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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 | ||
  - Grand and beautiful ... this is what is meant by the phrase "the great American novel."The amazing thing about Thomas Wolfe is that he writes so grandly and beautifully of all the great symphony of life, and he sees the strange and mysterious ways that all of existence is intertwined. "The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern because a London cut-purse went unhung." "Look Homeward Angel" is a masterpiece of storytelling, and in spite of its size and depth, you will find yourself unable to put it down. You will think about it during the day, and rush back to it at night. You will carry it with you so that you can read it on the bus or beside a stream. And when you're done, place it on your shelf to reread treasured portions of it in years to come. Henry Ward Beecher said, "A little library growing each year is an honorable part of a man's history." Let "Look Homeward Angel" be a part of yours. Rating: - HAUNTING AND POETIC COMING-OF-AGE STORYAfter a recent visit to Thomas Wolfe's home in Asheville, I felt like I had to read this book. I was particularly curious as to why everyone in his hometown was in such an uproar upon its publication in 1929. Now I understand. I checked this book out from the library, but now I simply must own it to add to my shelf of absolute favorites. It's a long book, so I spent a LONG time getting to know Eugene Gant/Thomas Wolfe, and I love the author all the more for letting me in on his autobiography in such a beautiful, poetic way. Wolfe came from a difficult family situation, with an alcoholic father and a poor mother who worked herself to the bone trying to run her boarding house, known as Dixieland in the novel. You can tour this home in Asheville; the house is actually called the Old Kentucky Home. Throughout the novel, he's searching, trying to find meaning to his many losses: his brothers who died, a lost love, his innocence, his childhood. In the end, Eugene Gant/Tom Wolfe finally feels free to leave his home forever. He'll be leaving North Carolina for Harvard, and now we all know that he left his life as a small-town boy with big dreams to become one of the most beloved authors of all time. I can't wait to read the sequel, Of Time and the River. I highly recommend Look Homeward, Angel to anyone who is a student of great American literature, and especially to writers of autobiographical fiction. Good companions to this book are Thomas Wolfe's The Story of a Novel and John Chandler Griffin's Memories of Thomas Wolfe: A Pictorial Companion to Look Homeward, Angel. If you're reading Look Homeward, Angel for the first time, Griffin's volume is a must. You'll be able to see Wolfe's actual family photo album, from which he drew his characters. After staring into the real Ben Wolfe's eyes, it took me several days to fully grasp the haunting story of what happened to him (I won't spoil it for you.) I have definitely become a Thomas Wolfe fan and only wish he hadn't died so young so that we'd have more of his genius works to ponder and enjoy. Rating: - Not yet readI wanted to find a book to read for pleasure (since I am typically found reading college text books). A Bad Religion song references this author/book, and that was why I chose it. However, I have not yet found time to sit down and start it, but it looks great and the subject matter sounds very interesting. I think anything that Bad Religion references would be an educational and interesting pick. Rating: - Masterpiece of the Highest OrderThomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel is many things, all of them great; profoundly emotional yet deeply philosophical, it is one of the all-time best bildungsromans, an unforgettable evocation of the mountain American South in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, and a masterpiece of poetic prose. It is an immortal American classic absolutely essential for anyone even remotely interested in American literature. The first thing we notice is the sparkling prose, which is some of the most poetic ever. Wolfe's writing is not simply beautiful but truly sublime; his sentences are lovely, his descriptions lush, and his tropes stunningly memorable. After two major successes, he fell out of favor in an era that valued concision and ambiguity, and time has only made him less conventionally palatable. The book is over five hundred pages, its sentences long, and its vocabulary dense; few readers would now not be scared by such a work. However, Wolfe shines at least as brightly as ever for those truly alive to language's beauty; his prose is near-unparalleled for inventiveness and sheer exquisiteness, making him one of America's great stylists. More fundamentally, the main thing making Look still so undeniably great is its masterful bildungsroman aspect. The novel is above all Eugene Gant's coming-of-age story. There are of course many such stories, but this is one of the very best. We follow Eugene literally from birth until he truly comes into his own in young adulthood and are deeply interested in his journey. The story is firmly rooted in Wolfe's life and thus has many particular trappings, but youth's essential experiences are universal, letting the book speak powerfully to many. We truly feel with and for Eugene