Thomas Wolfe Books

I have Ray Bradbury to thank for meeting with Thomas Wolfe early in my life - when I probably would have never heard about him otherwise. He never was (still isn't) a part of school literature programme in Russia.

Bradbury's magnificent short story "Forever and the Earth" in a remarkably good Russian translation was the reason why as soon as I saw a Wolfe's novel in a bookshop in 1983, I bought it immediately. It was "You Can't Go Home Again". Ever since I keep reading him and re-reading again and again. It is a slow read but so intoxicating. Being a fast reader, I have to do it by 10 or 15 pages at a a time - otherwise I get rather tipsy on his words.

"He was a wirlwind. He lifted up mountains and collected winds...
Tom Wolfe's the man, the necessary man, to write of space, of time, of huge things like nebulae and galactic war, meteors and planets, all the dakr things that he loved and put on paper were like this.He was born out of his time. He needed really big things to play with and never found them on Earth." (Ray Bradbury "Forever and the Earth". )
I still think there is nothing written about Thomas Wolfe's work that is better than Bradbury's short story.

I first re read Look Homeward Angel,( which I had not read for almost 50 years) then O Lost. I think that the original manuscript is far superior to the edited version, that was originally published. Certainly the introduction is excellant and sets the stage for W.O.Gant's odessey. Admittedly, some editing would be helpful, to make a smoother transition from one chapter to another, but only minor ones, not the radical surgery that was actually done.

I think that Wolfe realized this, and that was why he changed publishers. I look forward to the unedited manuscripts of the Web and the Rock, and You can't go home again.

My only problem is that during the period when I first read these novels, I have had medical and particularly psychiatric training. It is obvious that W.O. suffered from severe bipolar or manic depressive psychosis. With modern treatment, he would have been a happier man, or at least those around him would have had better lives. But then perhaps Thomas Wolfe would not have been the writer that he was to become.

Look Homeward Angel has for decades been a standard coming of age book read devotedly by people in their late teens and early twenties. Over the years, stories developed concerning the amount of cutting that editor Maxwell Perkins (who also edited Hemingway and Fitzgerald) did on the book. The accepted wisdom was that Perkins pulled a masterpiece out of a huge, unpublishable manuscript. This edition, which is based on Wolfe's orginial manuscript and uses his chosen title, shows that while Perkins did help to shape the book, the text that he began with was not the monstrosity it was later believed to be. Some of the cuts Perkins made, such as W.O. Gant's memories of Gettysburg, would appear in Of Time and the River, and Perkins later admitted that he was wrong to cut it. Other material that one reads for the first time seems less important. Overall, I did not find the book to be that different from Look Homeward Angel. It shows both Wolfe's strengts and weaknesses, his abiliy to create Whitmanesque passages, and to engage in self-indulgent prose. I agree with the other reviewers that it is unfortunate that this book so quickly was allowed to go out of print. Whichever version you read, this is a book best read before you are 30.

What a wonderful book. It's too bad so many readers today know only Tom Wolfe, not Thomas Wolfe. Even though it has been at least 10 years since reading Look Homewood Angel, I knew almost immediately when I came to the new sections. They add a depth to the novel, bringing in the whole town and relatives, rather being only about Eugene Gant. My favorite Wolfe readings involve trains; the experience about time stopping for a moment when you look into the eyes of someone looking directly at you into the train, is exactly as I remember my earlier train rides.What are they doing now, that the train has passed? Other 800 page books might be dull, but not this one. Having been given it as a present recently, I am very surprised and disappointed that it is already 'out of print." More people should know about O Lost!

Like so many others, "Look Homeward Angel" provided one of those pivotal experiences in college. I remember reading it twice - consecutively! - and then hastening on to Wolfe's other books. Well now here is the full work and for me it provided a long, leisurely read that not only had the nostalgia inherent in the story and the leftovers from my life during my first reading, it had more of the things that make Wolfe such an important literary figure in the 20th Century. O LOST ( a phrase oft repeated in this long and rambling coming of age story) is full of the unfinished sentences, fragments, stream of consciousness admixing of past/present/future that Wolfe gradually polished during his brief career. This is a work of poetry that nestles in with Whitman, Dickinson, Agee, Faulkner in its ability to create characters who step off the page and take up permanent residence in your psyche.

