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The politics of this book are clear and honest. Isakjan makes political comments that appear to be as open and fair as any I have ever heard. The fact that the author wrote this book from years of conversations with his subject makes this biography even more compelling. The author appears to have done some extensive research to verify the accuracy of this story and the footnotes and extensive bibliography give me confidence in the factual information that is provided.
I thought that I knew about WWII, but this book provides vision for the political events that are being played out today. I think I will read it again, and then send a copy to a friend.
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While you are reading through the book, and waiting for something to happen, you are lead to the climax. At this turning point, the stereotypical gunfight between Jack Potter and his enemy Scratchy Wilson, the drunken troublemaker from Yellow Sky, was averted. Potter told Scratchy he didn't have a gun with him bacause he married now. Upon hearing this, Scratchy came to the realization he doesn't want to fight him anymore.
The averted gunfight, a main feature of the western story, makes you, as the reader, think all such gunplay is a thing of the past. This is, in fact, Crane's description of the "end of an era." Scratchy realizes through potter's change in behavior, which is now more mature, that a new way of life has started.
"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" is a short story one can read in twenty minutes. When the reader returns to the story, he or she realizes, it is a short story with thoughts and meanings to be ieferred beyond the actual words. It may seem simple - even boring to read, but the message is meaningful.
As a student whose first language is German, I struggled with the vocabulary but came to realize the significance of the situation once I had finished reading. Therefore it is a good story, due to Crane's depiction of the western civilization.
Although Crane wrote some of the best descriptions of warfare ever written, not to mention other forms of action from gunfights to the power of sea and fire, his main interest was always concerned with how the individual reacts to the various challenges posed by a flatly indifferent universe. His characters invariably react with the egotistical assurance that they are in control of their destiny only to be knocked flat by life's viscisitudes. The character that can strip away his illusions finds redemption; those that don't are simply condemned to repeat the patern over and over again.
Two stories in particular deserve renewed attention. The Blue Hotel and The Monster rank with the very finest short stories ever written by an American. Both deal with false impressions and how these fallacies eventually lead to the ruin of the characters who hold them. In the two stories, one dealing with 19th century romantic notions of the American west, and the other with the unseemly side of American small town life, Crane combines realistic dialogue with his wonderful descriptive powers to create a world of his own making, one in which assumptions and prejudices are ever bit as powerful as decent behavior and civil responsibility.
If you were to mix Monet with the Civil War you would have "The Red Badge of Courage," penned by one of America's finest writers, Stephen Crane. His sense of hues and the dripping colors of the sky come together to paint some of the most beautiful literature humanly possible.
Stephen Crane is, above all, an Impressionist. His writing is strongly suggestive of the culmination of myriad viewpoints and perspectives. Scenes are not depicted from a distance, but rather from isolated instances on the battlefield. Esoteric symbols are utilized to bombard the reader with a certain cosmopolitan consciousness.
"The Red Badge of Courage," however, is not my favorite of Crane's works, but "The Open Boat." This short story is the monument to Crane's genius, the triumph of his language and arbitrary mode of experience, it is like viewing a story from many assorted "first person(s)."
Words could not explain my love of "The Open Boat."
Read Crane, love Crane, regardless of your High School preconceptions.
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