because we see ourselves in him; he reminds us of our own youth - what could have been as much as what was. Wolfe tells his story with truly engaging emotion, quickly drawing us in and never letting go; we feel Eugene's ups and downs almost as if they are ours - which of course they are to a large degree. Though admirable in many ways, Eugene has clear faults that only make him seem more human and thus easily identifiable. Few bildungsromans are so transcendentally relatable or thoroughly stirring. However, calling Look a bildungsroman sells it rather short; it is a grand, sweeping epic of many facets. There are numerous other characters, a variety of situations, and several settings. The book is in a larger sense a story of the Gant family, following all members at various times and to various degrees. They are their own family, and we can admire or criticize as we please, but they are also in the truest sense archetypal. The interactions - strife at least as much as joy - that they represent are familiar to nearly everyone. We become as intrigued in their story as in Eugene's, feeling and growing along with them. Characterization is another Wolfe strength. All the Gants have strong individuality and are drawn strongly and evocatively, as are other characters. Wolfe interestingly combines Dickensian eccentricities with American realism's best aspects, creating a genuinely engaging and unforgettable cast. Look is also notable for bringing the Mountain South alive. Local color writing has a long and grand American tradition, and this is one of the best entries. Its Altamont is closely based on Wolfe's Asheville, North Carolina hometown, and he describes with the precision and subtlety only experience can give. Few writers have a greater sense of place. He makes us see landscapes nearly as if we are there and understand what it was like to live in such a place in regard to everything from speech to economics. On top of everything else, Look is thus of substantial historical value to anyone wondering how such people lived in such places in this era. The great William Faulkner called Wolfe the best writer of their time, and it is easy to see why. His writing is universal in the best sense, but he mastered the truly American grain that began with Twain and ran through the likes of Faulkner and Steinbeck. Dialect and place are of course a big part, and Wolfe has them down brilliantly, but it also runs deeper. Faulkner said art is worth nothing unless shot through with eternal feelings and thoughts, and Wolfe handles them with unusual deftness. He makes us feel as few writers can but also makes us think. Look is a deeply philosophical work focusing on themes like life's meaning, individuality vs. wider responsibility, the loss of youth's illusions, aestheticism vs. practicality, etc. It also touches on issues like class and race that are integral to American art and culture - and indeed to the world's. Novels encompassing all these threads are very rare, and only a few dozen have tied them together so well, much less so movingly. One problem with reading Look today is its unflinching racism depiction. Blacks are consistently treated poorly in it, the victims of prejudice and innumerable slurs from all white characters. More disturbingly, the narrative portrayal itself is grossly unflattering and lacks nuance, being also full of racial epithets and other highly derogatory comments. Jews are also shown unflatteringly but far more subtly. This is particularly worrisome in that Look is known to be highly autobiographical and that - unlike with, say, Twain - it is not satirical. It is impossible to deny that Wolfe grew up with many racial prejudices, at least some of which seem to have lingered when writing Look. His views later liberalized, as reflected in subsequent works, but Look remains clouded. Some will not be able to get past this, which is understandable. However, it is important to keep in mind that his prime purpose was realism; characters talk as people of the era really did, and the narrator writes as someone from Wolfe's background portraying such events almost inevitably would. The real problem is not Wolfe or the book but the era; he presents things as they were, for better or worse. This also adds to the historical value, though that of course does not atone. In fairness, we must remember that, however autobiographical, this is a novel and should not be used to determine personal views. I believe this should be a foundational critical principle, and it applies here as well as elsewhere. As for Look, all must judge by their own hearts and consciences. It is certainly a product of its time, which is no excuse but does explain the prevalence of views now rightly considered unacceptable. Excepting this admittedly large caveat, Look is superb in all respects, an American literary monument that will not be soon forgotten. Rating:  - Ma & Pa Kettle meet Walt WhitmanThere is some undeniably fabulous writing in this book...the opening sequence had me in love and I anxiously looked forward to the rest, but instead it lead to an overworked tedium of mundane antics punctuated by moments of brillance. It seems to me he would have been more effective in getting to the heart of the American experience in poetry rather than novel. And more concise too. |
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