Scan barcode
kcrouth's review against another edition
2.0
I picked up "Look Homeward, Angel" because it was on one of my "must read" lists, and because i found it referenced in a Ron Rash novel I recently read. "Look Homeward, Angel" is the early life biography of Thomas Wolfe, told as fiction (character name Eugene Gant), changing the names to protect both the innocent, and the not-so-innocent. The story, being firmly rooted in fact, not only lends us personal insight into the roots of one of America's respected authors, but it also gives insight into life in Asheville North Carolina, and the Carolinas in general circa the beginning of the 20th century. The bulk of the story takes place from 1900-1920. The place names have been changed, but having lived in NC for over 30 years, are easily recognized.
Altamont = Asheville
Pulpit Hill = Chapel Hill
Exeter = Durham
Sydney = Raleigh
The Asheville culture portrayed is grim on many levels. The relationships within the Gant family are often strained, resentful, and combative. Illness, both mental and physical are prevalent both within the Gant family and throughout the community. Many people died very young before the widespread practice of vaccination, a fact we easily forget in our age of modern medicine and healthcare. Altamont served as a "sanitarium" for people from other climates suffering from TB and other common and serious maladies. Not a pretty picture. All in all, the story is depressing, yet instructional from the standpoint of history, both general and related to Thomas Wolfe.
So here i am a month later, have finished reading it and find myself wondering "why?". At the risk of sounding disrespectful of a very widely respected author, i found his story telling in "Look Homeward, Angel" too cluttered with extra words and phrases. While many of this "extra" verbiage may be nicely worded, it distracted significantly from the story being told. It is not just length that bothered me. I have read 1400+ pages in the unabridged "Les Miserables" and never got the feeling of pages and pages of extra unnecessary words. This story is overwhelmed with extra, unneeded and confusing material. Much of the time, i got the feeling that he was writing just to "hear himself talk". To me it made a valuable story miserable and tedious to read. I do not recommend this book, it is too much.
http://www.nchistoricsites.org/wolfe/
Altamont = Asheville
Pulpit Hill = Chapel Hill
Exeter = Durham
Sydney = Raleigh
The Asheville culture portrayed is grim on many levels. The relationships within the Gant family are often strained, resentful, and combative. Illness, both mental and physical are prevalent both within the Gant family and throughout the community. Many people died very young before the widespread practice of vaccination, a fact we easily forget in our age of modern medicine and healthcare. Altamont served as a "sanitarium" for people from other climates suffering from TB and other common and serious maladies. Not a pretty picture. All in all, the story is depressing, yet instructional from the standpoint of history, both general and related to Thomas Wolfe.
So here i am a month later, have finished reading it and find myself wondering "why?". At the risk of sounding disrespectful of a very widely respected author, i found his story telling in "Look Homeward, Angel" too cluttered with extra words and phrases. While many of this "extra" verbiage may be nicely worded, it distracted significantly from the story being told. It is not just length that bothered me. I have read 1400+ pages in the unabridged "Les Miserables" and never got the feeling of pages and pages of extra unnecessary words. This story is overwhelmed with extra, unneeded and confusing material. Much of the time, i got the feeling that he was writing just to "hear himself talk". To me it made a valuable story miserable and tedious to read. I do not recommend this book, it is too much.
http://www.nchistoricsites.org/wolfe/
jgintrovertedreader's review against another edition
3.0
I decided to read this because Thomas Wolfe was from my area and I only had to read one short story of his for an English class. I wanted to see what he was all about. This is basically the slightly fictionalized story of his childhood and young adult years growing up in the mountains of North Carolina in the early 1900's.
I read the very first sentence of this book and my heart sank. So I read it again. And again. After about the fifth reading, I finally had some idea what he was trying to say and moved on. The second and third sentences blew me away. He was an amazing writer. He wrote with a richness of imagery that is hard to find.
That being said, this book was very hard to get through. Taken a paragraph or so at a time, I could appreciate the beauty of his language. But the very beauty that I admired made the actual story drag by. And I'm very story-oriented. That's one of the reasons I only gave this three stars.
The other thing that bothered me was a small vein of racism that was present throughout the book. It's not at all the point of the story, it's just there in the background. And somehow it's made worse by the fact that there doesn't seem to be any active dislike behind it. It feels like he thinks he's just stating the facts. I tried to write it off as just being a different time period, but that didn't really work for me. It wound up detracting a lot from my enjoyment of the book.
But if you think you can overlook that, and you love beautiful language, you might enjoy this one.
I read the very first sentence of this book and my heart sank. So I read it again. And again. After about the fifth reading, I finally had some idea what he was trying to say and moved on. The second and third sentences blew me away. He was an amazing writer. He wrote with a richness of imagery that is hard to find.
That being said, this book was very hard to get through. Taken a paragraph or so at a time, I could appreciate the beauty of his language. But the very beauty that I admired made the actual story drag by. And I'm very story-oriented. That's one of the reasons I only gave this three stars.
The other thing that bothered me was a small vein of racism that was present throughout the book. It's not at all the point of the story, it's just there in the background. And somehow it's made worse by the fact that there doesn't seem to be any active dislike behind it. It feels like he thinks he's just stating the facts. I tried to write it off as just being a different time period, but that didn't really work for me. It wound up detracting a lot from my enjoyment of the book.
But if you think you can overlook that, and you love beautiful language, you might enjoy this one.
adambwriter's review against another edition
3.0
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Final Verdict: 2.25 out of 4.0
YTD: 44
Plot/Story:
2 - Plot/Story could work with better development.
