Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: and Other Tales of New York (Penguin Classics) (édition 2000)par Stephen Crane, Larzer Ziff (Contributeur)
Information sur l'oeuvreMaggie: A Girl of the Streets: and Other Tales of New York (Penguin Classics) par Stephen Crane
Aucun Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
"A powerful, severe, and harshly comic portrayal of Irish immigrant life in lower New York exactly a century ago." --Alfred Kazin Maggie, a powerful exploration of the destructive forces that underlie urban society and human nature, produced a scandal when it was first published in 1893. This volume includes "George's Mother" and eleven other tales and sketches of New York written between 1892 and 1896. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
|
Perhaps I err. Perhaps I just don’t get it. Perhaps Crane’s naturalism is simply over my head—even if Emile Zola’s never was. If so, I apologize — and you can disregard this review.
I read Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. I read "The Monster"…"The Blue Hotel"…"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"…"The Open Boat." And I just don’t get all of the applause.
For starters, I found Crane’s transcription of his characters’ Irish Brogue (if that’s what it was) in Maggie virtually unreadable — at the very least, annoying. In this, I’ll take my cue from Erskine Caldwell who insisted that the rhythm of a given character’s speech should be sufficient to convey to the reader a sense of ‘foreignness’ — rather than resorting to a perversion of every last syllable, to dropping consonants, and to repeating senseless phrases. In any case, I feel that less is more — and Crane had too much of ‘more’ and too little of ‘less.’
Add to that, Crane’s odd ear for adverbs. As Twain once famously said (in order to dissuade the use of them entirely), “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” I give you three — all from "The Blue Hotel" — from among the dozens I found in this collection of short stories and novellas (the italics are mine for emphasis):
(from p. 138) “The cowboy, Scully and the Easterner burst into a cheer that was like a chorus of triumphant soldiery, but before its conclusion the Swede had scuffled agilely to his feet and come in berserk abandon at his foe.”
(from p. 145) “The Swede had grasped the gambler frenziedly at the throat, and was dragging him from his chair.”
(from p. 147) “’Johnnie,’ said the cowboy blankly. There was a moment of silence, and then he said robustly: “Why, no. The game was only for fun.”
If I’m being too captious in citing these examples, I beg your forgiveness — and ask that you read the stories yourself, then pass judgment on me rather than on Crane.
In any case, I will certainly read The Red Badge of Courage before I form any definitive opinion of this author’s writing. That’s the very least I can render to a man of Crane’s reputation.
RRB
07/30/13
Brooklyn, NY
( )