Ragazzo in fiamme: Vita e opere di Stephen Crane

by Paul Auster, Cristiana Mennella (Translator)

Scrittore, giornalista e corrispondente di guerra, Stephen Crane sembra davvero il protagonista di un romanzo. Povero e tormentato dai debiti, muore giovanissimo, ma fa in tempo a vivere situazioni estreme - perseguitato dalla polizia di New York, scampato a un naufragio al largo della Florida, accoltellato per errore a Cuba - e a scrivere testi straordinari. Citando da lettere e testimonianze, leggendo con cura appassionata i suoi lavori, Paul Auster ne ricostruisce la vita e le opere in un libro coinvolgente, che agli ammiratori confermerà il mito e agli altri svelerà uno dei segreti meglio custoditi della letteratura americana.

Stephen Crane, autore del Segno rosso del coraggio, ha vissuto una vita breve ma intensa. Nato nel 1871 in una famiglia molto religiosa, perde il padre da bambino e cresce spostandosi da un luogo all’altro, un nomadismo che conserverà da adulto e che lo porterà in giro per gli Stati Uniti e per il mondo. A vent’anni, dopo aver abbandonato il college, si trasferisce a New York e comincia a muovere i primi passi come giornalista e scrittore. Affascinato dai luoghi malfamati e dalle persone tormentate che li frequentano, conduce un’esistenza bohémien dividendo l’alloggio con altri artisti e ritrovandosi spesso a saltare i pasti e a dormire su una cassa portacarbone. I soldi sono un cruccio costante, ma per un salto in uno dei tanti bordelli della città ne ha sempre abbastanza. Difendendo una prostituta, finisce per mettersi in grossi guai con la polizia, al punto da trovarsi costretto a lasciare New York in tutta fretta. Poco male, però. Altre avventure lo attendono, in particolare come corrispondente di guerra in Grecia, a Cuba e a Portorico. Intanto, nel 1897, si trasferisce in Inghilterra (in una casa che ovviamente non si può permettere) e lì stringe amicizia con scrittori del calibro di Joseph Conrad e Henry James. Ma chi ha dentro un fuoco spesso brucia in fretta. Crane non fa eccezione. Da sempre magro e giallognolo, si spegne a ventotto anni in un sanatorio della Foresta nera. Al suo fianco fino all’ultimo faticoso respiro c’è Cora, l’ex proprietaria di un bordello che, pur non avendo mai divorziato dal secondo marito, per un lustro è stata la sua fedele compagna di follie. Partendo dalla grande ammirazione per il Crane scrittore, Paul Auster ne ricostruisce con cura e sensibilità la vita da spirito libero e l’opera originale, cosí avanti rispetto ai tempi da essere stata spesso oggetto di feroci critiche.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, American, Literature, Writing, Biography Memoir

1016 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 26, 2021

About the author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Paul Auster
…..35 hours and 49 minutes (a listening shorty. Ha!)….
….about an hour shorter than “4 3 2 1”….(it was 36 hours and 54 minutes)….. a book I devoured ‘day-and-night’ in about four days.
I remember thinking I was married to ‘two’ men named Paul.

This book is even more ambitious than “4 3 2 1” ….. not as clever…. not as personally addicting…
but a remarkable colossal covenant - between author & subject.
“Burning Boy: The Life Work of Stephen Crane”, must have required a great deal of strenuous exertion to write — had to be a ‘Labour-of-Love’ undertaking. It took Paul Auster three years to write. It took me three weeks to finish.

As a biography, the punchy-chubby could afford to lose a few pounds…
but there is much to admire about this tubby.

For me… I happen to find Paul Auster’s voice soothing. I drifted at times — but the marathon-listening escapade
endurance journey was as much for me a tribute to Paul Auster as it was a tribute to Stephan Crane.

I learned more about Stephen Crane’s life than my own mother and father’s life.
It made me wonder why every adult child doesn’t take time to ‘fully’ research their own parents -as a man or women -not merely just their parent.
How many people do that?

That said…’overall’ I found listening to “Burning Boy” … a little each day … to be a calming, spiritual, and pacifying experience…..
Blue sky days here in California… soaking in our saline pool … Love Doves visiting the garden … along with Paul Auster’s voice - and ongoings, ongoings and more ongoings about Stephen Crane’s life —
Paul Auster’s overly passionate love for an innovative writer who few today have ever heard of.

In a strange way… I grew wings….admiring and appreciating the ‘art-of-respect-applaud-recognition-and-value’ of another human being.

Spending another’ 35-hour cycle with Paul Auster’s euphonious voice and ‘everything’ Stephen Crane…
his personal and professional life was fascinating and moving.
[American poet, novelist, short story writer….who died at age 28 of tuberculosis]…
It wasn’t a chore for me….
rather …
I was entranced with the detail portrayals of Crane’s packed-filled 28 years of an unconventional and complicated life.

