As you all know, in preparation for revising my novel, Roman Sherwood, I am reading as much military fiction, nonfiction, and guidebooks as I can stomach. I’ve already read Goldman’s Soldier in the Rain, and half of E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed.

Both the aforementioned are… fine. No disrespect to Sledge, who was a Marine veteran of the Pacific writing about his experiences. Unlike me, he did not have the benefit of an MFA. (And what kind of benefit is that??)

But the Red Badge of Courage…. well, I have to say that I had at least some hopes for it, as it is a classic–or at least commonly assigned as high school reading–and it’s a hundred-something years old. But… yeesh, I’ve arrived at the firm conclusion that Stephen Crane is whack. No, audience, I do not like every dead white writer. Crane is up there with Poe as a writer whose appeal I just don’t understand.

So first, let me talk about the good side of RBoC. And there is a good side. Henry Fleming (sometimes unpleasantly called “the youth”) is a complicated main character. He runs away from battle early on, he justifies his cowardice, and he thinks lots of selfish thoughts. I say, a selfish character is a character I can believe in. And if a character is petty, selfish, or cowardly, they have room to grow throughout the course of the drama.

At one point, Henry, walking with the wounded, wishes he was wounded himself so that everyone else knew he had fought bravely. This seemed extreme to me, but plausible and compelling. The book also was interested in a person’s experience in combat as a commodity, or as something made to be viewed by other people. Honestly, that’s pretty interesting, and I can vouch that many times in combat, when you should be worried about your life, you are thinking of how you appear to your fellows, or what you can do to appear conventionally tough.

That said, none of the other characters in the book got developed or explored. There was VERY little interpersonal drama. For much of the book, the other main characters are referred to only as “the tall soldier,” “the loud soldier,” “the tattered soldier,” “the lieutenant.” When characters do get named, they are generic. Wilson is the loud soldier; Jim Conklin, the tall soldier.

What makes good fiction, to me, is a character’s relationships to other characters. And these relationships were just superficial and unconvincing.

The big flaw in the book is Crane’s writing style. It is flowery to the extreme. Every sentence is a simile. In fact, it was difficult to picture anything that was happening because Crane is so given to putting everything in metaphorical terms. He would say that opposing forces were trading blows “as if in a boxing match.” Now come on. That isn’t what the battle looked like. It doesn’t give me a clear picture. Crane could never say, “Fifty rebel soldiers suddenly crossed the creek with their bayonets gleaming, and they charged the earthworks of the Union soldiers.” It was always, “the gray-clothed men prowled close like a wolf, ravened the regiment, and withdrew with a mawful of blue-clothed prisoners.”

Everything was always compared to something else, and the only thing that the writing communicated was this: Stephen Crane really likes similes. Now, similes are fine. The problem is, Stephen has no restraint. I maintain that all figurative language, all adjectives, and most description, is like icing. (I’m using a simile myself, but I think it is an illustrative one). The cake is hard, literal details. What are the characters literally doing? What are they literally thinking? What are they literally saying to one another? And most importantly, what drama exists between the characters?

Also, an unrelated thing I can’t figure out. Why doesn’t Stephen Crane tell us what battle Henry is fighting? A good reads reviewer said it was Chancellorsville, but I can’t recall the name of the battle ever getting mentioned. It seems foolish to write a book about the civil war without grounding your book in historical details. Perhaps you can say RBoC is not about history, it is about one soldier’s experience. I say, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Small Spoiler Alert: I say this too, because at the end, Henry feels like he has seen war, and now he knows himself, and he has no need to prove himself by seeing war again (something like that–the final epiphany is both unconvincing, and unclear). But I read the last page thinking, Henry, you only fought one battle. For all I know, it’s 1862 and the war is going to continue for three more years. What do you mean you’re ready for peace, Henry? You don’t get to fight one battle and go home because Stephen finished the book.

This gets a big thumbs down for me, especially as it is so well-known. I give it two stars out of five, just because Henry is a complicated character–but two stars feels generous.

More Hell Week news, and other news, to come soon. Goodbye everyone!