrutable, ya que es un absoluto caos, ni el pobre recluta sabe lo que está pasando, ni tú tampoco. Marchas, contramarchas, avances, retiradas, ataques artilleros......

Una buena novela bélica, la guerra vivida desde dentro, transmite muy bien lo que se podía llegar a sentir ahí dentro y muy acorde con los tiempos, por desgracia. Desmitificación total de falso romanticismo de la guerra. Miedo, valor, coraje, enajenación, honor, patriotismo ¿Qué impele a un muchacho a enfrentarse a la muerte, superando los más atávicos instintos de supervivencia?
Imprescindible para los amantes del género bélico.

Tolstoi made the writing of Stephen Crane on the Civil War seem like the brilliant imagining of a sick boy who had never seen war but had only read the battles and chronicles and seen the Brandy photographs that I had read and seen at my grandparents’ house.

—Ernest Hemingway

It is a decidedly well done piece of writing, though I can’t see it evoking much feeling in modern readers. The prose is stylish and forceful; the dialogue is consistently good; the portrayal of the protagonist’s emotional state is done with skill. Still, all told, it does feel a bit more like a writing exercise than a piece of literature. I can imagine the young Crane setting himself the challenge of mentally constructing a battle as vividly as possible, feverishly writing down his daydreams. For such a young man, the writing is done with considerable polish and verve; it’s a shame he died so early.

If you listen carefully, you can hear aspects of both Hemingway and Steinbeck presaged in this work. At the time, writing battles this way—as a phantasmagoric sequence of images—wasn’t really done; and since its publication, the book has had a tremendous influence. I think one of the reasons a modern reader will feel numb to its charms is that this book had a huge influence on the modern war movie. As in so many cinematic battles, the political and strategic aspects are deemphasized completely, leaving only the soldier with his gun, his guts, and bullets whirring all around him. It’s a shame Crane didn’t live longer; this is no masterpiece, but it shows enormous potential.

40th book of 2022.

Stephen Crane lived to just 28 years old and is most famous for this novella, The Red Badge of Courage, which was published in 1895. It follows Henry Fleming, a young soldier fighting with the Union during the American Civil War. There are quite a few low ratings for this on GR and I went in with some scepticism (though my scepticism is never far away on any read), but found myself overjoyed by the sharpness of Crane's writing. He's like top form Hemingway; but, like Hemingway, the writing is pared down, slow, meticulous in precision, which I can imagine makes it dull for some readers. Here's just a giant list of sentences I've underlined to prove my point.

'But awake he had regarded battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past.'
'In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun'
'The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel vast pity for himself.'
'After a time the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest.'
'For some moments he could not flee, no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.'
'The clouds were tinged an earthlike yellow in the sunrays and in the shadow were a sorry blue.'
'He thought of the magnificent pathos of his dead body.'
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue, enameled sky.'

My favourite bits reminded me of War and Peace though, the strange realness of the war that Crane captures. Fleming, when about to skirmish at one point in the novel, suddenly has the irrational fear that his gun isn't loaded. I was reminded of the scene where Rostov throws his weapon at some French soldiers rather than firing it. Above all, a great anti-war novel. Fleming runs from one of the major skirmishes in the battle and tries to measure his manliness, his patriotism, his very self, by this event. It can be a slow read, and despite all the war, it is a slow read, very introspective, but beautifully written and modern-feeling. Now I feel inclined to get Auster's 800 pages biography.

Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier. He lay upon his back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish brown. The youth could see that the soles of his shoes were worn to the thinness of writing paper, and from a great rent in one of the dead foot projected piteously. And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.

Regarding death thus out the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary commotion over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die; he would go to some place where he would be understood.

Reread this short novel for the first time since, I believe, middle school or high school. Research for a novel I'm writing. It holds up! Was glad to be reacquainted with the tale.

When Henry Flemming set off to join the war, he perhaps did not have a clear picture of what lay before him, what his decision meant. Like every other young man (across the divide of time and circ*mstance) he envisions his return as a hero - an achieved man. but does he pause to consider the damn hardship of the battlefield? Perhaps not! At some point he actually runs, but his conscience torments him. A series of happenings (accidental- i think) push him back to track, and there he tries to prove his manhood.

I find that the power of this war novel is not really in the story, but in how it is rendered. Crane's prose (though at some point overly descriptive) is to the large extend exquisite. So also his portrayals of the internal conflict of this youth.

