Look Homeward, Angel

By: Thomas Wolfe

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

The works of Thomas Wolfe cemented his legacy as one of the very best of the American Southern writers. Wolfe's largely autobiographical novel features Eugene Gant, who pines for a more expansive life after being born to a father whose bouts of maniacal raving are fueled by a prodigious appetite for drink.©1957 Edward C. Aswell (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLC

beautifully written, boring story

I enjoyed the beauty in the words and there were some memorable characters. narration was great. story itself was very dull.

Classic and also dated. Captures a time and a subculture

Wolfe’s descriptions of nature and the North Carolina countryside are eloquent. His vocabulary is brilliant. The novel can be tedious; it could have used more editing; a sad family saga

Favorite Audiobook of All Time

It’s long but it was sheer pleasure and I was sorry when it ended. Thomas Wolfe is a literary giant, tragically short-lived, and this book is a masterful work of art. It is about being human—about longing and lostness and the holy light and beauty everywhere that we fluster and bullhead and fumble our way through and toward. Scott Sowers, who also left us too soon, narrated brilliantly. Audible, please bring in more, everything, Thomas Wolfe.

Luxury of words. So many words

This book is beautiful. Poignant. Full of longing and sorrow, misspent youth, yearning. It is an amazing insight into a “tortured writer’s” mind and soul. I first tried reading it but was languishing. This Audible version is beautifully read and allowed the listener to revel in the beautiful language.

Tedious

It must be a very good read, but I found it difficult and tiresome to listen to. The ending made me feel forlorn and somewhat depressed.

Awesome writing, observations, characters

In one sense, how dare we ever presume to be wise enough to critique a master? I can only tell you my personal reactions. This audio was my second encounter with Look Homeward Angel, the first being when I was in my late teens or early 20s. But even back then when I was a silly twit, I recall being impressed. Now, fifty years or so later, I can appreciate it more fully from both a literary and psychologically mature position.

The writing style is very different from books today. Today, we admire pithy writing and admire those who can say a lot in few words. From that perspective, Thomas Wolfe should be a bore for he writes profusely and at length, lingering over details like a lover. Even in a walk down the street meeting unimportant characters, the characters come alive as real persons, full blown, with profound life stories that grip one’s attention. How can we begrudge such details? Likewise, writing teachers today advise us to avoid using adjectives and adverbs. Indeed, reading those who use them much is usually amateurish and boring. Yet Wolfe’s writing is redolent with them and the result is that the story feels intense, opulent with richness, the kind of writing that breaks your heart with it’s beauty. It takes a master to break the rules well.

Scott Sowers is also a master, capturing the nuance of voice in each character so you feel you are in the presence of a real person every time someone new enters the picture.

The problem, and a reason I was tempted to give this masterpiece only four stars, was because it is just overload, too much. Sometimes, in the sameness of depth, I tended to drift mentally. Partly I think this was because, in the density of words and description (and even though he continued to read really, really well) Sowers himself drifted into mechanical reading. That's totally forgivable--it would be hard to read for so long without doing that. It is equally hard for the readers to be on the bleeding edge of such intensity for long periods.

But, Look Homeward Angel is clearly a masterpiece of writing, immersing us in a richness of the times and of the interconnection of life and told with such a mastery of language that everyone should read it at least once. In audio form, that is even better. My advice is that it would be good to do it in shorter bursts rather than for long periods at a time, so that it remains fresh rather than becoming overload.

Glad I powered through

A lot of prose and it was made better by narration. I'm glad I took the time to listen.

Flawed Genius

A man chronicles his escape from the constraints that his father struggled against and his mother embraced.

Not enough and too much

Another reviewer wrote something like “great writing; boring story” and I agree. I get lost in the long long stream of gorgeously constructed syntax which seem to support no similarly powerful prose. I’m giving up. Usually, I will stick around when something is so beautifully written, but geez—for the life of me, it feels like all frosting with nothing of substance underneath. I love frosting. But even for me, there has to be some kind of well crafter cake to support all that frosting.

A tedious coming of age story

Being from the South I was looking forward to listening to a NC author. The story, however, was incredibly long with psychotic/neurotic family members and a self centered protagonist. There were interesting things to be learned about subjects the main character was studying. Somethings about Shakespeare I had never heard before. But there was so much fighting, angst and focus on sex that it was a bit of a slog. So not my favorite read. However the narrator was great.