I didn’t rush my daily listening.
(about 2 hours each day)…

Paul Auster captured the ‘all encompassing’ gamut of Stephen Crane brilliantly….
…childhood, family, (youngest of 14 siblings from a religious family), marriage, divorce, sickness, scandals, affairs, writing, (described as realism, naturalism or impressionism), military & war, prostitutes, commercial business, shipwrecked off the coast of Florida while traveling to Cuba….etc etc.
Crane’s famous book:
….”The Red Badge of Courage”…
….1,400 + people attended his funeral…
etc.
….Crane’s tuberculosis was complicated by yellow fever and malaria. A doctor in Germany gave him morphine injections to ease his suffering….
his dying days — after about five years of constant writing -was simply sad and tragic.

Good men die young?
Perhaps!
Will Stephen Crane get a second life?
Perhaps! . . . Paul Auster’s influence-endorsement is pretty convincing.

5 stars
… but clearly this is a self select type read or listen -
It’s massive in scope and breadth.

Tidbits:
I read the novella: “Maggie: A Girl On The Streets” (a sad sex-trafficking story), by Crane just last week …
For 99 cents … Stephen Crane’s “Complete Novels & Novellas” can be purchased as a kindle download.
His poetry and short stories are free on Amazon.

[Dax · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought when I began reading this was 'how did Auster manage to write an 800 page biography about a man who lived only 28 years?' I had my answer quickly. Auster is an unabashed fan of Crane, and large sections of this book serve as literary criticism to Crane's most significant work. But you do not need to be familiar with Crane's stories to enjoy this. I have not read any of Crane's stuff since 'Red Badge of Courage' when I was a young boy, but I found Auster's analysis to be the strongest parts of the book.

That is not to say that Crane lived a boring life. He served as a war correspondent in Greece and Cuba, barely survived a shipwreck on the way to Cuba, and was constantly on the verge of financial ruin despite his literary talents. And while these events of his life do take somewhat of a backseat to his literature, they help us to understand the roots of his work. Fortunately we have a talented writer such as Auster to guide us. Upon finishing this, I immediately ordered two volumes of Crane's collected novellas and short stories, and Auster's novels have jumped up to the front of my tbr pile. Anyone who enjoys a good biography will enjoy this excellent book. High four stars.

"It is a dark time in America, a dark time everywhere, and with so much happening to erode our certainties about who we are and where we are going next, perhaps the moment has come to dig the burning boy out of his grave and start remembering him again. The prose still crackles, the eye still cuts, the work still stings. Does any of this matter to us anymore? If it does, and one can only hope that it does, attention must be paid."

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Crane’s poetry changed my life. I discovered his unique poems, powerful, pithy lines that challenged conventional thinking and everything status quo, as a teen. They helped inspire me to break away from the fundamentalist indoctrination of my home, church, and school. That’s why I read this book. While many remember him vaguely as the author of The Red Badge Of Courage, to me he will always be the poet who helped to liberate me.

I say that to say this; Stephen Crane was a far larger talent, a much greater genius than he is generally given credit for today. He deserves this 800 page tome to reintroduce him to a reading public that may not have totally forgotten him, but has largely forgotten just how important, how varied, and how brilliant a writer he was.

Paul Auster is a novelist, and has a novelists appreciation of Crane. His book isn’t simply a biography of Crane’s life, 28 short years packed full of interest, adventure, and misadventure, but an in depth reexamination of his body of work. As most current readers know little of Crane beyond The Red Badge Of Courage, Auster delves deep into Crane’s works, quoting long passages, not just from his most famous works (The Red Badge Of Courage, Maggie: A Girl Of the Streets, The Open Boat) but from the rest of the impressive body of work Crane produced during his short life. This isn’t traditional, scholarly criticism, but rather a writer, presenting with a novelist eye, great, innovative writing for readers to appreciate.

Stephen Crane was a far more interesting and brilliant writer than most are aware of. He is an American Keats. Read this book, and discover for yourself.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chanced upon the work of Stephen Crane in an unusual way, not by being required to read his famous novel The Red Badge of Courage, but by finding his volume of poetry on the shelves of my high school library. It knocked my socks off and it became one of the first books I purchased for my library. I was perhaps sixteen.

Over the years I read his most famous short stories and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, but still have not read Red Badge! (I will correct that soon.) I knew that Crane was the son of a Methodist pastor and that he had died young of tuberculosis. Then came Paul Auster’s book Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane.

I had expected it to be a brief book, as brief as the writer’s life. Instead, I happily read it for over two weeks. For Auster also introduces readers to Crane’s work, including excerpts and critical insight. Readers do not need to be familiar with Crane’s work because it’s all covered. The novels, the poems, the short stories, the news stories, the first hand accounts of war.

Auster intends to resurrect an interest in Crane, whose star has risen and fallen over the years. “The prose still crackles, the eye still cuts, the work still stings,” Auster writes. I know it struck me.

Reading the excerpt from Crane’s short story The Blue Hotel, I read the line, “Every sin is the result of a collaboration.” It was like a revelation. Crane was twenty-six when he wrote that line. Sin is not what an individual commits; it is what a community commits when we deny our interdependence. “We are all responsible for one another,” Auster interprets; “No American writer since then has formulated anything that surpasses it.”