The Language is beautiful, and makes this, a not so simple and straightforward novel, a worthy read.

Cool line:

He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks - an existence of soft and eternal peace.

This book, The Red Badge of Courage, has haunted me for years. I've wanted to read it and yet, I couldn't. When I was younger it was too much for me, the language was too formal, too poetic and difficult. Year after year I fought the desire to read it. The reason? A boy I grew up with, my first love, Cameron Fajer, he had read it and brought it to a class that I had with him. I was in 6th grade; he was in 7th grade, in 1979. He was my first love and we had a history, spanning decades. All those years ago, he brought it to our class and he held it in his hands, an older hardcopy of the book, which is quite a short book, really, not even the length of a Novella. It was clearly something he cherished, this odd short little book. He told me about it, but I've forgotten most of what he said other than he told me that it was really good and: "You should read it!" I was unimpressed at the time. I remember I laughed and told him I had no desire to read a book about the Civil War, so long ago. I wasn’t interested in war, that was for men, I told him. He pressed that I should read it, telling me it was his "favorite book” but still I remained unmoved.

Cam and I stayed in touch over the years, in odd and touching ways and then I learned that tragically, he hanged himself in 2016. He left his estranged wife and three children by hanging himself in the family garage. I was crushed to learn of his suicide. I wept and raged for days knowing he had struggled with self-loathing for decades, knowing how he had grown up. Nothing and no one could console me as I grieved for him, for his sparkling life and the genuine tenderness and equally perplexing cruelty which made him unique. And that is the reality of the aftermath of suicide. There IS no going back to make things right, because you can’t. I wrote about Cam, a long essay which is on my writing website. It was my way of getting the ghost of my love for him out of my heart. It worked, to a degree, but not completely. My love for him will never leave me. So, a couple of months ago, I kept thinking about that day in Shop Class, in the basem*nt of Chapman Elementary in 1979, in NW Portland and how he had told me I should read this book, his favorite book, The Red Badge of Courage. And I thought perhaps I would understand Cam better and perhaps his suicide would make some kind of sense to me.

About three months ago, I bought the book, a really good edition with a preface, selected bibliography, and chapters on sourcing, criticism and a timeline of Stephen Crane's life. 379 pages in all, but of course the book "The Red Badge of Courage" is only about 114 pages long and as mentioned before is not even long enough to be considered a Novella. The "red badge" is something you find out about, and its existence is all about courage, doing something you don't want to do, about making a sacrifice. I can see Cam thinking taking his life was the right thing to do, the proper thing, for his family, for his children, how it would be HIS "red badge" of courage, but of course it was not. It was the worst thing he could have possibly done. And so I bought the book and read it, to honor him. It is of course a lovely, lovely book. Written with old fashioned and dated language, but also such lovely language that imparts such a beautiful and pastoral tone. Parts of the book seem as fresh and modern as any book that might be written today. I will include the first paragraph to let you see how lovely this book really is and how it captures the reader in the first paragraph.

"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 the 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 at its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile campfires in the low brows of distant hills."

This begins the story, of a soldier who fights and then retreats in a hostile world. Of a man who struggles to attain that “red badge of courage.” I am convinced that Cam thought of this book and its sentiments when he planned his escape from this world. I read this book to further understand the wonderful and heart wrenching mystery of Cam Fajer, of the boy I grew up with and loved and will love for the rest of my life. Reading the last few paragraphs gave me the closure I think I needed. These next sections are from the last two pages, which I feel explains some of the motive behind my first loves suicide. Knowing Cam as I did, knowing him better than many people ever could, I see these words echoing in his mind and informing his actions in 2016 as he placed the rope around his neck.

"Thus he abandoned the world to its devices... He again hit upon nature. He again saw her grim dogs upon his trail. They were unswerving, merciless and would overtake him at the appointed time... He was of the unfit, then. He did not come into the scheme of further life. His tiny part had been done and he must go. There was no room for him. On all the vast lands there was not a foot-hold. He must be thrust out to make room for the more important. Regarding himself as one of the unfit, he believed that nothing could accede for misery, a perception of this fact... He thought of his own capacity for pity and there was an infinite irony in it."

