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The Red Badge Of Courage (2000)

by Oliver Ho(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

review 1: This was a fantastic read that focused on an American soldier in the trenches during the Civil War. This book created way more interest in me that i thought that it would, and it brought me into the past. This book showed me what it was like during the Civil War, vividly showed the emotions that soldiers carried around with them, and the desire that some carried to get out of battle. Through the main characters actions in the book, all the emotions and feelings that Henry goes through leads you into a new perspective of what soldiers went through during a great American tragedy.
review 2: The American school system is evil. It is predicated on muting the student's spirit enough that life will be accepted as a joyless march to the death. Also, it serves the g... morerossest pizza. Middle school is the worst. There you were, swimming along with the same group of fat-faced idiots for six, seven years. You had your teacher and your classmates. Some years were tragic because you and your best bud, Danny Beerman had different teachers, but it wasn't the end of the world. There was always recess. You could catch up and laugh about the swears in "How to Kill a Mockingbird." And then all of sudden, middle school shows up and you and Danny aren't even studying the same chapter in biology. There's different teachers for each subject and you are running around the school like a nervous cabbie. And you never have the good lunch period and your mom got you the gym shorts in "small" and Marsha Bloomfield has to open your locker because you just can't figure the thing out. It's still the first quarter of the game of Life when you realize it's going to be a long one.And then you're walking home with Danny Beerman, kicking leaves and crunching them under your Keds. And he's talking about this awesome book with soldiers and battles and running and dudes getting killed. And you're stuck reading "Taming of the Shrew" like a jerk, debating with Shakespeare which one of you actually speaks English and which one is the dum-dum.So why is this book a middle-school classic? Is it the gore factor? Probably not. It does have a "historical setting." However, Crane wasn't even old enough to fight the Civil War. It would be like a Gen Xer wrote a Vietnam novel. So that doesn't legitimize this book as a classic. And sure, it's well-written. But so is a Stephen King novel. I think it's real advantage is that it familiarizes a new generation to common scenarios and struggles that are familiar to an adult: Regret and Redemption. "Red Badge of Courage" is ultimately spinning two American classics: a) the young man who craves adventure and runs away from the farm (AKA the "Luke Skywalker"); and b) The young man who committed sins but seeks and attempts to redeem himself (AKA the "Han Solo").If you read the Goodreads description (which is pretty much one big spoiler), the book tells the story of a young man's struggle to become a man in the midst of the Civil War. This story, minus the Civil War and insert anything, e.g., space war, World War II, divorce, death, zombie apocalypse, has been told in about a million different forms. There is probably a Tumblr devoted to covers of every "coming of age" book out there. And I'm not knocking it. I think the book is actually a great introduction to the genre and until it's replaced by the "Twilight" series as required reading, I hope it's taught to every middle school kid. Not just stupid-face Danny Beerman. (j/k Danny, j/k!) less

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