Crane’s beloved father was a Methodist pastor. His early death send Crane spiraling into disbelief. He left home for New York City, where he shared an apartment and lived in poverty, sometimes without proper clothing to wear and eating one meal a day–a meal that came free with a 5 cent glass of beer. He hung out in bars and enjoyed the company of prostitutes. He fell for society women, a victim of unrequited love. He had a child and pledged his love to the woman, then left them. On the surface, he looked self-indulgent, a drop-out, but he was writing all of the time, thinking long before he set pen to paper. He wrote what he saw around him, telling the shocking truth.

He was also brave, ignoring flying bullets while a war correspondent, and his actions during a shipwreck were heroic. (Leading to the story The Open Boat.)

He was a loving uncle. He enjoyed music and silliness and fun. He loved dogs. He found his life partner late in life, a woman who had given up proper society for freedom. Cora became a mistress at seventeen, and had two failed marriages when she met Crane. She was running a Florida hotel with a salon that attracted society visitors. She walked away from it all to follow Crane. She thought Crane was a genius. “They were fine people,” wrote a woman who lived with them for some months; “They were good….They were ethically good. They were kind.”

Crane was so good that it got his name into the New York City paper’s headlines. He had been with several women of the street when one was accused of solicitation by the police. Crane insisted she was under his protection and innocent and volunteered to be a witness at her court trial. The famous author of The Red Badge of Courage became a pariah. Even the police were on the lookout for him and he was on police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt’s bad side. He had to leave NYC.

Crane was not a good businessman and his publishers, especially McClure’s Magazine, took advantage of him. Consequently, he was eternally in debt and in desperate need of cash. Always restless and always needing an income, Crane took jobs writing stories about world events, traveling to Greece and Cuba and to the Western states of America. He and Cora ended up in England where he hung out with the likes of Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Joseph Conrad. They believed Crane was a genius. A friend called him “the greatest genius America has produced since Edgar Allan Poe.”

Crane had been blessed with an uncommon gift for observation—along with an equally uncommon gift for transcribing his observations into words…
Burning Boy by Paul Auster

Auster shows how Crane’s writing broke new ground and was year ahead of its time. His love for Crane is infectious. I admit I was moved at the description of Crane’s death. And spurred to revisit the work I have read and to read the many stories I have not read.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giveaway Win!

I did it!

I finally finished this book!

This book was a monster of read. It's a dense read and I just so happened to have started this book right before my life was thrown into chaos. So it took much longer than I thought it would to read.

Stephen Crane was in his time considered one of the greatest writers of his generation. His most famous work is The Red Badge of Courage, which I read in high school. I didn't remember much about the book because high school was long time ago(George W Bush was President...I'm old yall. I'm old). But I'm fascinated by the life's of writers, given that I like to write(I'll never get published and I want all my writings burned upon my death)I like to understand what inspired great writers.

So how did I feel about this book?

The title says this book is about the life and works of Stephen Crane but I felt like it was mostly about the works of Stephen Crane. If you ever need to write a term paper(is that still what the kids call them?)about the works of Stephen Crane then read this book. It's obvious that Paul Auster is a huge fan of Mr. Crane's work and I did feel like I got a deeper understanding of how his work was crafted.

But his life.....

This book gave me nothing. I mean obviously he tells the story of Stephen Crane's life but I felt no connection to the man. And I know some of you may say

"Well, Erin it's because he died 120 years ago, how much connection could you possibly feel to someone so long dead?"

My answer to that is.

I read tons of biographies of people who have been dead for even longer than that and still felt like I got to know them as people.

This book just made Stephen Crane feel so distant. Going in I expected to feel sad given that Stephen Crane died at 28 from tuberculosis, but when that time came I didn't feel anything. More time was spent on his last few articles that he wrote solely to stay out of debt than was spent on what must have been a truly horrible and slow death.

As I write this review I'm still trying to decide on what my rating will be. I wanna give it 2.5 stars but that seems unfair given the amount of time and research the author put in this book. It's a great academic study of the works Stephen Crane. It's an even more important look at the generation of writers that came up at the same time as him and the world famous writers who were inspired by his work, with Hemingway being a main one(stay tuned some Hemingway reads are on the way).

Would I recommend it?

Yes...but only to people who really love the works of Stephen Crane.

[Rob Delaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is unbelievably good. I recently reread The Open Boat for the nth time and was reminded that Crane died at TWENTY-EIGHT and once again marveled that he wrote the way he did at such a young age. Did a little digging and found out PAUL AUSTER wrote a bio of him, late in HIS amazing career AND that it was heavy on criticism/analysis AND that people are crazy about the book! I’m halfway through and it’s ridiculously propulsive and entertaining. That is because Auster’s amazing and he’s so infectiously passionate and knowledgeable about Crane, who himself is so firmly in the Pantheon. And it’s 800 pages! And I can’t put it down! I’m reading it via Apple Books but I need a physical copy I can kiss and throw at people.