Yes, some of the previously edited portions give credence to the need for the Editor's role in shaping a novel. But being able to slowly drift along with Wolfe's imagery and imagination, his acute visualization of life and death, fear and orgasm, rage and gullability...this original piece gives so much back to the reader that finishing the book is painful.

In a time when most novels hover around the 300 page mark it is a complete joy to meander through a tome of nearly 800 pages that takes concentration, patience, and a lot of time to consume. But the journey is overwhelmingly justified. Do your mind - and your heart - a favor: read "O Lost" next.

I'm a student and this textbook was assigned for my intro to literature class. I was surprised by how much I actually ENJOYED this textbook! There is a lot of good writing in it, some great examples of literature, which made for interesting class discussions. I even found myself reading a lot of the passages that weren't assigned, just out of curiousity, and most of them were really quite enjoyable.

Overpriced like most textbooks but probably the only introductory literature anthology since Benjamin LaMott's "Close Imagining" (McGraw Hill) that I'd use a second time. It's compact yet very generous and representative. For example, you can pair "Young Goodman Brown" with "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" or "A Rose for Emily" with "Barn Burning" or "A & P" with "Araby." Most of the frequently taught poems are here, and there are more plays--from Sophocles to Arthur Miller--than would ever fit into a single-semester course. And the Appendices are priceless--more useful information than is found in popular writing Handbooks along with exemplary student essays (a particularly handy feature).

I've previously used the big Kennedy and Gioia Intro text. Not only did the binding begin to fall apart on me mid-way though the semester but the amount of material--most of it never assigned--simply added to the guilt any instructor who emphasizes close reading of individual texts is bound to feel. Also, any introductory literature course that even purports to be representative must include some examples of the most important modern genre of all--the novel. Add "Great Expectations" and "The Great Gatsby" to the course and you'll see why the shorter, more compact anthology is the only one to consider. In fact, I might even settle for a "back pocket" version.

(My experiences with the complementary (but not really "complimentary") internet site--which my students never seemed to be able to access--would suggest that it would best be ignored. Go for the DVD or a price break instead.)

This collection of stories is far and away the best sampling of his true literary mastery. I have always enjoyed Southern writers (Faulkner,Capote,..), but Wolfe touches a particular vein of the satirical social landscape of the South that is unmatched. His work, I believe, is less about the South than Faulkner's, but Wolfe still has that southern glow of tragedy but with a simple beauty. Though some may find his novels tedious and long-winded, it is difficult to not like this work. Just be patient and let the words come to you. The thing I like most about his short stories is that they often leave you with a feeling of lying in bed on a summer's night listening to the train pass through town or maybe a lone dog barking in the distance, hollow... but thinking that you could live forever.

This is a collection of short-stories. For us who may be heratics in our beloved Southern Literature when it concerns Thomas Wolfe, we contend that he is a very verbose, messy messy author. His first editor had to cut and shape a large manuscript into three seperate novels (I believe that I'm correct in this), of which Look Homeward Angel was the first. (Apparently he wrote them on top of a refridgerator: a tall man.)And that book goes on and on and on--like the bunny commercial. He totally ignores any kind of sembulance of form. That is his problem, he does not brible his passion properly, Look H-- is a good book--but it could have been great--or atleast greater, depending on your view point.

Hemingway said that he was good until he began writing about other places than his home. I have to agree with that.

Now. This book, however, is his best crafted fiction. That simple. Something about the demanding, concise form of the short story works him over well. The first time that I read it I thought--that's it! The Southern author I've been looking for. But, unfortunately, I became all worked up for Look H-- and after reading that it all fizzled. One wonders two things: 1. what if he had lived longer?, he seems to have just become the craftsman that was always demanded for his ferver; and 2. what if he had written Look Homeward Angel, after he had true command of his skills.

This is a great book. In my opinion his best. Read it.