Houston, we have a problem. Let me begin my discussion on this books plot and story by allowing the book to speak for itself, as it were. Here is an excerpt from page 487 (Scribner edition) which sums up my thoughts on the whole book:
“I think I am hell, and they say I stink because I have not had a bath. But I could not stink, even if I never had a bath. Only the others stink. My dirtiness is better than their cleanliness. The web of my flesh is finer; my blood is a subtle elixir; the hair of my head, the marrow of my spine, the cunning jointure of my bones, and all the combining jellies, fats, meats, oils, and sinews of my flesh, the spittle of my mouth, the sweat of my skin, is mixed with rarer elements, and is fairer and finer than their gross peasant beef.”
In short, the narrator (Eugene) thinks he is the shit. He believes he is a genius above geniuses – that he walks heads and shoulders, figuratively and literally, since he is rather tall, above anyone he meets – family, especially, but also friends, neighbors, whores, teachers, schoolmates, etc. He reminds me a great deal of Holden Caulfield, without the charming self-deprecation. And, whereas in The Catcher in the Rye we spend most of our time with the narrator, in Look Homeward, Angel, most of our time is spent with Eugene’s family – a large chunk of the story takes place before Eugene’s birth and, even afterward, most of what we are supposed to learn about Eugene comes from interactions with other people. Eugene himself barely makes much appearance until the end of the novel, when things suddenly get wildly metaphysical and conspicuous brush strokes of magical realism close out a novel which is otherwise constrained to the boundaries of Realism and even Naturalism. It was, plain and simple, the most bizarre coming-of-age story I have ever read, and probably the most difficult to read, for two reasons: 1) the character who we are supposed to come-of-age with is rarely a part of the story and 2) when he is a part of the story, he is incredibly obnoxious and self-righteous. He is supposed to be a wunderkind, a literary marvel, but there is no development to show the reader how this came to be, no indication of why we should believe or respect these assertions about Eugene. I am perfectly fine rooting for an awkward, lonely, genius-outsider; but only if I have been given reason to! If more of the story focused on Eugene, rather than his family; and if more time was spent developing the relationship between reader and Eugene – the “why we should care about you, you little over-privileged and seemingly misunderstood snot who gets to go to Harvard for free boo-hoo” then maybe, just maybe, the story could have been great.
Visit www.RoofBeamReader.net for the Full Review
Final Verdict: 2.25 out of 4.0
YTD: 44
Plot/Story:
2 - Plot/Story could work with better development.
Houston, we have a problem. Let me begin my discussion on this books plot and story by allowing the book to speak for itself, as it were. Here is an excerpt from page 487 (Scribner edition) which sums up my thoughts on the whole book:
“I think I am hell, and they say I stink because I have not had a bath. But I could not stink, even if I never had a bath. Only the others stink. My dirtiness is better than their cleanliness. The web of my flesh is finer; my blood is a subtle elixir; the hair of my head, the marrow of my spine, the cunning jointure of my bones, and all the combining jellies, fats, meats, oils, and sinews of my flesh, the spittle of my mouth, the sweat of my skin, is mixed with rarer elements, and is fairer and finer than their gross peasant beef.”
In short, the narrator (Eugene) thinks he is the shit. He believes he is a genius above geniuses – that he walks heads and shoulders, figuratively and literally, since he is rather tall, above anyone he meets – family, especially, but also friends, neighbors, whores, teachers, schoolmates, etc. He reminds me a great deal of Holden Caulfield, without the charming self-deprecation. And, whereas in The Catcher in the Rye we spend most of our time with the narrator, in Look Homeward, Angel, most of our time is spent with Eugene’s family – a large chunk of the story takes place before Eugene’s birth and, even afterward, most of what we are supposed to learn about Eugene comes from interactions with other people. Eugene himself barely makes much appearance until the end of the novel, when things suddenly get wildly metaphysical and conspicuous brush strokes of magical realism close out a novel which is otherwise constrained to the boundaries of Realism and even Naturalism. It was, plain and simple, the most bizarre coming-of-age story I have ever read, and probably the most difficult to read, for two reasons: 1) the character who we are supposed to come-of-age with is rarely a part of the story and 2) when he is a part of the story, he is incredibly obnoxious and self-righteous. He is supposed to be a wunderkind, a literary marvel, but there is no development to show the reader how this came to be, no indication of why we should believe or respect these assertions about Eugene. I am perfectly fine rooting for an awkward, lonely, genius-outsider; but only if I have been given reason to! If more of the story focused on Eugene, rather than his family; and if more time was spent developing the relationship between reader and Eugene – the “why we should care about you, you little over-privileged and seemingly misunderstood snot who gets to go to Harvard for free boo-hoo” then maybe, just maybe, the story could have been great.
Visit www.RoofBeamReader.net for the Full Review
auntiewhispers's review
4.0
I have such fond memories of playing Eliza Gant in my high school production of this show so I may be a tad biased.
superfamoustia's review against another edition
5.0
Big & full & vibrant & courageous & beautiful. A book bursting with LIFE and TRUTH.
rachelp's review against another edition
2.0
I was kind of disappointed in this book. The author had such way with words. The descriptions were beautiful. But there really wasn't much of a plot. The story was incredibly slow and hard to get through. There were parts that really grabbed my interest, but they only seemed to last a page or two before it became boring again.
More...