[Steve Essick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll be honest with you, I’m commenting on #BurningBoy after only reading the first half. I fully intend to continue on at some point, but not until I have the chance to read more of the subject’s, Stephen Crane, works. I majored in English in college (‘67-‘71), but in my curriculum Stephen Crane fell through the cracks and therefore I’m not well versed in his life or works. In the interim I’ve discovered I enjoy late 19th/early 20th century American Literature. I’ve also become a fan of Paul Auster, so when I heard about the publication of #BurningBoy I jumped at the chance to read it. The book is impeccably researched and very well written. Unfortunately for me it is a work as much literary criticism as biography and I became aware early on that I would enjoy it more after I had a chance to familiarize myself with more of Crane’s works. For those aficionados of Stephen Crane, this book will be a treasure. For those who have a cursory knowledge of his life and writings this in depth book will be enjoyable but leave you with a desire to read or reread more of Crane’s writings so you have as much enthusiasm for the subject as Auster has. Either way #BurningBoy belongs on your to read lists.

[blueisthenewpink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uh, where do I start? It took me more than a year to finish this book. At first, I fell asleep after each sentence, but this has nothing to do with the work itself, this is what happens during the schoolyear with books I read only in bed. The sheer volume of the text was daunting. So I set it aside for some months, and restarted this year.

I love Auster, he is my absolute favourite author, I would read anything, even his shopping list (to steal someone else’s go-to saying). But a shopping list that’s 739 pages long? (And, you know, one more “Poe-etic effect”, and we’re done, that’s a final warning.) Being non-fiction makes it a more challenging experience to read, it simply requires more mental effort.

Frankly, I have never heard of Stephen Crane before (or I don’t remember having heard of him). Which is quite strange considering the huge effect he had on writers we all know and consider to be important literary figures. To name just a few: his friends (Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells), a contemporary of his for one year only (Ernest Hemingway), or someone who is not mentioned in this book but is the author of it, and is clearly a devoted fan (Paul Auster).

In this book I received what I always miss in public education: the connections between events in world history, between artists living and creating at the same time, between the events and art, other public figures, the general social codes, accepted beliefs and attitudes in an era, and artists. I enjoyed seeing the interconnectedness immensely.

These intense 739 pages gave me a number of stories. An extraordinary life story of Stephen Crane (not omitting his flaws, embracing him as human, not a hero), and quite a number of stories written by him. Every time Auster introduced a new story of Crane’s, his enthusiasm was simply contagious, and I wanted to read the wonderful, excellent, brilliant, outstanding, unique piece being discussed. But then I got so many quotes and such a thorough analysis of the work, that I felt deflated, with my initial drive all gone by the time he switched to another topic. I think I will read some of Crane’s works after some time spent without him, it has been just overwhelming by now. However, I came to appreciate his talent, his “cinematic style before the language of movies had been invented” (p92) and I am very curious to see it for myself. I will definitely remember Auster’s (and Conrad’s) admiration.

[Juan Nalerio · Rating 3 out of 5]

En más de mil páginas Paul Auster trae a la vida al olvidado Stephen Crane, escritor norteamericano (1871-1900) que cultivó la novela, cuentos, artículos periodísticos y quién fue además corresponsal de guerra.

La biografía que realiza Auster es admirable. Intercala episodios de la convulsionada vida de Crane con análisis minuciosos de todas sus obras. Leí este libro sin conocer a dicho autor y me animó a leer “La roja insignia del valor” y “Maggie, una chica de la calle”, dos novelas que conseguí en español.

El libro cumple su función, rescata al aventurero, al ser que escribía para vivir, al hombre idealista que murió joven, al empecinado autor de una época única. Lamentablemente, la extensión y el detallismo de la biografía conspira contra una mejor apreciación de este libro.

[Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is utterly engaging, and manages to be both a cracking good story of Crane’s life, plus a detailed exegesis of his novels, short stories, and poems. In some literary bios we get one or the other, or we get a biographer with no great literary sense, or a literary critic who can’t tell a life story.

In Paul Auster we have both skill sets. The downside is that means it’s 738 pages of text. So: be prepared for a long haul. Although I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was very slow going for me until Crane’s shipwreck (yes there was a real life shipwreck behind the story The Open Boat); after that, adventure and literature run reliably neck and neck.

[Alberto González Ortiz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adoro las novelas de Auster, casi todas ellas. Esto se me ha atragantado. No conozco al autor del que habla ni me interesa especialmente su entorno. Empecé y me gustó. Me gustó hasta que empecé a aburrirme y aún me quedaba casi todo el libro por delante. Seguí un poco más y tuve que dejarlo. Si fuera mucho, mucho más corto, lo terminaría. Así, no.