Ever remembered a sentence or two from the book and, still later on, didn't recall where it comes from? Well, there is one in the 'The lost boy' that I'd say I'll never forget. It goes: 'Light came and went and came again...' I would believe this is the best definition of Time I've ever read. It tells what we all already know - that the Time is here, all around, that it passes, eternally, incessantly, giving us no chance to do anything about it. And although there's much more to the nouvellette, it's worth reading it from the beginning to the end. It's 'realness' moves you all along.

This book is a gem! It is brimming with lyricism, longing and passion. It is Wolfe at his very best. For those who feel that Wolfe tended to ramble, here they will find him constrained by the limits of the novella form. They will find his skill for characterization (which was always remarkable) honed to an even higher degree of excellence in this piece. The story is autobiographical and deeply felt by Wolfe and he succeeds in transmitting those feelings to the reader. It is my belief that even if he had written nothing else, his reputation could rest comfortably on this piece alone.

Even if you never slog all the way through this tome, you owe it to yourself to thumb through until you reach Wolfe's vivid descriptions of the following: 1. His fertile imagination fixing on small town life as his train rolls from his hometown up to Harvard 2. His description of the state of mind and body of the old men in the club car, playing cards and waxing philosophic in their cocoon of smoke and upholstered comfort 3. His self transfer into the still strong mind and emaciated body of his dying father. 4. The train. There is always the train. Behemoth. Chariot to freedom. Iron Leviathan. Taking him away from Ashmont, clinging love, bitter memory, clay, dust, dirt, flower, self. If there is any more skillful recreator of all these elements, all of these forces, in our own beings, from any age ... in any language ... please, please ... let me know

In the opinion of many, Thomas Wolfe and Theodore Dreiser were two of the finest writers to emerge in the first half of the twentieth century. Dreiser interpreted contemporary events and spun them into finely crafted novels that painted a complete picture of American life in the times he lived. Wolfe, on the other hand, was a less effective story teller, but a wonderfully expressive writer--a true wordsmith from the North Carolina hills whose emotional intensity explodes in every well-turned phrase. It is said that he could never have become the literary spokesman for the disaffected generation of college writers coming of age during the Depression without the firm and guiding hand of Maxwell Perkins, his faithful editor nursing him past the troubling demons of his personal life. However, I have to wonder if Perkins caused irreparable harm by excising too much material. The recently published Starwick chapters which were purged from the original manuscript by Perkins in 1934, show the young novelist at his very best. One wonders just how much better this literary masterpiece would have been, if Wolfe's original draft (which they say filled a box the size of a coffin) had been left alone. Thomas Wolfe's passing at so young an age created a terrible void in American letters, but he inspired thousands of idealistic but unpublished authors to pursue their craft with the same mystic that he poured into every paragraph and every phrase of these majestic novels and short stories.

"Negro Folk Rhymes" is one of the great American poetry anthologies; and it is fascinating as it is heartbreaking, to see how racism affects folklore, and folk life. White collectors who also published in the 1920's, Newman I. White, Dorothy Scarborough, Howard Odum, weren't able to collect this quality and kind of material. White commented that "the negro's songs about his women makes an unflattering exhibit." Talley collected another kind of song, a song that possibly would never have been sung for white people in the 1920's. Many of these animal "nonsense" songs carry a double message about racism and injustice; and there is also a wealth of tender and beautiful love songs from both sexes, and the sweetest lullabies. Talley's book was published in 1922, complete with a thinly veiled, condescending racist introduction from a shrivel-souled academic named Walter Clyde Curry, who simply missed the essence and genius of these songs and poems. Charles K. Wolfe did a great service rescuing these melodies from manuscript. These are nothing like the blues, the melodies have the same wise/innocent quality of Scottish and Irish folksongs, though they're not quite like that either. There is many a striking melody - the one for "The Old Man's Song" in the Phrygian mode, rare in Western music. One gathers from Wolfe's introduction that there was a common folk/string band music among blacks and whites in the South, but the record companies emphasized the differences, putting the blacks in blues and gospel and the whites in country and bluegrass, and the world, unfortunately, followed. Contemporary and traditional folk and country music are now nearly entirely white genres, but their roots are equally black and white. The commercial world, for whatever purpose, strove to divide rather than unite Americans. Let us not be unaware of how this pertains today. I wish that these tunes and words appeared on the same page; anyone wishing to match these tricky tunes with the lyrics, and actually sing them, must make a xerox copy. Quibbles. This is a brilliant production and best read aloud; many rhymes are riddles which are better apprehended by the ear than the eye. "Milly Biggers" is as great a folksong as we have, from deep in slavery times.

