COMPLETE: War Is Kind, by Stephen Crane

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » January 8th, 2006, 7:34 pm

This audio file can be found on our catalog page: http://librivox.org/war-is-kind-collection-by-stephen-crane/

Though I'm familiar with his magnum opus, Crane's War Is Kind was unknown to me. A collection of poetry from 1899, it speaks to the darkness into which men descend because of war. I found it intriguing. It is, in its own way, even more "out there" than the product of the Beat Poets.

I also found it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/scwar10.txt

And now you too can hear it at:
http://ChipDoc.com/LibriVox/war_is_kind_crane.mp3
26.6MB/00:29:06

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 8th, 2006, 11:37 pm

Crane's War Is Kind is actually a book on its own. It's just that you can read aloud a short book of poetry in about a half hour - exactly what I was looking for when browsing around looking for a project this evening. I wanted something which would stand on its own, but which could be read and uploaded in the time I had available.

You should check that thing out; it's pretty bizarre. I'd never heard of it before I started browsing through Gutenberg looking for something of appropriate length, but it's as weird and mystical as anything I've ever read.

I'm listening now... it is definitely odd. Odd in the sense that I've read, "war is evil" poems and "war is glorious" poems but never "war is kind" poems. Interesting. I'll keep listening to see how it progresses...

In the meantime, for the catalog, I'll leave it up to you if you want it listed under "completed books" or "completed short works" or "completed poetry." Just let me know when you decide, no rush, it'll take some time before I get to that point in the cataloging process.

(BTW Bets and Kara, I've got this one!)

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » January 8th, 2006, 11:46 pm

I believe that the "Kind" is darkly satirical. After you've listened for a while, you'll see what I mean. Why don't we put it in the Completed Short Works section? It's complete and it's short!

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » January 9th, 2006, 1:39 am

I've downloaded your reading and am looking forward to listening to it tomorrow-- alas! it is too late for tonight.

Robert

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 9th, 2006, 2:03 am

ChipDoc wrote:I believe that the "Kind" is darkly satirical. After you've listened for a while, you'll see what I mean. Why don't we put it in the Completed Short Works section? It's complete and it's short!

Yes, I definitely caught the satire as it got farther in. What a truly disturbing work!

Okay, short works sounds good. Are you interested in writing a couple sentences to describe the work? If not, it's no big deal, just let me know. Thanks!

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 9th, 2006, 2:13 am

The catalog page is here: http://librivox.org/war-is-kind-by-stephen-crane/

Please look it over and double check that everything looks right for me. Let me know if any changes need to be made or if you want to add a description.

Once again, great work!

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » January 9th, 2006, 6:04 am

LibraryLady wrote:Are you interested in writing a couple sentences to describe the work?

Published in 1899, just a year before his death, War Is Kind by Stephen Crane evokes again the dark imagery of war which made his fortune in The Red Badge Of Courage. Unlike that book, this collection leaves the battlefield itself behind to explore the damage war does to people's hearts and minds. Reeking of dashed hopes, simultaneously sympathetic with the victims of war and cynical about the purposes of war, Crane implicitly criticizes the image of the romantic hero and asks if Love can survive.

The poetic voice is one of an old and wearied soul, stark and disillusioned, which is all the more intriguing since Crane was dead before he reached his 30th birthday. His work calls to mind the Beat Poets of the mid 20th century in its powerful use of language and bleak idiomatic landscape. It is poetry on the cusp of the fin de si?cle; echoing the passing age and presaging the newborn century.

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 9th, 2006, 6:53 am

Thanks Chip! Nicely done, I've added it to the page.

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » January 9th, 2006, 5:31 pm

Excellent job, Chip. And it's theme is appropos to any time and perhaps never more so than for today.

Robert

BradBush · Post by **BradBush** » January 9th, 2006, 8:05 pm

Wikipedia updated

Fox in the Stars · Post by **Fox in the Stars** » August 18th, 2006, 11:34 am

In cataloguing the Weekly Poem "War is Kind" I accidentally mucked up this one... I've done my best to repair it, but the URL has changed:

http://librivox.org/war-is-kind-collection-by-stephen-crane/

Please check it and fix anything I missed... -_-;; Sorry about that!

a.r.dobbs · Post by **a.r.dobbs** » August 24th, 2006, 10:47 pm

Hmm, maybe the mucked up ones were not deleted. Remember when we tried to just make the Agatha Christie books unavailable, but this list of all recordings still listed it? Apparently, anything that's a catalog page is going to be listed here whether it's linked to or not. So the bad pages just need to be deleted altogether.

If someone knows or can figure out which are the bad ones...

Fox in the Stars · Post by **Fox in the Stars** » August 25th, 2006, 8:55 am

I overwrote that entry is what happened, I think, so AFAIK there aren't any stray bad pages; I just made a new page for the thing I'd overwritten.

kri · Post by **kri** » August 25th, 2006, 3:03 pm

Just so you know Laura, there are two pages of each version.

The searchable catalog list is automatically generated with Wordpress Template tags and PHP. Every wordpress Page will show up on that list, unless it's in the list of exceptions that I've created.

Edit: So basically, all you have to do is delete the extra page that was messed up, or is not needed, and all is well!

Fox in the Stars · Post by **Fox in the Stars** » August 25th, 2006, 4:58 pm

Okay, deleted the extras.