[Gerasimos Evangelatos]

Για ποιο λόγο ένας συγγραφέας σαν τον Πωλ Ώστερ καταπιάνεται με μια τόσο λεπτομερή, υπεραναλυτική, αποτρεπτικά πολυσέλιδη μονογραφία ενός όχι ιδιαίτερα γνωστού ομοτέχνου του; Απλούστατα γιατί μπορεί. Και γιατί έχει κερδίσει με το σπαθί του (η καλύτερα την πένα του) όχι μόνο να υψώνει τον πήχη της λογοτεχνικής του έκφρασης κατα το δοκούν αλλά και να το κάνει με ακαταμάχητη γοητεία και στιλ. Έχει αποδείξει ότι δεν φοβάται τα ογκώδη μυθιστορήματα (αντιθέτως τα απολαμβάνει), όποτε το "φλεγόμενο αγόρι" είναι ακόμα ένας περίπατος στην εξοχή για εκείνον. Και παραδόξως, αν και συχνά έπιασα τον εαυτό μου να αναρωτιέται για ποιο λόγο διαβάζει τόσες καταιγιστικές πληροφορίες για τη ζωή ενός συγγραφέα για τον οποίο δεν ήξερα παρά τον τίτλο ενός μυθιστορήματος του, το ολοκλήρωσα με τρομερό ενδιαφέρον (κι άλλο τόσο καμάρι για την υπομονή μου).

[Mientras Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Escribir una biografía desde la admiración es un riesgo, uno puede despegarse de la realidad, en este caso el autor mezcla anécdotas que permiten ampliar lo poco que se conoce en nuestro país sobre este gran escritor
http://entremontonesdelibros.blogspot...

[Only_ioana · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘’In fondo il cuore umano è un immenso palazzo e le sue stanze sono piú che sufficienti per amare due persone allo stesso tempo. ‘’

[Katerina Koltsida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ουσιαστικά πρόκειται για μια εκλαϊκευμένη διδακτορική διατριβή του έργου και της ζωής του Στίβεν Κρέιν, με χορταστικό αριθμό αποσπασμάτων από τα περισσότερα μυθιστορήματα, διηγήματα, νουβέλες αλλά και κάποιες ανταποκρίσεις του ταλαντούχου συγγραφέα, καθώς και κάποια ποιήματα και την αλληλογραφία του εμπλουτισμένα με κείμενα φίλων και σύγχρονων του που αναφέρονται σ εκείνον. Οι πολλές και ουσιαστικές σημείωσεις και η βιβλιογραφία που παρατίθενται, αποδεικνύουν τη σε βάθος έρευνα του Οστερ για τον Κρειν, ενώ η σύντομη παράθεση των ιστορικών γεγονότων βοηθά τον αναγνώστη να μπει στο κλίμα, και να μάθει λίγη αμερικανική ιστορία.

Ο αναγνώστης αποκτά ολοκληρωμένη εικόνα του έργου του Κρέιν. Ο Όστερ γράφει πλήθος περιλήψεων (ανα κεφάλαιο μάλιστα) πολλών έργων, με ανάλυση της συνδεσης που αυτα πιστεύει ότι έχουν με την πραγματική ζωή του Κρέιν, τις σκέψεις του, τα πιστεύω του.

Ομολογω ότι περίμενα κάτι πολύ περισσότερο από, ουσιαστικά, μια σχολιασμένη ανθολόγηση του έργου του Κρέιν, με τα λιγα βιογραφικά στοιχεία για εκείνον που υπάρχουν.
Ο Όστερ πετυχαίνει να γράψει ένα πλήρες έργο για τον Κρειν, αλλά είναι ένα βιβλίο άνευρο, αποστασιοποιημένο ή, καλύτερα, εργαστηριακό.

[Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un llibre que és, alhora, novel.la i assaig on l'escriptor Paul Auster ret homenatge al prodigi creatiu d'un altre escriptor, Stephen Crane de vida fulgurant.

L'arquitecte Claude Fayette Bragdon parlava de Crane com " (...) un muchacho sincero y fogoso con una llama interior más viva que la de los otros hombres" (pàg 447). D'aquesta sentència P.Auster n'ha fet el títol, afegint-hi l'adjectiu immortal per deixar clar des de l'nici, i reblar-ho al final, que és un escriptor que cal llegir-lo:
"(...)y ahora, mientras escribo las últimas palabras de este libro en los primeros dias de 2020, sus obras se han vuelto a olvidar. Es una época oscura para Estados Unidos, sombría en todas partes, y como ocurren tantas cosas que erosionan nuestras certezas sobre quiénes somos y a dónde nos dirigimos, tal vez haya llegado el momento de sacar de la tumba al muchacho fogoso y empezar a recordarlo de nuevo.(...) (pàg 970)

No coneixia l'obra de l'escriptor Stephen Crane, seguir-la de la mà d'Auster ha estat un exercici d'aprenentatge on hi he viscut moments irregulars de lectura. La convicció de qui el presenta, la seva voluntat justificada que cal conèixer Crane, acaba guanyant, incentivant, la motivació.
Auster vol que se sàpiga de Stephen Crane, de la seva influència en la literatura d'inicis del segle, de l'admiració d'escriptors coetanis (Conrad, Henry James, H.G Wells,...) , de la seva producció oblidada.

