A Story of the Buried Life (First Press) - Look Homeward Angel

A well written and interesting book. Many words I looked up as they are not used too often in todays books.
The South was not as easy place to grow-up and make something of ones self. TW brings a reality to the reader.

Honestly I have not finished this book. But already I am gobsmacked by the prose. Oh my God, it is rich. I bought the book after seeing the recent movie about Tom Wolfe. Was he really one of the great writers of the 20th century? You bet. Download a sample and see if you can refrain from pushing the Buy button.

PS. I checked No sexual content and no violence. Nothing resembling either has happened to far in my reading.

He was born a year after Hemingway, and the comparison diverges from there. His work is brilliantly and excessively poetic and rhapsodic to distraction in places. There's an abundance of nuggets that make it worth the trip for those who appreciate poetry, but you're forced to wade through endless description and overmade points. Hemingway would have told the story with half the words. Some of the characters were well drawn, while others were overdrawn. Still others were barely drawn.

Max Perkins cut 60,000 words from the manuscript and still let Wolfe get away with murder. There's gratuitous commentary that took me out of the story again and again. The dialogue was excellent in many places, but missing in others. Perkins did a brilliant job with Hemingway and Fitzgerald. What happened with Wolfe?

One of the problems with writing an autobiographic novel is that you're stuck with making a workable story out of what actually happened. Wolfe could have left out a lot of this material and had a better story. There's too much here, and all the extraneous detail gets in the way. The entire final chapter could have been condensed into a few paragraphs.

I didn't like the narrator's voice. He seemed arrogant, egotistical, spoiled and entirely full of himself. It's a chore, but still a worthwhile read for the poetry and for the nuggets of brilliance sprinkled throughout.

It's wonderful to receive a favorite book, read it, and put it on the shelf to read again at a later date. Thank you, the store, for assisting with purchases of affordable used books. All the books I buy from the storen, both used and new, are in great shape and arrive in a timely fashion.

After reading this in college decades ago, it seemed time for a refresher. I had been impressed as a teenager by the vivid descriptions Wolfe used and wondered if the passing of many years would change my perception of the quality of his writing. It did not. The story is captivating and Wolfe's style invited me to re-read paragraphs just for the fun of it.

Well, it was interesting and I did understand the message; but there was a lot of verbiage to wade through to get to the point. I loved the grammar and the vocabulary and spent a lot of time admiring that and getting off the story line. It was written in a time when it was expected and I guess I have gotten lazy about having to read through so much to get to the heart of the message.

This was an excellent book. Tom Wolf's ability with words is out of this world. Our book club read the book then visited the Wolf Museum in Asheville. Can't say enough about how good it was. Our discussion was so very interesting.

Edited by the legendary Maxwell Perkins and published in 1929, Wolfe's first novel is about a young man's burning desire to leave his small town and tumultuous family in search of a better life. While the sheer power of the prose and rich imagination is proof of his genius, as a novel, this sprawling, undisciplined story struck me as strangely anecdotal, episodic, and largely self-indulgent, more of a song-of-myself than a good narrative. Rather than reading a good story, it was more like sitting through someone else's family slideshow,with not a detail left out, and about as exciting . My suggestion: read it in parts for the epic voice of the author, but do not expect to read it cover to cover.

Its a hard read....and it takes forever...this is one of those books you leave on the coffee table and read a couple of pages today...a chapter tomorrow....a sentence next week....nothing really ever happens in the book so its not like you forget where you were in the story...But I wanted to mark it off my bucket list...

This novel was written in another era: first published in 1929. For this reason, it feels rather historic. I am getting an inside glimpse of life at that time. I am currently only 1/3 into this novel. It is not a 'quick read' because the language is archaic (which is fine with me) and the writing style tends toward the poetic in it's descriptive passages. The author is intensely thoughtful; he can be humorous at times and dark at other times. It is thoroughly entertaining for me because I love the historical aspect and the poetic language.

