Forum / Stephen Crane
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DolemiteFeb 14, 04:02am -
DolemiteFeb 14, 04:04am
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart." -
James Lloyd DavisFeb 14, 04:19amBrilliant. Stephen Crane... so often forgotten and remembered.
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James Lloyd DavisFeb 14, 04:26am
I love this one:
"Have you ever made a just man?"
"Oh, I have made three," answered God,
"But two of them are dead,
And the third --
Listen! Listen!
And you will hear the thud of his defeat." -
DolemiteFeb 14, 04:28am
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation." -
DolemiteFeb 14, 04:31am
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
And carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!" -
DolemiteFeb 14, 04:33am
What I love (and need to learn) is the absolute lack of polishing of these rough truths.
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DolemiteFeb 14, 04:35am
When the prophet, a complacent fat man,
Arrived at the mountain-top,
He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!
I intended to see good white lands
And bad black lands,
But the scene is grey." -
Letitia CoyneFeb 14, 04:47amBrilliant.
Lxx
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DolemiteFeb 14, 05:01am
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -- ""You lie," he cried,
And ran on. -
Sally HoutmanFeb 14, 08:33amfrom the wiki page, describing his narrative style:
"flexible, swift, abrupt and nervous"
great stuff
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strannikovFeb 14, 11:53amThanks for the alert. The fault is partly mine, but I'll credit most of the blame to the academy: all I was ever shown of Crane was Red Badge of Courage and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.
This stuff is much better than either of those two offerings. (Bierce's war stories and reminiscences eternally eclipse Crane's RBC, of course a total eclipse is itself a stunning sight.)
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James Lloyd DavisFeb 14, 03:25pm
Ambrose Bierce's war stories are interesting, but many lack credulity and only echo the marvelous invention of tales around the campfire given by veterans to impress the impressionable FNG's... legends for the most part, frought with irony and brilliant with inglorious drama.
Though I am a great fan of Bierce, I'm also war aware... a veteran and friend of veterans who love to tell their whoppers with a wink to those who know better. I'll tell you one myself, given half a chance.
But when Crane wrote Red Badge... he was not a veteran, like Bierce, but was a listener with discernment. His genius lay in his ability to weave a credible story using universal human truth. Unlike the veteran, he was able to utilize empathy, to touch on things the veteran would just as soon forget.
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David AckleyFeb 14, 03:33pmYes. And then there's "The Open Boat," a sea story that rings hard and true ( as it was.)
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DolemiteFeb 14, 03:39pm
Were Crane's little poems ever published in his lifetime?
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strannikovFeb 14, 03:54pm
James Lloyd: thanks for the contrary view. Maybe I read Crane when I was too young, maybe I didn't get to Bierce soon enough.
Yes, Bierce often risked being overwrought (it pays off tremendously in favorites like "Oil of Dog" and "Cargo of Cat"), but I expect I'll always prize "What I Saw of Shiloh" more highly than RBC. I prize Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" more highly than RBC, too: a memorable tale in ways I never found RBC. Somehow, the idea of Crane impressed me more than Crane himself.
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James Lloyd DavisFeb 14, 04:27pm
Matt, they were published in his lifetime...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Riders_and_Other_Lines
War is Kind and Other Lines was published in 1899.
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DolemiteFeb 14, 06:38pm
"Ambrose Bierce's war stories are interesting, but many lack credulity and only echo the marvelous invention"
The one of his I remember liking (required reading in college) was called something like Chigamooga or something: a young boy's interpretation of watching civil war soldiers returning from a battle. Very horrific and hallucinogenic, as I recall, so I liked it for those qualities.
Wasn't he called Morose Ambrose by those who knew him?
Like Strannikov, I (like everyone, I imagine) read the RedBadgeCourage in something like the seventh grade.
Haven't read enough of either (in recent history) to really form an opinion as to their different qualities.
Also remember liking The Open Boat (again, in college) very much.
I find it pretty amazing Crane's little poems were commercially published (or was it self-published, like Whitman--still haven't read the citation), lacking all the flowers and other doo-dads that were expected of the art at that time.
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James Lloyd DavisFeb 14, 07:40pm
It's interesting to note that... who you are, where you are in your life's trajectory, colors your perspective when you read a book for the first time.
I used to read Catcher in the Rye every five years just to see the change in me. The first time I read it, I was sixteen and could easily relate to Holden's fears and anarchy in a Philistine world. When I was 21, he sounded different, spoiled... at 26, I understood that I would likely have been on Holden's shit list. It progressed this way until today, when I want to grab him, shake him... tell him, "Snap out of it!"
Ambrose Bierce was lucky, in that he had a secretary, a young, pretty woman who apparently loved him, lit up his later years. Why did he go to Mexico where his life would be at risk? Probably in answer to the question, "Why not?" To that, today, I can relate.
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Sally HoutmanFeb 14, 08:42pm
The Bierce story is probably Chickamauga.
Interesting article:
http://www.historynet.com/ambrose-bierce-and-americas-first-great-war-stories.htm
(about Bierce, but with a nod or two to Crane and their differences in style/perspective)
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strannikovFeb 16, 04:51pm
Sally: thanks for that link.
NYRB's 10 May 2012 issue featured a kindly review of the Library of America ed. of Bierce. (That volume's editor, S. T. Joshi, also performed the service of earlier co-editing THE UNABRIDGED DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, with a welcome bibliographic apparatus.)
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DolemiteFeb 16, 08:56pm
That was interesting, Sally.
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