Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

[paradoxical]

I'm wondering what others think of this book. I found it hard to read, overly descriptive and dense at times, while glossing over relevant details in other places. An uneven work, to say the least, but undoubtedly a work of genius.

Wolfe's editor, Maxwell Perkins, famously cut out 60,000 words from this (still lengthy) book and I wonder if it would not have been better to leave much of it in place. I found it a struggle to read, yet so much of it is truly poetic. I can still open the book to a random page and be amazed by Wolfe's rich language and dialogue, almost the epitome of Southern Gothic.

I read that the unedited version of the novel was released and I want to tackle it some day, but first I want to read You Can't Go Home Again. What are your opinions on this novel? How about You Can't Go Home Again? How does it compare?

[paradoxical]

Bump.

[Desolation]

Wolfe's got a reputation for being a bit "undisciplined." I think that a lot of his prose is very beautiful, though.

I haven't read Angel yet...But I ordered it a few days ago. For some reason, he's recently piqued my interest. I tried reading it years ago, but the descriptions slowed me down and I gave up on it after a hundred pages or so. But back then I tended to dislike any books that weren't overtly bohemian or dark and existential. Now's a time in my life when I think I would enjoy it a lot more.

I'm reading You Can't Go Home Again right now. I just started, but I'm already enjoying it.

[paradoxical]

Thanks for the reply, Desolation. I think that's an accurate description and I almost gave up on Angel a few times due to the long, rambling descriptions. It's going to be slow reading, but I still want to try You Can't Go Home Again.

I also went through a period where all I wanted to read were books that were edgy and kind of cool. No Southern literature, that's for sure, but now that I've read Wolfe, I want to read William Faulkner. I've only read a couple of short stories by him and none of his novels.

I love Portland, by the way. It's my favorite place in the world, and I mean that.

[bIGwIRE]

I loved Look Homeward, Angel, and found many parallels in my own life and inner self.

I never once found Wolfe "overly descriptive" or "dense", but everyone grades on their own unique curve. This book really has no plot, and the fact that it kept me engaged and entranced speaks volumes to Wolfe's poetic genious. He basically is a "describer" of things, people, places, behavior, ect... Nothing really happens, and I was so carried away by his prose, that I didn't even care.

Undisciplined? Yes, but I think his raw, emotional, sprawling style made it seem more "real" to me, if that makes any sense.

Keep in mind, too, that this was his first novel, and considered to be highly autobiographical. Eugene, a name which, beautifully, means "well born," but which, as anyone will be able to testify, does not mean, has never meant, "well bred." is generally thought to be based on Wolfe himself. With that in mind, writing about the death of siblings, an alchoholic (prehaps bi-polar?) father, an emotionally wrecked mother, ect, is really quite a large, personal, and private gift, from Wolfe to us.

It has such a longing, almost haunting taste to it. "Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?"

I loved it. Prehaps it is a book for people who like the journey more than the destination? I'm not sure, but I loved it.

[tscherff]

the novel is very autobiographical. it is the story of his youth. the next novel, of time and the river, takes him to Harvard and beyond.
the last in the trilogy is you can't go home again. it takes place after he has obtained success and at and after the stock market crash. this is the first novel he did without perkins editing. i think it is an easier read.
i really liked them all. as you say fantastic writing, but facinating insights into life and growing up. everyone will see a part of themselves somewhere in there.
kerouac was a big fan of wolfe and modeled his 1st novel, the town and the city, after look homeward angel

[The Comedian]

Wolfe was one of the authors that started my literary interest: I read all of his major novels: Look Homeward, Angel; Of Time and the River; The Web and the Rock; and You Can't Go Home Again before I was 20. I remember them being significant books for my father as well, which is probably why I read them in the first place.

I remember being most fond of Of Time and the River (of all of these) but Look Homeward, Angel was great. But, honestly, it's been so long since I've read his work that I can't much comment on them anymore without a fresh read.