"(...) Crane escribía... y escribía, y donde quiera que se encontrase y sucediera lo que sucediese a su alrededor en cualquier tipo de circunstancia, escribir fue lo único seguro en su breve vida, con frecuencia insegura. Si ahora vale la pena examinar esa vida, es únicamente por la obra que surgió de ella.(...)" (pàg 809).

Cal dir que la contextualització històrica del període 1882-1900 és realment bona, y Crane en va ser protagonista actiu.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Auster’s admiration for Crane and obsession with doing him justice made for perhaps one of the worst and most unbearable biographies I’ve ever read. I was so excited for this book, wanted to love it so much but it was too long, too detailed and drove me insane with boredom. There’s something called an editor. Didn’t Auster have one? The never-ending book read like an over-caffeinated masters thesis. Read the intro, then go to Wikipedia, and then read Red Badge and Cranes 2 novellas and save yourself 800 pages.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

700+ pages seems a bit much for Crane, who died at 28. Auster's examination of the undeniably great Red Badge of Courage is outstanding, but elsewhere it felt like he was working to inflate slighter material. He does make a strong case for Crane being a Modernist before anyone knew what that was. It was telling that Crane, early on, didn't want to be a seen as a "clever" writer like Kipling (and others), but something else that he couldn't quite articulate fully. Truth-seeking via fiction, I suppose. Experience, observation, sympathy dialed back and/or brought back to harmonize itself better with observation. It's a style that shows up about a little over 20 years later, in Paris, distilled to a cold perfection in the early Hemingway stories.

[incipit mania]

Incipit
Nato il Giorno dei morti e morto cinque mesi prima del suo ventinovesimo compleanno...
Continua su Incipitmania

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful, thorough, beautifully written biography/literary appreciation of Crane and his work. No theoretical axes to grind, no sociopolitical analyses. Just a gifted writer writing about the work of another writer whom he admires. I really enjoyed this.

[Ion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un scriitor iubit a scris o carte mult, mult prea lungă.

[José Antonio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acabo de leer La llama inmortal de Stephen Crane y me ha aparecido impresionante y apasionante. Paul Auster hace un trabajo de investigación tremendo para hablarnos de la vida y obra de un novelista, poeta y periodista que vivió una vida corta pero intensísima. La pasión que muestra Auster al reivindicar a este autor injustamente olvidado es tal que cuesta sustraerse a ella. Me ha gustado muchísimo.

[Brian Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many literary biographies are written like historical biographies, with a need to follow a linear progression of life facts and then sections where the literary works are actually discussed as they fit into the narrative of the life story. In other words, how do the works fit into a study of the life?

This book isn't non-linear; it progresses through the years of Crane's life. However, it READS like a literary biography, in which I mean Auster writes like a WRITER, a novelist of Crane's life with deep insight into the process of writing as well as world class understanding of HOW Crane did what he did.

I loved this book and it is now on my list of all time great literary bios. The main text is well over 700 pages long but is compulsively readable like a great novel.

I was like many of the readers Auster describes. I was aware that Stephen Crane wrote a novel called The Red Badge of Courage, read it myself far too long ago to remember and truly appreciate it fully, and that Stephen Crane died young and so must have been a "one hit wonder", and so an important but minor writer in the American Pantheon.

This book completely rectifies that mistaken apprehension. Crane was a lightning bolt, or a comet that streaked across the sky that we all missed and have been unaware of ever since. Crane owned the 1890s in his sui generis work of fiction and non fiction. Unlike just about every other famous writer at the time, Crane was not middle class, but a man of the Bowery, living and writing about the slums, the Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair realities in urban America. Crane was never comfortable fiscally and lived commission to commission. His work was so uncompromising and unflinching that he was considered transgressive and unfashionable by the literary elite. He stuck so uncompromisingly to his principles that he incurred the wrath of Theodore Roosevelt, and the municipal authorities of New York by alleging (correctly) corruption amongst a number of police officers. This led to exile in Europe, and the reporting of the Spanish-American war in Cuba that helped contribute to his death.

Auster covers all of this, but the vast bulk of the book, so eminently readable and satisfying, are his deep dives and generous excerpts from all of those works that none of us have read. This reads like the most interesting lecture series in the world on Crane, and indeed serves as a college seminar on his works (in the best possible sense). Auster goes into the nuts of bolts of the construction of these works, and the syntactical choices Crane used to achieve his effects. As Auster asserts, some of the short stories are stunning in their effect, and brilliantly prefigure modernism. Hemingway owes a massive debt to Crane, and no less than Henry James realized his brilliance while he was still alive. Conrad became one of his best friends in the last years, and was devastated by his death. The masters we remember knew and idolized Crane, and Auster restores him to his place in the Pantheon.

Don't let the length deter you. This book rewards the time put into it. It's a great read and I continue to digest its contents, which is not true of most books. I won't be selling my hardcover copy. Look for some awards to come its way.

