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Look Homeward, Angel
by: Thomas Wolfe |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52 EAN: 9780684804439 Edition: 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction ISBN: 0684804433 Label: Scribner Manufacturer: Scribner Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 544 Publication Date: October 01, 1995 Publisher: Scribner Studio: Scribner |
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| Customer Reviews | ||
  - English Professor Raves!As an English professor, I am often skeptical of purchasing books without reviewing them in hard copy form first. Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL came in record time, was in perfect condition, and had reviews and book club guides inside! I will order all my novels through Amazon from now on! Rating:  - Coming Home...... to a book of one's youth. I first read Look Homeward, Angel some 40 years ago, and like a few other reviewers, decided it merited a re-read. In the intervening years I carried the memory of a wonderful book that dazzled in its descriptive passages. In particular, I always remembered that he was one of the very few writers to have written at length on smells, as he did on page 69. I've always considered Wolfe on a par with other great southern writers like Faulkner, McCullers, Welty, and Baldwin. The re-read was from the same book that I had purchased those 40 some years ago, a Scribner Library edition, for $1.95, with the marks outlining the passages I considered relevant then, and still seem relevant today. After the re-read, I found myself agreeing with those who say that he has not stood the test of time, for others, as well as myself. The book is largely autobiographical, with Eugene, the last child in the Gant family the protagonist. It is his "coming of age" story; the background is America's own coming of age, the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the book is set in Altamont, a thinly disguised Ashville, North Carolina, with some sections in "Pulpit Hill" for his university studies - you guessed it - Chapel Hill. Like so many of us, his family is "unhappy in its own way," but by in large, "gets by," with an alcoholic father and an acquisitive, possessive mother. The siblings run the gauntlet from a vagabond bum, the "dutiful daughter" caring for the father, a sailor, one who dies far too early, et al. Each is supportive at times, and at others, disparaging. There are numerous insightful, well-described passages covering the coming of age period, such as: the time of first love, high on a hill, overlooking Altamont which eventually morphs into shades of Maugham's "Of Human Bondage"; the agony and awkwardness of that freshman year in college; the first job, delivering newspapers in the early morning hours; the heartbreaking death of two siblings to naturally causes; the underlying theme of the severance of ties from one's family and community. These, as well as others, would most likely find resonance with all readers. Wolfe becomes positively Joycian in lengthy chapter 24, capturing a slice of daily life in Altamont, with even a cameo role for William Jennings Bryan. The book, written in 1929, is also a valuable historical record of the outlook of Americans in the first two decades of the last century. The memories of the Civil War fade as America strolls onto the world stage, first via the Spanish-American war, later "The Great War." The wars are welcomed with enthusiasm by the population. War profiteering was in full bloom in the section on Newport News, Va. Cars replace horses; electricity becomes widely available. Diseases routinely take lives far short of the allocated three score and ten. University education is reserved for a small minority. Medical care is rudimentary, often something reserved for "quacks." And there was a distinctive hierarchical structure to small town life. There are some passages of philosophical insight, such as a precursor to the "butterfly theory" (i.e., distant events like a butterfly wing flapping in China effecting local events (p.160); is hell oneself, as Wolfe suggests or other people, as Sartre claimed?; and the marvels of war propaganda, when he read the headlines he thought the Germans were pushed all the way back to Cologne, and was surprised to find them just outside Paris. Was Wolfe racist, as some reviewers charged? He did describe African-Americans and Jews with the terms widely used at the time, in their roles in American society then. Overall though, he did not seem to do so in a derogatory way; more so it was as he might describe the natural surroundings. And who knows, in 100 years, perhaps the term "African-American" will be viewed as an epithet. But from the perspective of 40 years, and after having read Joyce, Nabokov, Proust, and others, I do believe that Wolfe falls far short, as a writer. He does hit on all cylinders in some sections, but there is a numbing repetitive use of some adjectives like "gaunt," (probably 10 times in the first 15 pages), "pearly" for the sky, "petulant" (sometimes twice on the same page), and of course, the theme, the melodramatic "O Lost" grates like the proverbial chalk screeching across the black board by the end of the book. On at least three separate occasions he uses "stranger in a strange land." On the first reading I was impressed with his dazzling erudition as displayed on page 29, the events and people who preceded the turn of the 20th century; now it seems like a mere listing of deliberately obscure events and people. Some of the dialogue is overblown, and pointless. And I do think his editor, Maxwell Perkins, who did delete some of the original manuscript, could have chopped another hundred pages off the book I also