Look Homeward, Angel

Wolfe grabs my mind and plunges it deep into glorious words, pictures, people and places so that I'm thrilled and captivated. Look Homeward Angel is a slow read for me because I savor the language that awakens my heart and soul in new and wondrous ways.He doesn't write minor characters. Each person, even if only given a short time on the stage of this fabulous novel, is as rich and vivid as a person would be living their life before your eyes.This book is also a window into prejudice, cruelty, and personal disenfranchisement that was ordinary during the time of his writing. But it's also a window into a life of zest, of eagerness to live, and of a planet that was fertile and birthing new life in abundance.Don't miss it.Joanna Poppink, MFT, Los Angeles psychotherapist, lecturer, author of Healing Your Hungry Heart: recovering from your eating disorder.

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.

My introduction to Thomas Wolfe certainly did not disappoint and presented challenges as well. The 500+-page novel is Wolfe's first book and as it turns out, an autobiographical account of his own life but told as the coming-of-age story that chronicles the life of protagonist Eugene Gant. In some of the most beautiful poetic prose I have ever read, we follow the life of Eugene in his quest to understand the meaning of life from birth to attending Harvard Graduate school.As the story unfolds, Wolfe explains how we enter this world alone and as complete strangers, and as we go through life, he asks whether or not we are still the same strangers and alone when we pass on? Profound questions indeed.Since infancy, Eugene has an insatiable thirst for knowledge about life from the real world in which he lives to a greater philosophical understanding of the order of the universe; keep in mind, all of this coming from the mind of a teenager. Told in rich detail about rural life in the early 20th century and the colorful cast of characters from his family to the townsfolk of fictional Altamont, North Carolina, we experience the life through the eyes and interactions of Eugene Gant as he grows from infancy, aware of his surroudings, through adolescence from part-time jobs and private schools to college at the age of 16, just as Wolfe did as well. We celebrate his personal triumphs, sympathize with his challenges and losses but in the end, Eugene discovers where he needs to look to find the answers to all his questions. Although originally published in 1929, I think the same still holds true for all of us as we search for our own meanings of life and where that search has to begin.

When I was 21 years old I was told to read this book by my acting teacher. The book was readily available at my local bookstore, so I bought a copy. I read the first couple of pages and I just couldn't continue, and put the book down. By that time I was familiar with Southern writers, having read James Dickey. When my teacher asked me if I had read the book yet, I told him honestly I thought the beginning was boring and had not read it.Reading this book is on my bucket list so I decided to give it another try. It's not boring, but the writing is archaic and almost seems like Wolfe is purposely trying to be hick. He uses words like "ambuscaded." I've never read the word before and heard anyone say "ambuscaded." I know it was published in 1929, but ambuscaded? It's a little comical. Looking into Wolfe's background he was first a playwright, as well as an actor, having written and produced a few plays that were well-received. He was working on this writing as a play, but his patron encouraged him to turn it into a novel. It might have been better as a play because the Pentland family cast of characters is unbelievable in a novel but would have translated as comical on stage. Too bad. What people will do for love and money?I am determined to finish it, but now I understand why my acting teacher directed me to read this book. It's a play in novel form.

Nobody writes like this anymore, which is a terrible shame. A bit depressing, but thoroughly captivative and engrossing. Loved it!

Llegó con la carátula doblada por laMitad

I came across this book in one of those serendipitous strikes of existence and will never be the same. Thank you Eugene, thank you ghost, thank you Thomas Wolfe. For those who are looking for a shift in life, Look Homeward is the book for you!

The Ghost of Ben is the lingering memory, a sibling madness arching across the canopy of time: life does return with all its madness Thomas, in science it’s called genetics. Predispositions are a jail inside of hell. This story makes the point!Diver Dan

Beautiful!!!