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

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.