found myself agreeing with other reviewers who derided his egotistic self-absorption which lacked useful insight. What, for example, do we learn of his first trysts with black prostitutes, or being seduced by a "cougar," a woman almost twice his age? There is nothing. What of his sense of responsibility to the family he leaves behind? What of the returning veterans of the "Great War," and there disillusionment. Again, nothing. Overall, there seems to be far too much wallowing in the "O Lost" theme, without the hardship to justify it. So, at least with books it is possible to go home again, and reflect on where you have been in the meantime. Despite the 3-stars, it is a recommended read for being a classic book of its period. Rating:  - Ponderous TrashThomas Wolfe (1900-1938) was greatly admired during his lifetime; no less than William Faulkner declared him the single greatest American writer bar none. Even so, many critics pointed out that although Wolfe had great strengths he also had great weaknesses, and those weaknesses have become increasingly apparent with the passage of time. His reputation has not survived, he is seldom taught in standard literary classes, and even less often casually selected by the reading public. LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, published in 1929, was Wolfe's first novel, and like every Wolfe novel it is both fascinating and frustrating. The great fascination is Wolfe's sense of poetic narrative; he skillfully layers phrase upon phrase, creating images that sparkle in the mind's eye. His failure, however, is multiple, and not the least that too often Wolfe so heavily layers these images that it becomes very hard to see the foundation upon which they rest--it becomes difficult to see the gemstone because the setting is so lavishly ornate. Re ANGEL, Wolfe worked with editor Maxwell Perkins, who strove to curb Wolfe's excesses, and the result is considerably more readable than later Wolfe novels. ANGEL tells the story of the Gant family. Father W.O. has a broad world view--but drifts first into marriage with the unimaginative and utterly pragmatic Eliza and then into a roaring alcoholism. Their children emerge from this battleground as highly neurotic individuals--including their youngest child Eugene. Although the family regards him as they do any other member, Wolfe makes it quite clear that Eugene is a genius, and the novel follows him from cradle to young adult as he deals with his dysfunctional family. Virtually every novelist is autobiographical to some degree, but Wolfe is infamous for being exactingly so, and ANGEL is nothing more nor less than the story his family and his life. It is largely because of this that the novel, for all of Wolfe's talent for poetic narrative, is such a spectacular failure: he includes everything, from a carriage accident when a toddler to a case of crabs as a teenager, and he gives gives it all equal emphasis, treating such incidents with the same gravity with which he describes deaths, failed love affairs, and the like. Perhaps even more frustratingly, these events are often random and have no real position within the narrative thread; since it so meticulously rendered, you expect the carriage accident, for instance, to be a factor in the later portions of the work--but it isn't. What does gradually emerge is Wolfe's sense of social caste: Eugene is forever aspiring to higher social status and forever being knocked back by his father's alcoholism, his mother's lack of social propriety, and his own physical awkwardness. In tandem with this we also gradually come to realize that ANGEL is essentially Wolfe's self-justification of his feelings about his family and, more specifically, a love-letter to what he presumes is his own genius. The novel is seriously tainted by the author's own egotism. Add to this the fact that Wolfe is extremely self-contradictory in his writings and you have a significantly up-hill read that has less to do with a novel per se than it does with the writer's certainty that he is indeed a genius and that every moment in his life is worthy of prolonged examination. It is an issue that would plague virtually every word Wolfe wrote over the course of his lifetime: he is utterly and completely self-absorbed, and no world exists beyond himself. Although the comparison may at first seem unlikely, Wolfe is very much like Ayn Rand: a supreme egotist who writes in an incredibly wordy style and whose works are essentially created to display a presumed superiority over the rest of us. He is also like Rand in the sense that Wolfe is one of those writers that appeals to the young--especially those who are not well-read and who therefore aren't really prepared to spot the glaring flaws in his work. From my own point of view, Wolfe is memorable for his skill at turning a phrase, that famous gift of narrative poetry, but this aside the bulk of LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL is ponderous trash. It is a novel best left to advanced literature students who have no choice in the matter. GFT, Amazon Reviewer Rating: - Oh Lost!It was sometimes difficult to wade through Wolfe's complex and dense style. After reading five pages, I felt like I had read enough for the day. With each page of prose, Wolfe shows that he is a master of the English language. There isn't much dialog or fluff in the book. Wolfe, by his character Eugene, writes about growing up in a mediocre family environment with a mediocre morality based on conventional platitudes that are not necessarily lived out. The funniest example would be Gant's saying that "licker" is root of all evil, but he could not stay off alcohol once the prohibition that he supported began. The Gants never seem to reach any transcendent