Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Lately, I've found that I enjoy reading the classics.  My step mother, June, told me that Thomas Wolfe is her cousin.  She has some very old editions of his works on her bookshelf.  June was born and raised in Pennsylvania Dutch  country. Thomas Wolfe's wing of the family had ended up in North Carolina.  Until my journey into the world of writing started, I didn't read much classic literature.  I dismissed it as being too heavy and burdensome.  Now that I read with a writer's eye, I'm glad I finally took the time for Thomas Wolfe.
  
One of the things that is talked about often in my writing seminars is to go deep, linger, dwell.  A reader wants to create in their mind, using only the words on the page, the scenes and characters, get to know them, and love them or hate them.  There are no characters in Look Homeward, Angel that are very likeable.  Eugene Gant is the youngest child of an alcoholic stonecarver and a selfish and miserly mother.  The family is divided when his mother, Eliza buys a boarding house to run, leaves the family home and takes Eugene with her.  The other children move back and forth between their father's unpredictable ways and their mother's drive to build her real estate holdings.

As I read this novel, I became deeply involved in their lives.  Every rich detail of the town they lived in, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, drew me closer.  I was one of them.  The book had a readers guide in the back.  One of the discussion questions was whether a reader felt that Thomas Wolfe's style was brilliantly experimental or undisciplined and unstructured.  Sometimes I thought it was undisciplined.  I found myself skipping over some words that I considered unnecessary.  But then I would stop and think.  What was meaningless to me in the 21st century, was a way of life during the times of the early 20th century.

Look Homeward, Angel is not a book for the modern palate.  If you're looking for a fast, tension filled read this novel is not for you.  If you want to submerse yourself into the life of another era, and become a part of the story then Look Homeward, Angel is worth the time.  I say Thomas Wolfe is a writer who's brilliant.