"He desired to revenge himself upon the universe. Feeling in his body all spears of pain, he would have capsized, if possible, the world and made chaos... Admitting he was powerless and at the will of the law, he yet planned to escape; menaced by fatality he schemed to avoid it. He thought of various places in the world where he imagined that he would be safe. He remembered hiding once in an empty flour barrel that sat in his mother's pantry. His playmates, hunting the bandit-chief, had thundered on the barrel with their fierce sticks but he had lain snug and undetected. They had searched the house. He now created in thought a secure spot where an all-powerful eye would fail to perceive him; where an all-powerful stick would fail to bruise his life.”

“There was in him a creed of freedom which no contemplation of inexorable law could destroy. He saw himself living in watchfulness, frustrating the plans of the unchangeable, making of fate a fool. He had ways, he thought, of working out his.”

I read the book to come to some better understanding of why my lost love, at the age of only 50 chose to end his life and I think I have come to that understanding. The book is experimental, it does not offer definitive explanations and there are passages that we could debate the significance of forever - what they mean, what the author meant, why he wrote them, what he was referencing. But the great thing about this book is that it was written by a poet, a man who died at only 28, in Germany of tuberculosis, after a lifetime of poor health. Because he was a poet, Crane writes in this book with a poets love of language and with a flair for impressionism and for not explaining too much. So, anyone can read this book and come away with different meaning, different sigils, different written talismans, different clues. Knowing my lost love Cam as well as I did, I can see these words resonating within him and giving him the rationalization for taking his life as he stood alone in that garage with the rope in his hands.

This is a lovely, strange, sad and experimental written work. Highly recommended.

Δυστυχώς, προτίμησα τις εκδόσεις ΑΡΜΟΣ (γιατί συμπεριλάμβανε και το φοβερό διήγημα Open Boat). Η μετάφραση κατέστρεψε κυριολεκτικά το εξαιρετικό αυτό κείμενο - στεγνή και ενίοτε κυριολεκτική. Κρίμα. Προτιμήστε κάποια από τις άλλες εκδόσεις.

Born in 1871, Stephen Crane grew up listening to the war stories of the many Civil War veterans who were then still living. (Being steeped in these accounts would allow him to depict the battlefield experience, in this novella, with what many veterans at the time of its publication hailed as vivid, and even unprecedented, realism.) Like many young males in his generation, at one psychological level he tended to be fascinated by these accounts and to hold these men up as role models. Living as he did in a time when the bloodiest war in U.S. history had been succeeded by what many thought would be a time of perpetual peace, he often wondered --though he only expressed these questionings rarely, to close friends-- whether his untried masculine courage would be equal to that standard. (Some years after writing this book, he had the chance to test his constancy under fire as a war correspondent in Greece, and wasn't disappointed.) This visceral feeling co-existed on a different level with the very real anti-war sentiment he expresses in his sarcastically-titled poem "War Is Kind" (https://www.owleyes.org/text/war-is/r... ).

Published in 1894-95, this short classic is his literary exploration of these concerns and doubts. In a real way, protagonist Henry Fleming is a kind of surrogate for Crane himself, and at one level this can be seen as a coming-of-age story. (We're not told Henry's age, but I'd picture him as 18-20.) In general, I'm not a fan of Civil War fiction, and especially not of fiction focused on the fighting itself. Red Badge definitely does have the grimness and gore that I don't like in this milieu. But it's atypical, certainly groundbreaking and perhaps unique, in its approach. Our story consists entirely of the lead-up to one particular battle, the battle, and its immediate aftermath, all seen just from Henry's own limited perspective. We're not told what battle it is (Chancellorsville is a guess some critics read into it), and from Henry's blinkered viewpoint, we have no handle on the broad course of the battle as a whole, or even on who won it. No specifics, such as general's names, are ever given. Nor is the focus at all on debating the moral and political merits of the contending sides in the war. The author's whole concentration is on putting us inside Henry's head to live with him through his perceptions and feelings --which change, shift, and oscillate wildly-- of the combat experience in all its terror, pathos, frenzy, self-condemnation or self-approval, and more. In that, Crane succeeds very well. And the question Henry carries into battle is the same question the author asked of himself: when actually confronted with bullets being shot at him to kill, will he stand his ground or run?

