Recommnedation

==Recommendations Chris's Recommendation== This book made me fall asleep every night I read it. I would find myself reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of his intense drawn-out descriptions until I would slowly start to read the same line over and over again. would slowly start to read the same line over and over again. would slowly start to read the same line over and over again. As I look for an example of this phenomena, I am stopped by 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 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 shadow of 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, eye-like gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills," (1). I personally find this passage a fine example of the worlds poetic beauty; however, if you read passages like this for the entire span of the book, you will undoubtedly agree with me. On top of his already boring demeanor, he uses his creative license to change the grammar to improper, or "unorthodox" grammar, which only leads to more boredom. For example, as mentioned in the link provided, imagine reading the book in the style of Yoda's speech--very frustrating. If you actually read the whole paragraph instead of skipping to the rest of this recommendation, you will find that no words can be used to describe the utter boredom that this induces because upon trying to find words, the sheer boredom will lull you into a gentle slumber. The boredom invoked by his pointilistic descriptions pales in comparison to the deep longing for the author to just get to the point. However, I must admit, without adding the extra descriptions, his book would be under 50 pages--not even the length of the slimmest novelette. In conclusion, I would not recommend this book in any form. (C.K.)

http://www.shmoop.com/literary-device/literature/stephen-crane/the-red-badge-of-courage/style.html

John's Recommendation
I would recommend //The Red Badge of Courage// to anyone who enjoys war novels. It is a quintessential piece in the war genere that addresses many themes of war and creates a realistic depiction of the Civil War. There are a few things about this book, however, that might leave readers frustrated. One of the main issues the book has is the detached writing style. Because of Crane's irregular voice, the reader might find the story dull. Stephen Crane never refers to the characters by name in narration, and refuses to give personal viewpoints on the war. Additionally, his pointilistic writing style creates poetic descriptions, but they are often very long and don't add to the plot. Consider the following passage.

"It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses-- all were comprehended. His mind took a mechanical but firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and explained to him, save why he himself was there" (130).

This passage demonstrates that the author uses a staggering amount of detail in his descriptions, and his work is beautifully poetic. Nonetheless, he presents information in a way that is long-winded and challenging to comprehend. Many of the details in the descriptions the author crates are irrelevant to plot, such as the appearances of the foliage.

However, if the reader can get beyond the unorthodox writing style, this literary classic will serve to be very enjoyable. It covers several themes and ideas associated with war, especially courage, self-preservation, and personal development. Additionally, the novel helps the reader imagine the attitudes and actions of soldiers during the Civil War. (JS)

Melanie's Recommendation
I do not recommend //The Red Badge of Courage// because it is boring and very hard to get into. I was not able to keep my mind on the book as I was reading it and found I had to peel my eyes open in order to plod through it. This is mostly caused by the style that Stephen Crane uses. He uses so much detail that it distracts from the story and slows it down because he is stopping to describe every little thing. Open the book to any random page, and you will find copious amounts of poetic description. I happened to open to page 124, which reads:

//From their position as they again faced toward the place of the fighting, they could of course comprehend a greater amount of the battle than when their vision had been blurred by the hurling smoke of the line. They could see dark stretches winding along the land, and on one cleared space there was a row of guns making gray clouds, which were filled with large flashes of orange-colored flame. Over some foliage they could see the roof of a house. One window, glowing a deep murder red, shone squarely through the leaves. From the edifice a tall leaning tower of smoke went far into the sky.//

Half of a page, and nothing has happened yet, but maybe it will get better... let's read on:

//Looking over their own troops, they saw mixed masses slowly getting into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright steel. To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it curved over a slope. It was crowded with retreating infantry. From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle. The air was always occupied by a blaring. Near where they stood chells were flip-flapping and hooting. Occasional bullets buzzed in the air and spanged into tree trunks. Wounded men and other stragglers were slinking through the woods.//

Nope, still not a single bit of action on the entire page. I must add that it was quite necessary to include an entire page of the book in order to properly display the effects of this over usage of description. Imagine reading pages and pages just like this one, where action is minimal and the story does not move along. However, some description is needed to give the reader a good image of what the Civil War was like. I believe that the detail in this novel did a good job of that, but it would have been more effective if it was cut back so that people would not be too bored to actually read it. Also, the author was never a soldier and never fought in a war, so who knows if all of his excessive description is even valid. I know that many veterans have praised his work, but I would still rather hear from someone who has had experiences similar to those in the book because you can tell when a story comes from a real place in the author's life.

The abuse of poetic detail made this book almost impossible to read and get in to. When on page after page nothing really happens aside from the characters standing and looking out over some view, you will get bored very quickly. If you must read this book, do so in a bare room with no furniture or decoration because even staring at the clock was more interesting than reading //The Red Badge of Courage//. (MR)

Ricky's Recommendation
If you are into an extensively fluffy and poetic type of writing, this book may be one of your favorite books. However, if this type of writing bores you, reading this book will work better than the strongest Nyquil mixed with the strongest Tylenol as a sleeping solvent. In my opinion this book is overly intoxicated with the pointless analogies and extreme redundancy. The concept of the book was an excellent thought, but the execution drew out the point. This book would is a very internal dramatic fight of a young man in a war was creative and according to the soldiers who read this book, they see his writing as very realistic; but when i read the book, i felt that i was reading the same chapter over and over again in each chapter. Very little seemed to change for most of the book. If my critique meant anything to anyone besides the very few people reading this website, i would not recommend this book. When you look and see that the book is about war, you would expect alot more external battle, especially when the book is fictional. (R.J.)

Cillian's Recommendation
Originally when I picked out the book i expected it to be full of action and a quite interesting book, however as I started to read further and further into the book I soon realized that the book was nothing like what I expected. It was full of pages upon pages of dull poetic writing that left me both bored and confused. The writing style that Crane used to write the book did not interest me as he seemed to try to make this book into more of the form of epic poetry yet failed. In a war story i do not expect pages of poetry, I would expect action and battles full of detail yet kept interesting. Crane included detail into his story just the wrong type of detail he wrote about the scenery and the trees and things like that not what was actually happening in the story. Also this style left me utterly confused since he didn't describe how things happened or how Henry got places he just described how beautiful or disturbing the trees were. I suppose I should give crane some credit he did use some very good descriptions they jus never had anything to do with what was going on in the story and without these descriptions I believe there wouldnt be a story at all, the story would be all of three pages long. Overall I personnally would not recommend this book to any one unless I was a doctor and someone couldn't fall asleep because this would be the best medicine in the world. (C.L.) 

**Avelene's Recommendation** I do not recommend //The Red Badge of Courage//. Although the book has interesting themes and figurative language (click here to see them) the style is too hard to follow. I had a hard time understanding what some of the phrases meant. For example, I was stuck on this quote. "He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of vast blue demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could twiddle his thumbs and speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed" (8). I thought he was talking about how the generals were agitated because they were waiting for some action. But then it seemed like the generals were interrogating and drilling Henry. It got confusing because the last part was redundant and it basically sent me around in circles. Like that quote, most of the book seemed extremely dull. The descriptions dragged on. They would be good if they were in a short poems, but not on every single page of the novel. I felt like Crane focused too much on displaying his mastery of figurative language. In doing so, he failed to capture my attention. Detail is good, but an overwhelming amount can dilute the significance of the story. For those who appreciate beautiful imagery and intricate details, this is the book for you. Just a warning though. If you want an action packed classic war story, good luck. Before you can get down to the action, you have to patiently read through the layers of imagery. Once you get pass that, you'll discover that the action is not as intense as expected. So don't be disappointed if the book fails to thrill you. (A.C)