Anyone even remotely interested in folklore, folk music, or American history should get this book. It contains over 400 rhymes (some with music) collected in the early 1900s by Thomas W. Talley, a black chemistry professor from Tennessee. Most of the rhymes are American, but there are a few from Africa, Jamaica, and elsewhere.

This alone would be worth the price of admission, but this edition also contains a new essay on the work, plus an updated bibliography and index, plus the original introduction by Thomas W. Talley (an excellent 50-page essay which covers performance practice and even details of instrument construction), plus additional rhymes and music that didn't make it into the original edition.

Great to page idly through or to read cover-to-cover, this book would be a fantastic addition to anyone's collection.

Any scolar, student, or literary fan will find this book a revelation because Thomas Wolfe has been neglected by modern academia for too long. I feel Shawn Holliday has presented a clear case for adding Wolfe back into his proper place as an important American author.

In this thorough yet very readable account, Holliday considers why the reputation of Thomas Wolfe has slipped below those of his contemporaries, such as Faulkner and Hemingway. Holliday blames both critics, who misunderstood Wolfe, and editors, who tampered with his work. Holliday looks at all of Wolfe's major fiction, as well as much of his shorter texts, and argues forcefully and clearly that Wolfe deserves to be rediscovered and reappreciated. Although this book is academically sound, one need not be a Wolfe scholar to appreciate it, just someone who cares about modern American literature.

this book will really make you think about yourself as an american man. i am a 25 year old man who lives just 6 blocks from the "Dixieland" of Thomas Wolfe's childhood and his work can truly be a remarkable thing to read while you are sitting in the surroundings of the novels "Look Homeward, Angel" and "Of Time and the River". It is very surreal because his prose is like poetry which perfectly captures this little spot of america. i love mr. wolfe and will be reading him when i drop dead!!

Thomas Wolfe, never at a loss for words; in fact in he has used the entire English language to evoke what is now the lost soul of The American Male. Melancholia bathes the pages and streams into the heart of the reader, urging one on to find the forgotten spirit which blessed America before this country succumbed to its death of Soul in the latter half of the twentieth century. This is The novel, and Thomas Wolfe The writer of America's heart and soul

I was given this volume as a gift on my last birthday. The presenter knew that "Look Homeward Angel" was in my "Top 5" favorite novels. I sat down to read and did not get up until I had turned the last page.

This is a fascinating book and a tribute not only to Thomas Wolfe, but to the two scholars who have delved so deeply into his life and art. I wish that all great autobiographical novels would recieve this kind of treatment. A novel as great and rich as "Look Homeward Angel" has finally come full circle in this tremendouse companion.

This book consists in two seperate pieces, " The Story of a Novel" and " Writing and Living". In them Thomas Wolfe tells the story of his own writing life. He tells of his own great hunger to encompass all experience all worlds and remake them into art. In speaking before an audience of college students and providing them his own example as writer he stresses again and again the difference between the writer like himself who turns to life, experience , the world, and a writer like Robert Louis Stevenson who learns from books, and writes his own books on the basis of books primarily. Wolfe's writing here is clear and moving and strong and truly flows .
Here is one passage from this brilliant work which will illustrate why it is one of the most powerful statements of his own credo ever made by a writer."

"These and a million other things which all of us have known, which all of us remember, which are the breath, the blood, the substance of our lives , but now come back to me in a blazing imagery, in a torrential flood tide of aching , and intolerable memory, and suddenly I understood clearly for the first time in my life that I had no language for them, no words to give them utterance, no tongue to tell their shape, dimension, tone and special quality, and all the meaning and emotion that they have for us. And when I saw and understood this thing , I saw that I must find a language for myself, find for myself the tongue to utter what I knew but could not say. And from the day and moment of that discovery, the line and purpose of my life was shaped. The end toward which every energy of my life and talent would be henceforth directed was in such a way as this defined." pp.34