This is my third, final and definitive read of this book (though the second was back in the 90s, as a homeschooling parent, and the first back in the mists of my youth). In large part, it was a quest to understand, from a close reading of the text itself, exactly what messages if any that Crane is seeking to convey here. That quest was partly inspired by my doubts about Raymond St John's single-paragraph stab at Red Badge criticism in American Literature For Christian Schools. However, I have to say that I think the latter is correct (even if his language is jaundiced and dismissive) that Crane sees both apparent cowardice and apparent heroism, in the average person, as being greatly influenced by circ*mstances and "natural instincts of survival and pride" --which, obviously, conflict with each other-- rather than reasoned responses to ideological appeals or expressions of absolutely settled traits of character. (Courage hasn't yet had a chance to become a settled habit of character for a person who's never before been exposed to mortal danger!) He's also highly perceptive in bringing to life our very human propensity for trying to make ourselves look good to our own perception, an enterprise in which most of us are quite practiced. In Realist fashion, his basic purpose is more descriptive than didactic; he's not passing judgment on the way average humans might tend to react under the intense pressures of a combat situation (which is a lot different from an abstract discussion of principles and virtues over tea and cookies!), just depicting what some of those reactions might be.

Univ. of Connecticut English professor R. W. Stallman (who was quite a Crane fan, and wrote perhaps the definitive biography of the author, Stephen Crane: A Biography, although I haven't read it), helpfully compares Crane's prose technique here to the artistic technique of the French Impressionist painters, whose work he notes that Crane was familiar with: many small. disjointed and perhaps blurry details and impressions are blended together into a total unified picture that works as a whole. The writing is not what I'd see as "stream of consciousness" --it's more unified and coherent than that-- but it's definitely focused on Henry's moment-by-moment consciousness. Sentences can be broken; there's a lot of use of unusual similies and metaphors (which at least one reviewer complained about), and Crane apparently coins words at times. Because the original serialized version of the novel differs from the subsequent book publications, and some of those differ from each other, reconstruction of the text is challenging, and that can be reflected in more than a few bracketed passages, which can be distracting. The carnage of battle is also grim and grisly. This is not a smooth or feel-good read. While I'd admit that Crane's psychological perception and stylistic achievement here deserve four or five stars, a more modest three is a more accurate reflection of my personal level of actual liking for the work.

Note: I actually read this in The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Stories, which I own a copy of (I've read some but not all of the included short stories, and here have only read and reviewed the novel itself). This has a helpful and spoiler-free three-and-1/2 page Foreword by Stallman, a single-page biography of the author, a dozen pages of textual footnotes which I didn't read, and a two-page select bibliography of writings by Crane and books and articles about him, the latter current through 1980 (and which includes Stallmans' book).

So, hey. There's this guy. His name's Henry, but that's not really important. He really wanted to join the army, cuz, well, that's what all the cool kids were doing. So he did. And hey, who doesn't wanna blow sh*t up? I know I'd wanna blow sh*t up. Everybody loves blowing sh*t up.
Anyway, so yeah. That happened. They all sat around for a while, and then there was this one fight, and then there was this other fight, and some stuff happened. Nothing to get excited about. And oh yeah, after that there was this other thing.
And now, I'm gonna describe the way the MAGNIFICENT SUNBEAMS HIT THIS BEAUTIFUL SHARD OF DECAYING, MAGGOT-INFESTED TREE BARK IN GLORIOUSLY POETIC DETAIL. Y'know. Because this is a good book, and they do that kind of thing in those.

...Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

I hate this book. I really do. Maybe I missed something, but I found no emotion, dimension, or depth in it whatsoever. And maybe that makes me ignorant, but hey, so be it. I had to force my way through this droning, monotonous mess just so I could then be made to write a paper on how supposedly brilliant/amazing I thought it was.

I guess I can respect it for what it is, but personally, I'm just thankful that it was a quick read.

I was inspired to reread this American Classic after reading Paul Auster’s new biography Burning Boy: The Life and Work Of Stephen Crane. The Red Badge Of Courage was the work that made Crane’s fame, and its place in high school reading curriculum over many generations is likely why most readers still recognize his name.

Still, it feels like this book and it’s author don’t get the recognition they deserve. It has generally been read in secondary school rather than elevated by the literati of university programs as say Hemingway and Melville are.
Perhaps this is because Crane was so innovative and ahead of his time that few now realize how startling and original he was. I’m reminded of the silly who claims they don’t read Shakespeare because he is full of cliches, never realizing that Shakespeare wrote them all fresh. Rereading this book, I’m struck by how modern the prose feels, despite the fact that it was written in the 1890s. His private soldier’s eye view of battle, cutting out everything external to the immediate experience of his point of view character is now so common that it is generally how war scenes are filmed, which can make us forget that Crane essentially invented this method. He combined this with a continual examining of his protagonist’s inner thoughts, giving us a view of his motivations and fears, making this the first, great impressionistic American novel.

