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leagllrd's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Finally! I've rarely been this happy to finally be done with a book. This 400 page monstrosity can only be described as excruciating. The only interesting and entertaining thing in this whole rant was getting a look at the influence that other European languages had on English back then.
Whitman's style is much more messy and way less impressive than I had been led to believe by what I had heard of it. He loves listing things, and most of the time it feels as though he really needs the reader to know how much he knows about the topic, or how many words he knows, or it feels like he's filling a blank his inspiration hasn't provided anything for.
Most of this entire book treats of four topics
1) how much he really loves war, especially the American Secession war (although he will not tell you whose side he was on) and how hot camaraderie is
2) how great America is now that white people are in charge
3) how nature is [add a list of five to ten adjectives he constantly recycles without ingenuity]
4) how much he wants to sleep with everyone
He's also fully incapable of seeing Black people as humans, and he was against banning slavery so, while I can't from the book and this one thing I do know tell you what side of the war he fought on, I think we can do a little bit of inferring here.
It is so incredibly sad to see this average work be heralded as a shining beacon of literature simply because Americans struggle with the concept of anything that's over 100 years old and no one but old white dudes were allowed to write back then.
Don't waste your time, instead find one of the hundreds of brilliant poets that have a true story to tell and true talent to tell it.
He gets a second star for the few poets (out of hundreds) that are actually good, and for giving me insight into the evolution of English in America.
Whitman's style is much more messy and way less impressive than I had been led to believe by what I had heard of it. He loves listing things, and most of the time it feels as though he really needs the reader to know how much he knows about the topic, or how many words he knows, or it feels like he's filling a blank his inspiration hasn't provided anything for.
Most of this entire book treats of four topics
1) how much he really loves war, especially the American Secession war (although he will not tell you whose side he was on) and how hot camaraderie is
2) how great America is now that white people are in charge
3) how nature is [add a list of five to ten adjectives he constantly recycles without ingenuity]
4) how much he wants to sleep with everyone
He's also fully incapable of seeing Black people as humans, and he was against banning slavery so, while I can't from the book and this one thing I do know tell you what side of the war he fought on, I think we can do a little bit of inferring here.
It is so incredibly sad to see this average work be heralded as a shining beacon of literature simply because Americans struggle with the concept of anything that's over 100 years old and no one but old white dudes were allowed to write back then.
Don't waste your time, instead find one of the hundreds of brilliant poets that have a true story to tell and true talent to tell it.
He gets a second star for the few poets (out of hundreds) that are actually good, and for giving me insight into the evolution of English in America.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Whitman was very much against the end of the slavery. He's obsessed with the american Civil War and despite his half-assed attempts, it's glaringly obvious that he is incapable of viewing black people as humans, let alone equals.