[Marga Cordero Gómez · Rating 5 out of 5]

No soy objetiva con Paul Auster.
Compré el libro porque soy muy fan de Auster, no conocía a Stephen Crane, pero lo que me han contado en este libro me ha gustado y atrapado tanto que de este año no pasa que lea las obras de Crane.

[Mariela González]

Una novela deshilachada, un impecable manual de crítica literaria.

[Kieran Ahern · Rating 2 out of 5]

My copy was softcover, so that is a bit odd...?

I would agree with parts of the introduction, when the author claimed that Stephen Crane, forgotten by my generation, deserved perhaps not to be. Crane's import to American literature and history was probably sufficient to deserve then a better biographer than Paul Auster, or at least a more stringent editor.

For one, the book is enormous, bloated, and poorly edited. I certainly didn't read all of it, nor indeed barely even portion of it; too absolutely packed with unnecessary, dull, or inconsequential facts, this autobiography is immediately inaccessible to the casual reader and instead promises value to only the most determined scholars.

Like other non-scholarly biographies that I have read, this book attempts to provide a surfeit of pointless information, most likely to produce a veneer of respectability. In doing so, they alienate the overwhelming majority of readers; however, the lack of adequate editing suggests also a lack of peer-review and scholarly accountability. I fear this book will thus fail to satisfy the casual reader and the true scholar; who then is left, I have no idea.

I've read books like this before, namely, non-academic nonfiction in the form of bloated biographies of historical intellectuals forgotten by modern society. To that end, I suspect it guilty of many of the same failings of its genre: specifically, a dull surfeit of rote 'fact' to plaster over weak or patently false conclusions that the lazy (or uncreative?) authors either proffer or simply propagate.

Specifically, while doing research in undergrad into Edward Lane, one of the first translators of the Arabian Nights into english, I read such a biography. This book repeated many of the same simplistic and demonstrably false criticisms that Lane's contemporary detractors and critics had first introduced. These criticisms, designed to sell competitors' versions of the Arabian Nights, then echoed down decades into this shi*tty biography written by a clearly unscrupulous researcher, packaged as truths. That a jingoistic, racist, and orientalist author with clearly voyeuristic tendencies could still be chiefly derided as 'sesquipedalian' and 'biblical' is just so overly simplistic, demonstrably inaccurate, and frankly about as dull a conclusion about a man living just before the peak of Victorian imperialism could be.

While I now run the risk of conflating two separate works, one of which I was unable to even read more than a portion of, and certainly didn't do the many hours of independent research to adequately fact check, I do still suspect that this book's primary messages may need to be considered with a grain of salt. I truly hope that there will be those that read this book and can utterly refute my comments; I hope too that this work provides the impetus to return Stephen Crane, clearly a dynamic and influential individual in his time, to the public forefront. I just doubt it.

For my final thought, I want to leave one last criticism: within the very first few pages (somewhere within at least the first five...) comes a glorious run-on sentence that proceeds to cover over an entire page. Seriously???? Did no copy editor have any questions about that, no confusion or concern about the syntax? Within five pages as it was, even the most lax of editors should have caught this blatant offense and so I can only conclude that virtually no editing could have been done; this single sentence certainly influenced my doubt towards the validity of all information contained within.

I think that cutting this book in half, simplifying the useless detritus, and editing aggressively, could yet produce a diamond in the rough.

Just not yet. Sorry Paul. And sorry to anyone else who attempted to read this book. :/

[Jim Vander Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a big book on such a short life? It is well worth taking the time to read. Mr. Auster has not only done a tremendous job on researching Crane’s life but also gives a deep appreciation of his writing. Auster’s style in interpreting his stories may be the best thing about this book.
Crane was a young boy when his parents passed away. The youngest child who lived by his own rules. He seemed to have a compassion for mankind yet not for the women he loved. At one point he leaves his wife Cora in England to be a correspondent in the Spanish American War. When his job is finished, he just hangs out there for months without writing Cora. She is left in England to manage all the debt that he has accumulated.

He has no business sense at all. Even though the Red Badge of Courage was a huge seller during his lifetime he is constantly in debt. He wrote so many great stories for so little money. The Open Boat, The Blue Hotel, and Bride Comes to Yellow Sky. All were sold for cheap. (Interesting that McClures who was a hero in a book by Doris Kerns takes advantage of Crane quite often).

A good summary of Crane was written by a fellow correspondent in Cuba, Otto Carmichael. (There is much paraphrasing here)

Stephen Crane was a bohemian. He was irresponsible and unmanageable. Many officers said he was the bravest man they saw. He apparently did not think of danger. To see others suffer tore his tender heart. He was almost girlish in his sympathies. But it apparently did not bother him to be hungry or in pain himself. Writing was the only thing he did regularly. He wrote slowly without a dictionary and spent a long time chewing on his pencil waiting for the right words. A strong man could not help but feel sorry for him. He seemed on the verge of collapse for lack of strength. He didn’t laugh but had a sensitive little smile always flitting about his face.