Here is a recreation of my brain while reading this book: "Alright, it's about time I read this and so far, okay. I like the prose, I like the prose, I like the...um...STOP TALKING! Stop talking to each other! Shutup! I can barely understand you! UGH. Thank you. Nice prose...nice...okay, nevermind. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Gross. I hate fight scenes. Boring AND gross. Gross AND boring. Stop fighting. Stop talking. Get on with it...this is boring..."

Overall, I'd have to say that the dialogue between the characters was a little too realistic and I found it difficult to switch between Crane's lovely prose and the uneducated, written dialect of the Union soldiers (or sojers, depending on who you ask). The last time I remember struggling so much with written dialogue was when I read Beloved by Toni Morrison, except in the case for that book, I was utterly enchanted by the characters and this time around...??? Not so much. So in all, it became an issue of not caring enough to WANT to understand what they were saying.

Also, I hate battle scenes and fight scenes. I generally skim or skip fight scenes in almost all the books I've ever read (the one exception probably being Gabaldon's description of Culloden in Dragonfly in Amber) because I don't LIKE to picture gore. I'm not comfortable with violence, real or imagined because it gives me nightmares. I don't read or watch horror that involves excessive amounts of blood pouring out of bodies and pooling on the ground and/our punching people out and whenever my husband watches a war movie, I have to cover my eyes during the battle scenes.

Unfortunately, 80% of this book WAS a battle scene or related to battle in some way, shape or form so I couldn't skim. The fight scenes bothered me and the parts that weren't about battle were boring.

I have no desire to read this particular classic ever again.

“We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.” -Harriet Tubman

Glass half full - Stephen Crane captures the chaos of armed conflict so deftly that you will swear he was himself a combat veteran. He was not.

Glass half empty - Never once do Crane’s characters broach the topic of slavery. Perhaps Crane’s intent was to write about war as a generic experience, in which case the American Civil War is merely a backdrop. Or maybe he was of the opinion that succession, not slavery, was the true catalyst of this calamity (see also: Walt Whitman and Margaret Mitchell). Whatever the reason, Crane’s missed opportunity, unintentional as it may be, feels falsely narrative and historically revisionist.

Young Henry, like many kids teetering on the brink of adulthood, is a bit of a knucklehead. An incomplete work of art. An underbaked pastry. His brain needed to mature a little more. This is why, at the height of the American Civil War, he decided to enlist as a soldier, not to preserve the Union or to battle against slavery, no, but because it was the cool thing to do. He was bored with farm-life, you see. Milking the cows. Watching his mother peel potatoes. And for just a moment, he felt really powerful and special in his blues, as he presents himself to his old seminary in uniform to say goodbye to his old classmates, and they all gather around him in awe as though he were Spiderman. Ah, the life of a hero.

But war is hell. Henry just didn't know it. At least he had enough self-awareness to know that he had never been in a battle before, so he begins to worry whether or not, should the bullets start flying, he will have the guts to do his share of the fighting. He begins to obsess over possibly running away and being shamed. He casually asks his fellow soldiers if they would ever consider "skedaddling," just out of curiosity you understand. I guess he ends up psyching himself out, because he begins to think that the quiet life on the farm wasn't so bad. He wants his mommy, and curses the evil government for forcing him into this situation like a lamb for the slaughter. Sure enough, he ends up fleeing from his first skirmish. The rest of the novel is Henry's own personal battle to figure out who he truly is and what he is made of, during a time when America is also at war with itself.

"The Red Badge of Courage" is a very visual book, dutifully using color to set the mood and as emotional symbols of our main character's inner world. A dun-colored cloud of dust, the sky of fairy blue, the landscape changing from brown to green, campfires like red blossoms. But the book also calls to the reader's mind all the senses to place us right in the action or to juxtapose the fierceness of the war with the serenity of the countryside. The odor of the peaceful pines, the sound of the axe ringing throughout the forest, the insects crooning like old women. Nature just carries on regardless of the man-made drama. Indeed, the actions of mankind are meant to be portrayed as insignificant in this book. We only know from the subtitle that this is "An Episode in the American Civil War." The battle itself is never identified, there is no discussion of strategy or cause, the soldiers are rarely mentioned by name, and there is no attention to any surrounding context to the fighting. People are just killing each other for no apparent reason, and Mother Earth just cooly ignores it.

