2013 Book Reveiw #104: Look Homeward, Angel

[jethrien]

Title: Look Homeward, Angel
Author: Thomas Wolfe
Genre: Literary coming-of-age
Thingummies: 1.5

Synopsis: Arrogant kid grows up at the turn of the last century in a Podunk town as part of an incredibly dysfunctional family.

Thoughts: I understand that this book is considered to be deeply influential to a number of respected 20th century writers. And I realize that a number of the passages are experimental and ground-breaking.

That said, my god, this is the one of the most over-written, purple, maudlin, and pretentious things I've read in some time.

There's essentially no plot. As far as I can tell, none of the characters have an arc to speak of. I think the fact that all of the family members are contradictory is supposed to make them nuanced, but they're just caricatures. He's a fluent drunkard, she's cruelly mothering, and so on. Every single person is bitter. Our protagonist claims to have been manipulative and desperate to escape from infancy onward. The idea that this is somewhat autobiographical is horrifying from the perspective that a child grew up in an environment like this, but also that the author seems to think that his conduct makes him admirable in any way. Eccentricity is not automatically a mark of genius--a tendency to bray in people's faces just makes you an ass.

And if I had to read the phrases "o lost!" or "a stone, a leaf, a door" one more time, I think I would have hurled the book at the wall.

The author mistakes wordiness for wisdom and misanthropy for profundity. Really, a waste of time.

Comments

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I think this is actually about Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities, who is a different person than Thomas Wolfe, who died in I think 1938. I was confused, too--I thought it was the same guy until about three quarters of the way through the book.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Hey, if the animated clip fits, use it!