I've heard Thomas Wolfe mentioned among the great Southern writers for years and thought I'd read Look Homeward Angel for my own education. Let's just say I found the novel to be overblown, poorly plotted and almost juvenile in its preoccupations. Perhaps others will think differently, but I found Wolfe's portrayal of the novel's central figure unconvincing. I simply didn't find the eight year old Eugene Gant's total grasp of Shakespeare and other literary masterpieces credible even in someone we were to see throughout the novel as a misunderstood genius..That and the pages filled with endless self-preoccupation, a quality characteristic of every member of the Gant family, were a trial I was glad to put behind me.

I read the book because I had toured Thomas Wolfe's former home in Asheville, NC when our daughter lived there. I thought I would read one of his books. It was supposedly a biography of his life in Asheville. I found it much too long and too much description but I managed to wade through to the end. I would not recommend it to anyone.

I received the book "Homeward, Angel". Thank you. The book is a little beatup but will suffice nicely. I have to give a report of this book at my book club. I will be trying to pull up any information I can get to help me with my report.
If you have any suggestions, I will appreciate all I can get. I would love to have some questions that I can ask after my report. Patricia H. Snyder

Paraphrasing the author to describe this work and the days spent in it:
"A book, not brief, a bore. ... Time lost, O' Lost!"

Yet Look Homeward, Angel is considered a great work of American literature. So it goes.

I usually enjoy descriptive prose and creative turn of phrase, but a novel ought to have a sufficient story to which those elements are attached. I did not find that story in this introspective on the author's youth.

Wolfe writes to satisfy his admirable need to use words. The descriptions of his narrow world are made with detail that harkens a science documentary and repetition reminiscent of a child's beginning reader. (Write, Thomas, write. See Thomas write.)

One sole chapter developed a storyline, when Eugene Gant left home for the war-time challenges of Norfolk. It seems the author might finally take the reader on a journey as one begins the last quarter of the book. But he drops that effort and returns home, finding yet more ways to describe his life and family against the backdrop of Altamont.

Tolstoy described families well (and briefly!) in Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Thomas Wolfe detailed a myriad of ways in which his family was unhappy. He listed them, described them, reordered them, renounced them, and repeated them endlessly.

I don't doubt the sincerity of readers and scholars who extoll the virtues of rambling text in Look Homeward, Angel. We all have different tastes. Some like pies, I enjoy cake. While this work is cake, it is not to my liking. Layers and layers and layers of the same flavor get piled atop one other, but there is no mountain of frosting coming from the hills of Altamont that is sufficient to make this a sweet experience.

The story moved too slow. The descriptions of the characters and scenes were excellent, but became boring. It is the only book I have not completed reading in years. It was a classic in its time so must have been me!

When ordering anything online what is important is user ease, security, and service delivery. It helps that the product is as advertised. All of these things I found to be in good stead with this experience and would have no trepidation about subsequent orders.

The story moved too slow. The descriptions of the characters and scenes were excellent, but became boring. It is the only book I have not completed reading in years. It was a classic in its time so must have been me!

The late William Gay, one of my favorite writers, has made some highly favorable remarks concerning this novel, and it spurred my to read it. The first couple of pages were pretty good. If I ever get around to picking it up again, I'll let you know how the rest went. It's a very demanding work which may very well be worth the effort. But it's not exactly what I would say is a "page-burner."

When ordering anything online what is important is user ease, security, and service delivery. It helps that the product is as advertised. All of these things I found to be in good stead with this experience and would have no trepidation about subsequent orders.

While I am thoroughly enjoying the book, this particular edition is awful!!! I don't know who if anyone edited this, but the rules of word division are totally ignored. Words just go to the end of the page and continue on the next line. As for paragraphs, they, too, follow no known rules. All of this, makes this edition very difficult and frustrating to read. I highly recommend buying the more expensive edition.

I was disappointed. I've heard about Wolfe all my life and expected to like him. But after reading him I think he must have been paid by the adverb. An ordinary story made tragic by the fact that it's being suffocated under a toxic mix of overblown description and pointless reverie.