The characters are not described as colorfully. They drift in and out of the scenery for brief moments, and though we tend to develop some affection for them, we never really get to know them. They are mostly just mouths full of enough dern dang-nabbit's that they come across as a bunch of Yosemite Sams speaking in such incessant eye-dialect that you want to yell at the book, "Oh c'mon, yer dern galoot, woah! And when Ah says 'woah,' Ah means 'WOAH!'"

But make no mistake, this book is all about Henry, who undergoes one of the great character arcs in literature. As a student of Self-Psychology, I would say that Henry starts off as exhibiting his grandiose self, immersed in a fantasy of being admired for imaginary prowess in battle like some Grecian epic hero, but when confronted with the reality of his own fear, his own limitations, his own inconsequence, his narcissism suffers a greater wound than from any ball shrapnel. His descends into narcissistic rage and inwardly struggles with shame and guilt while protecting his fragile sense of self by blaming his peers in the regiment for not being as wise as him for saving his own ass. It isn't until he loses himself again in the heat of more battle, when he truly sheds his infantile grandiosity, that he learns the pleasure of accomplishment and becomes a cohesive adult. Or does he? Has he really ever changed, or is he still a slave to his narcissism? Has he truly learned what it means to be brave, or is he still living in a fantasy world of confabulated and romanticized memories of his real part in the war, spurned on like one hypnotized to fight because of his own grandiose internal narrative that prevents his self from fragmenting as easily as the fragile bodies falling to the rebel shells? Or has he simply turned his narcissistic rage away from his comrades and the government to an enemy in gray, identifying them as the source of all injuries to his esteem? And if we are to question his courage, what of his cowardice? Was he really any less brave than his peers or his commanding officers? After all, the generals have been barking orders and then fleeing on their besplashed horses before the fighting begins to watch from a safe distance.

There is great debate over these issues and the ultimate meaning behind Crane's words, and that endows this book with great reread potential, especially considering it's modest length. But I tend to believe that young Henry in fact truly grows up, as evidenced by a short tie-in story Crane later wrote called "The Veteran."

Regardless of how you analyze the book, few can deny it is a pleasure to read. The prose is quite accessible to all readers, but is far from a journeyman effort. I was actually surprised to find this book much funnier than I remembered from when I first read it in school due to it's dry wit, but it also has it's share of gruesome dark descents into the horrors of war.

Author Stephen Crane was barely more than a boy himself when he wrote this, and had never even experienced battle first-hand himself. But like a lot of young folks who think they know it all, he felt the historical reportage on the events of the Civil War lacked emotional depth and he set out to do better. And you know what? He did. His efforts have created one of the timeless masterpieces of American literature.

So give it a try if you have not already read this. And if you are like me and have a faint memory of a bitter taste from being assigned this book in school, give it another chance. So, by thunder, git off yer flea-bearin' hide 'n read this here book, ya dern galoot!

Rereading Crane's The Red Badge Of Courage

I have been reading about and revisiting the American Civil War with the ongoing 150th anniversary commemorations. In thinking about the Civil War, I decided to reread Steven Crane's famous novel, "The Red Badge of Courage". Crane (1871 -- 1900) began work on this short novel in 1893. The novel was published in final form in 1895, when Crane was 24. As is well known, Crane had never seen a battle at the time he wrote this book. Crane relied primarily on the "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" series together with his own remarkable imagination and psychological acuity. I first read the book in high school and it meant little to me but have reread the book two or three previous times as an adult.

As with much else, "The Red Badge of Courage" may be ruined for many readers by high school. The book is short and tells the story of a battle and, perhaps, of a young man's coming of age. The plot is essentially simple. It tells of a young soldier who runs at his first experience with combat and who spends the next days of battle trying to redeem himself for what he sees as his cowardice in this decision and its follow-up. For all that, the "Red Badge" remains a difficult book. Told in a third-person narrative voice, the story is recounted almost entirely from the perspective of its main character, the young private Henry Fleming. The book delves into the young man's mind, his motivations, and his reactions to the fighting. The portrayal of Fleming's emotional life is combined with battle scenes and portrayals of his comrades. Crane juxtaposes a great amount of symbolism, much of which is based on nature and color, together with and against the picture of the battle. The writing is intense.

