Look Homeward, Angel

Look Homeward, Angel
	Look Homeward, Angel on Google Books
Author	Thomas Wolfe
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Coming of Age
Genre	Bildungsroman
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1929
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	544 pp
OCLC	220422413

Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried life is Thomas Wolfe's first novel, which was later adapted for a play of the same title. Published in 1929, it is considered highly autobiographical, with Wolfe using the character of Eugene Gant as a sort of stand-in for himself. The novel runs from birth to the age of nineteen in the fictional town and state of Altamont, Catawba, which is considered to be a not-so-subtle mirror of his hometown, Asheville, North Carolina, and the novel is a semi-famous American Bildungsroman, which is today most read and most popular with younger audiences [1].

History

It is believed that a stone statue of an angel, found in a Hendersonville, North Carolina cemetery, looking to the east was part of the inspiration for this work. A highway marker located on Highway 64, or 6th Avenue West in Hendersonville, at an entrance to Oakdale Cemetery, contains this information.

The title comes from the poem "Lycidas" by John Milton.

Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth:

And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth. (163-164)

Wolfe began the novel in 1926, which he said would delve in to "the strange and bitter magic of life." The novel was written in a period of twenty months of breakneck writing. After the project was completed Wolfe gave the vast manuscript to Scribner Editor Maxwell Perkins. Though Perkins was impressed with the young author's talent, he demanded that the novel be revised and massively cut back. The two sat down and worked through themselves, and it was later published in 1929, after having cut some sixty thousand words to make it more readable and focused. Wolfe later became insecure about the editing process that led to the completed novel, feeling that Perkins had had almost as much a hand in the final product as him and that the novel was almost as much Perkins' as it was his. This would lead to an estrangement between them which resulted in Wolfe leaving Scribner, though he later made amends with Perkins while on his deathbed in 1938.

Much of the novel is autobiographic. Descrptions Altamont, Catawba are based on Asheville, North Carolina, where Wolfe grew up,[2], and, the descriptions of people and family are so thinly veiled that the subsecquent publishing and success of the novel led to an estrangement of sorts between him and many in his hometown of Asheville. Some of which is said to have inspired his later novel You Can't go Home Again.

Style

Wolfe is characterized as an American Romantic in a time period of modernist writers like Hemingway and Steinbeck. It was often classified as such because of the powerfully emotional quality of much of the style, the same quality that led to a sort of sprawling prose that was praised then but mostly condemned in the literary criticism of the last half century; his prose was praised and is now often damned for this elaborate and meandering style, with critics then claiming the writing was brilliant and critics now contending it shows an immature and unfocused writer. The book itself is written in a "stream of consciousness" narrative at a the same time that others, such as William Faulkner, were giving it credibility, and could also be classified as Southern Gothic.

Plot

The book is divided into three parts, with a total of forty chapters. The first ninety pages of the book deal with an early biography of Gant's parents, very closely based on the actual history of Wolfe's own mother and father. It begins with his father, Oliver's decision to become a stone cutter after seeing a statue of a stone angel.

Part One

Oliver Gant's first marriage ends in tragedy, and he becomes a raging alcoholic afterwards, which becomes his major struggle throughout his life. He eventually remarries after roaming the countryside, builds his new wife a house, and commences to start a family. The couple is beset with tragedy, as their first daughter dies of cholera at two months old, while two more die during childbirth. In the wake of these losses, Oliver is sent to Richmond for a "cure", to little success and becomes abusive to his family at times, threatening to kill his second wife Eliza (Eugene Gant's mother) in one drunken incident. The two remain together however, and have a total of six surviving children, with the oldest, Steve, born in 1894.

Eugene's father is drunk downstairs while his mother gives birth to him in a difficult labor. Oliver Gant forms a special bond with his son from very early on. He begins to gets his drinking under control except for occasional binges, though his marriage begins to come under increasing strain as Eliza's patience with him grows thinner, and by the fifth chapter they are no longer sleeping in the same bedroom. Though, during all this time he is especially fond of his youngest son Eugene, with whom he makes a special bond.

Despite his problems and flaws, Oliver Gant is the family's fire, reading Shakespeare, having his daughter Helen read poetry, and keeping great fires burning in the house, symbolic of him as a source of warmth for the family. His gusto is source of energy and strength for the family[3]. Shortly after this he journey's to California for the last time, returning home much to joy of his family[4]. At this point Eugene is six years old and begins to attend school. He has a love of books, and is a very bright young boy to the pride of both his parents who each try to claim credit for it. His mother continues to baby him, unwilling to see him him grow up. She doesn't cut his hair, even though he is teased about it's length by the other boys[5].

During this portion of the book his early education takes place, including several incidents of trouble with his teachers. But, more importantly, it begins to deal with his racial views in the deep South at the turn of the century. He follows his friends examples and taunts people in the Jewish community, and mocks black people[6]. It is this continuing treatment of race that has been one of modern critics strongest attacks on the novel[7].

Critical reputation

Look Homeward, Angel, was published in 1929 to raving reviews in both the North and South. Even it's few critics, who were disparaging to romantic novels in general, acknowledged a degree of brilliance and power in the novel[8]. It remained popular for several decades afterward, but eventually came to be reassessed. Today, as the literary focus has shifted decidedly more towards minimalism and highly focused writing, Wolfe's writings, including Look Homeward, Angel, became to be viewed as those of an undisciplined writer due their extravagantly anti-minimalistic style.

The novels treatment of race and gender certainly constitute a part of this, as it has been perceived as both racist and sexist by some, though it has also occurred because critics have gradually come to criticize his exorbitant writing style, calling him unfocused. Even the autobiographical nature of the novel has come to be viewed as a negative, with some critics calling it a "formless autobiography",[9] though other autobiographical works of fiction are highly valued, critically, works such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Today the novel is mostly ignored as unimportant or not notable enough to study, with many very critical of it, though there are still those in the literary community who value the novel highly, some of whom work together to publish the semiannual Thomas Wolfe Review, a magazine focused on biographical and critical works on Thomas Wolfe[10].

References