Stephen Crane – Maggie, a girl of the streets (Book Review)

 

(The audio version of this book will appear on the review Podcast Reading in Bed from the start of May at all of the usual places) 

Blurb:

"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", Stephen Crane's first novel, is the story of a beautiful young girl living in the slums of New York in the late 19th Century. "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" is a shockingly explicit portrait of the brutal conditions that existed in the poverty-stricken slums of New York.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

I had heard of Stephen Crane’s work when I was back at university all the way back in 1998 to 2001 but certainly hadn’t read any of this work until reading Paul Auster’s biography on him ‘Burning Boy’ and reading this first after completing Burning Boy wasn’t quite sure to expect I have to admit and am not quite sure what to make off it now.

Perhaps it is best summed up by a fellow reviewer on Good Reads who said “This is perhaps the most sordid short novel i ever read; the journey to depravity prostitution and death forced by the loneliness, doublé moral and necessity of a poor beautiful girl born in a miserable suburb of New York “

Well, sordid is an excellent description of this short 92 page novel which is incredibly grim and also quite shocking of the way of a young girl was dragged into the world of prostitution by a whole number of reasons I won’t go into here, instead just suggesting you read it as this is a world which doesn’t exist any more (thankfully) where poverty, alcoholism and disease were not only rampant but blamed entirely on the victims

It is not an easy book to read despite to read because of the dialogue scattered throughout it which I’ve being told was wrote this way to reflect the way it was, but reading from an angle of over 125 years later, it is almost impossible to follow in places and made me glad the book wasn’t double its length, as with its length I read it at took about a month to read.

7/10 (Just) because it is a classic all things despite but don’t expect it to be a classic to read because it is not easy to read.