enlightenment as they go about their little lives. His parents were often neglectful of their children's needs, but were not terribly abusive. The worst thing that happened to Eugene was that his mother made him wear shoes that did not fit him, which ruined his toes because she did not want good shoes to go to waste. The Gants were more materialistic than spiritual and their worst fault over the years was they forgot to love one another, being wrapped up in their own selfishness that made them a family of strangers. They pursued happiness, but never found a lasting one. "O lost!" is a phrase frequently used to express the loss of some long forgotten ideal that would have made life complete. So it is in this comical tragedy. Each member of the family plays his own role. Eugene is the scholar, Helen is the nurturer, Luke is the go-getter, Ben is the bitter one, Eliza is the property owner, Steve is the bum, Gant is the colorful character. There is a constant tension among them, with an occasional glimmer of rough affection that they are almost ashamed to show. Eugene's Dad, old man Gant, the master of the irrational rant, was given to drinking and whoring around at times. One example of his rants would be the tax rant. With each increase of property taxes, a new tirade would start about how the democrats would send him to the poor house. Eugene's mother, Eliza, was a pinchpenny who was always concerned about acquiring money to get more property to justify her self-worth. Gant and Eliza are in a mediocre marriage. He wants to roam the earth and she wants to possess it. They eventually separate. She runs a boarding house and he lives in the old family house. Eliza was the type of mother to send her children out to scare up some business for her boarding house, which a lot of characters came through, including clandestine prostitutes. After all, she thought, a person should not be afraid of a little hard work. So she lived the life many choose, concentrating mostly on work and money, and complaining about how much she had to work while accusing others that they were not working hard enough. She was also quite the chiseler at prices during any deal and everything could be bargained for with Eliza. Hard times during her formative years had traumatized her into being very materialistic. Eugene, the protagonist, becomes increasingly bitter about his dysfunctional family. He wants to leave them and enjoy life in peaceful isolation. Yet, he still loves his family and feels conflicting emotions about them. This is a good novel about the complexities of family life from someone who had below-average experience with one. Eugene's brother, Ben, is the bitter cynical child who has worked his life away since childhood and once states, "What are we living for?" He blames his mother Eliza especially for her niggardliness and her demanding that the children work hard even though the family is a well-off. Ben's death brings the family together for a brief moment of honesty and contriteness, until they go back to the selfish and self-pitying ways of average human beings. Ben's getting his death wish from weak lungs, smoking, and pneumonia is the climax of the book. The novel is a series of vignettes so there is not the usual rise and fall of a typical novel. A reader may note the annoyingly predictable habits of each family member, such as Eliza's frequent pursing of her lips. Knowing beforehand that someone is going to react in the same mechanical manner shows that they are stuck in their rut that they are addicted to. This is another sentimental boyhood tale at times, but Wolfe's superior writing makes it appear more than it is. Rating: - A tour de force of pure emotionThomas Wolfe reminds me of the eager kid who was smarter than the rest, surging ahead for pure love of learning and life itself. This transcendental outlook pervades this meandering story which in lesser hands would become saccharine, but veers away from that precipice with carefully constructed characters who are not cut-outs used in the puppet show of stories with a "moral," but these vivid, living, breathing pieces of life that resemble others we have all known. While the subject matter is romantic to its core in that it combines a knowledge of mortality with a sweet delight in life, between the lines there is a fine-tuned observation of America as a culture of personalities. Wolfe understands the struggles of people both average and exceptional and winds these together to show the common path they are threading as they attempt to understand themselves, so they can appreciate life. Thomas Wolfe described himself as a "putter-inner" and in this book that might be initially viewed as a problem, since it spills from its pages even after extensive editing with gloriously rich language and a wealth of detail. After the first 100 pages however I stopped caring about this attribute, because my bias against it came from lesser authors who blurt out everything but the kitchen sink in an attempt to appear smarter than they are. Wolfe just delights in the details of life and the subplots that associate a character's journey through it. I recommend this book most heartily for parents of confused teens. It does not fail to show the shortcomings of our world, our species, and our nation, but it awakens our inner emotional strength that forms the want to overcome those. It does not preach morality, but it shows us the value of our time and from that a moral outlook, since when we care about our time we become more discerning. It took my breath away in its audacity to do the unthinkable, and sing a song of life the imperfect beautiful, and never to back down from that vision of poignant, transient glory. |
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