Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Rating:
Summary: A startling first work by the 21-year-old Crane
Review: Crane's first book is always a pleasure to reread for the new discoveries I have always made; it might be a sentence I had not seen before, a humorous line, or simply, the wonder that an semi-educated writer--really just a boy--could write this short novel, one that was so instinctive in its forebodings of genius (Anyone wishing to chat about this book or Crane's "Red Badge"--I have a review there--or simply literature, please send e-mail: it will be pleasurably read and commented on).

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Writing!
Review: I am amazed at the fact that Stephen Crane was only twenty-one when he wrote this story "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets". I found it to be a genuine effort to tell a story from the inside-out instead of the usual outside-in.

I also found Crane's style very addictive. When I moved on to my next novel, I truly missed Cran's writing style. If you haven't read any of Crane's works, I suggest you start off with Maggie to see how you like him.

See ya next review:

www.therunninggirl.com

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Writing!
Review: I am amazed at the fact that Stephen Crane was only twenty-one when he wrote this story "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets". I found it to be a genuine effort to tell a story from the inside-out instead of the usual outside-in.

I also found Crane's style very addictive. When I moved on to my next novel, I truly missed Cran's writing style. If you haven't read any of Crane's works, I suggest you start off with Maggie to see how you like him.

See ya next review:

www.therunninggirl.com

Rating:
Summary: An Easy Read with Power and Dark Humor
Review: If I were pressed to use one word to describe this book itwould be dark. However, Crane's novel is a moving piece with momentsof transcendence and rampant dark humor.

Basically, it is the story of Maggie, an undeveloped character who takes the back-seat to her loud and abusive parents, her swaggering, self-confident brother Jimmie and his friend, the boastful Pete.

The novel chronicles the injustices that surround Maggie, who is quiet and doesn't fight back. A chilling look at poor, urban life in the late 1800's, it is also a tale critical of society's judgmentality and questioning of morality. A more complex novel than it seems on first look, it is wonderful to take apart and examine the relationship between Maggie and Pete, Maggie and her mother, and Maggie and Jimmie.

Most importantly, however, are the quiet moments of transcendence in this novel.

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.