Subtitled "An Episode of the American Civil War", the "Red Badge" is much more than a Civil War novel. The novel does not identify the battle it describes, although readers familiar with the Civil War will recognize the Battle of Chancellorsville. (The battle is so identified in a story Crane wrote a few years later.) The scenes early in the book where Henry enlists over the objection of his mother has a feel of 1860's American rural life. But neither Crane nor any of the characters in the book mention any of the reasons underlying the war effort, whether the preservation of the Union, the ending of slavery, or anything else. Henry is drawn to what he perceives as the romance of battle and the opportunity to engage in a historically significant event. Nothing specific to the American Civil War seems to motivate him.

The depictions and the naming of the characters shows as well that Crane wants to explore more universal themes than a particular war. Most of the characters are rarely named but instead are identified by descriptions. Henry is the "youth" while his two chief comrades are the "tall soldier" and the "loud soldier". Another key character is the "tattered man", a wounded soldier whom Henry guiltily abandons following his initial flight, unwounded, from the line of battle. The story has an impressionistic cast, with shadowy characters moving in and out, in addition to the realistic and naturalistic components also found in the book. The book has frequently been interpreted allegorically.

The nature of the writing make the "Red Badge of Courage" highly suggestive and ambiguous. At the heart of the book is the relationship between an indifferent, purposeless nature on the one hand and the striving and difficulty of individuals on the other hand. With that as the driving theme, the nature of human activity, in war and elsewhere, remains deliberately hard to fathom. The novel can be read to show Henry coming to an understanding of himself through the war and passing beyond his initial cowardice and abandonment of the tattered man to an overcoming of fear and to a sense of purpose. Here is a passage from late in the book where Henry distinguishes himself as the flag-bearer in a doomed Union attack.

"Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind."

I understood the book, with all its irony, as a story of Henry coming to manhood and to a degree of emotional growth. Human life, including the horrors of war, is treated seriously and as a counterweight to the indifference of nature. Other readers will disagree and see "Red Badge" as the voice of an ironist who describes the futility and butchery of war and the incompetence of the generals. Henry's character doesn't change, according to some readers of the book, but instead he remains buffeted around by circ*mstances and his own pre-existing emotional prejudices. The book owes its force and bears many readings due to the conflicting interpretations it is capable of inspiring in its readers.

Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" deserves its stature as an American classic. I was glad to have the opportunity to struggle with the book again and to share my enthusiasm and thoughts with the many other readers who have read and reviewed it.

Robin Friedman

Qualsiasi cosa avesse saputo di se stesso ora non gli serviva

Narrazione apparentemente semplice: un giovane soldato nordista di nome Henry Fleming nella Guerra Civile Americana. Tutto si svolge in due giorni, due giorni al centro di un vortice di ansie e stati d'animo mischiati all'ideale della guerra e dell'eroismo. Due giorni che mettono di fronte al vero scempio della guerra con la sua divisa ufficiale corredata di feriti e di morti

Era come se il destino avesse tradito il soldato, perché nella morte esponeva ai suoi nemici una povertà che in vita forse aveva nascosto agli amici.

E la perdita di una verginità da civile, sfocia in emozioni del tutto umane, non tollerate in guerra.

Avrebbe voluto anche avere una ferita, il segno rosso del coraggio.

Il titolo è spettacolare così come l'idea che ci sta dietro: Nella fuga dal fronte la ferita è una beffa. Scambiata per una pallottola salverà Henry dall'essere considerato un disertore.

Le descrizioni sul campo di battaglia sono un altro punto di forza di questo autore scomparso prematuramente

Sembravano strani fiori di guerra che scoppiavano aprendosi in sinistre corolle.

Nessuna delle facce degli uomini era specchio di vasti pensieri.

Crane scrive un romanzo sulla paura e sulle illusione. Sulla fine della fanciullezza e degli eroi.

I read this book for Banned Books Week. Why it would be banned for violence (It is a war novel.) or because Stephen Crane was born after the war, and supposedly couldn't have known about war (???) so was showing 'disrespect' to veterans, just shows how ludicrous the banning of books can be.

The first half of the book is rather disappointing as we learn about Henry Fleming's philosophical 'insights' on war and his fellow soldiers. His arrogance is laughable, especially his assertion that he ran away for the 'right' reason while his fellow solidiers stayed and fought for the wrong reasons.