Looking forward to going back and rereading Stephen Crane.

[Joanne Gass · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a slog,but I finally, after two years of starts and stops, finished it. Paul Auster's death spurred my desire to finish a very long and detailed biography. I'd almost forgotten how much I liked Stephen Crane, and, having taught "The Open Boat" many times and loving it, I owed it to him to know more. Auster's close readings of the works are most interestng, And, the tragedy of Crane's life is rendered with compassion and love. It's a very long book, but worth the effort if you love Crane and admire Auster's skill.

[Ray Palen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similar to the review I did for the new biography of Oscar Wilde last month, there is just too much information on the late, great American author Stephen Crane to do justice in a review when it really deserves an exploratory thesis. I will instead focus on the highlights of his too-short life and the impact and importance his writing had on anyone who had the pleasure to read it.

Best known for his legendary novel THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE and passing away at the extremely early age of twenty-eight, Stephen Crane packed in quite a life during his time with us. Award-winning author Paul Auster has composed this weighty biography and it truly gives a deep dive into Crane’s work and life. Auster is an expert wordsmith and his admiration for his subject is evident on every single page.

Stephen Crane was born on the day of the dead in the year 1871and passed away five days prior to his 29th birthday. American writers who were his contemporaries included W.E.B. DuBois, Theodore Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, and Robert Frost. As Auster writes, Crane was a burning boy from early in his youth and continues to burn 120 years later.

One point that Auster makes which really hits home with me is how quizzically Crane’s work has fallen out of favor on school reading lists. Like Auster, I remember having to read THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE in both Grade and High School and always held it in high honor as one of my all-time favorite literary novels. Auster asked of his daughter, now thirty, if she remembered reading it when she was in school and she had never heard of it. He then went on to ask the same of all his daughters’ friends who came from various parts of the country, and they also had no recollection of having to read Crane’s masterpiece. Auster poses the query as to why Melville and Whitman remain literary standbys on school reading lists while Crane has been forgotten.

Crane was born in New Jersey, and it was said his ancestors founded Newark and Montclair, which was originally known as Cranetown. Crane would later state that he was as much a Jerseyman as you can find. He was a true prodigy, and his family swore he could read by the age of four. The earliest surviving literary work written by Crane was composed just after he turned eight. It was a Christmas inspired poem entitled “I’d Rather Have” which rang with the maturity of a writer years older.

Crane attended local public schools and at the age of fourteen went to Pennington Seminary. His mind was set on West Point and a military career, rathe than in religious service, but he settled for Claverack College and Hudson River Institute outside of the small town in New York’s Catskill Mountains known as Hudson. During the summers he worked for his brother Townley’s news agency in Asbury Park, NJ. He also was credited with submitting anonymous articles to the New York Tribune going as far back at 1885,

Like Mary Shelley and Georg Buchner, Crane developed almost as rapidly as they did, moving at such an accelerated pace that in the five and a half years he spent in and around New York (including the months he spent out West and in Mexico), he progressed from floundering apprentice to ferocious innovator, an artist in full possession of his talents and vision of the world. When Crane left New York at the end of 1896, he was twenty-five years old. He was also famous, unquestionably the most famous young writer of the period. The publication of THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE in September 1895 turned Crane into a celebrity.

Unfortunately, Crane’s time in New York was during the worst economic climate the country had ever known and he had barely a penny to his name to show from the sale of THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. After that he penned his most famous novella, MAGGIE, which he then followed up with the release of THE MONSTER, which is set in a town modeled on Port Jervis and features a black man as the main protagonist.

This would not be the end of controversy for Crane. He famously battled former friend and NYPD Head Theodore Roosevelt in a case where he defended an imprisoned prostitute during her trial. He would later begin work as a war correspondent which is where he met the love of his life, Cora Taylor, who was recognized for being the first female war correspondent. It was during their time in Germany that the twenty-eight-year-old Crane was stricken with meningitis which took his life. He and Cora had never married. During his time overseas he had befriended such famous British authors as Henry James and Joseph Conrad, who each wept at Crane’s funeral.

Auster states that Crane was a writer whose work demands to be read slowly and deliberately, sentence by sentence, with brief pauses between the sentences in order to digest the full import of what they contain. I can only hope that, with his release of BURNING BOY, Stephen Crane’s work finds a new generation of readers. At the very least, I highly recommend to anyone who has not had the pleasure of reading it to pick up THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. It was called perhaps the most celebrated war novel in our literature. Not as much a novel about war as it is a psychological portrayal of fear. It truly exhibits the burning boy that was Stephen Crane at the height of his skills.

Reviewed by Ray Palen for Book Reporter

[Marcella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Portato avanti con estrema fatica e terminato solo perché amo Paul alla follia. Diciamo che lo preferisco decisamente come narratore che come biografo. Non è che sia un brutto libro, semplicemente non ero interessata così tanto alla vita di Stephen Crane. Non me ne voglia, pace all' anima sua, ma le due stelline sono esclusivamente per la meravigliosa prosa di Auster