After some escapades, which inadvertently give him 'a red badge of courage', Henry returns to his regiment, the 304th. This is when the book begins to improve, in my opinion. Henry becomes a hero, at least in his eyes, as he carries the flag, and fights with his regiment. Philosophy has taken a backseat to reality.

Crane was a master of beautiful descriptions. The words might be picturesque, but it is hard to believe that fighting for your life gave you the time and motivation to consider them in such detail. Maybe when you are an older man, writing your memoirs, you might indulge yourself. Unfortunately, Stephen Crane did not have that chance after observing the Spanish-American War because he died at the age of 28.

I actually finally finished the book last night. I say finally not because I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but it definitely was a tougher read than I'm used. The language is older more descriptive, and at times hard to figure out, but in the end I think it made me appreciate it more. I'm not going to pretend that I understood even half of what the author was trying to say, but It did affect me, and spoke to me personally at times. In my opinion he's a brilliant writer.
It's a story of a very young and inexperienced soldier in the civil war named Henry. It tells of his inward struggles finding courage and making sense of this terrible thing called war. It is disturbing at times to read some of the horrors he describes, not because it's graphic, but just emotionally heart wrenching.
I love this paragraph:
"As he gazed around him, the youth(Henry) felt a flash of astonishment at the blue pure sky and the sun-gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden processes in the midst of so much devilment."

After reading this, I could really feel myself in his shoes. Here he is in this captivatingly beautiful place, listening to the stream running by and the birds singing, how can life go so peaceably on for nature, when something so horrible and ugly as war is raging at the same time.
It was sad to read how insignificant he felt at times, his lieutenant called his regiment a bunch of slow "mule-drivers" and sent them off to charge the enemy stating that few would make their way back. How would that feel? Like being sent off as one of the unimportant masses to be slaughtered for the greater good. I can't imagine. I hope our soldiers understand how important they are not just collectively. but individually. They are each heros to me, for just being there.

I loved this novel. It wasn't an easy read for me, but it was worth it.

side note: I read the New Edition, it's I guess the complete edition restored from the author's original manuscript. The version first published and the one most people are familiar with is supposedly different. " It was altered in many key passages and an entire chapter was removed in order to make it a simpler, less realistic picture of war-more acceptable to the readers of the time." As stated on the back of my book.

Hope you enjoy!

There is surprisingly little 19th century American fiction that describes the Civil War combat experience. Contemporaneous memoirs, poems, and histories abound, but Ambrose Bierce’s short stories and Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” are likely the most prominent examples of literary war narratives from that century. Both are remarkable for their combination of stylized lyricism and brutal, near-cynical unsentimentality. Bierce was a seasoned war veteran but Crane was only 24 when his novel was published to commercial and critical success in 1896. Ironically, Bierce was one of its few detractors.

The title of “Red Badge” deceptively suggests conventional, portentous themes of honor and valor, which are reliably de rigueur in war fiction. Crane’s performance both satisfies and subverts expectations: This is one of the most atypical and atmospheric war novels ever written.

As the novel opens, young recruit Henry Fleming (referred to as “The Youth”) waits for action in his encampment, the kind of purgatorial semi-permanent collection of tents captured in scores of Mathew Brady photographs. In this brief respite, Fleming reflects abstractly on the combat experience, and he’s soon tested as his regiment moves into battle.

What follows borders on prose poetry. Crane's narrative takes a densely rhetorical and descriptive turn, capturing a profound introspection as the novel transforms into an evocative, unbroken battle sequence in a nameless landscape. Like Shelby Foote’s “Shiloh,” which must owe at least a subconscious debt to Crane, Henry fights in a swirl of surreal chaos that provokes a torrent of inward reflection in dramatic synchronicity with Crane’s seemingly continuous evocation of fog, smoke, and any other imaginable form of airborne detritus. The turmoil of battle ebbs and flows, with victory or defeat virtually unknowable in the bedlam of combat; when violence periodically subsides, there is little empirical agreement on what has occurred or whether the regiment has achieved success.

Crane wisely keeps this dense, unremitting novel short. This is a controlled, mature performance from a writer who tragically died only four years after its publication. Based on this work and the great short story “The Open Boat,” he might have produced an unqualified masterpiece. “The Red Badge of Courage” remains a remarkable artifact.