A review by sotweedfactor
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

3.0

I can see why Thomas Wolfe was critically acclaimed in his time, alongside his contemporaries William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, but retained none of the the fame nor critical appreciation. His prose is sublime, and to my eyes, quite innovative; Wolfe speaks in a truly American way, but retains a linguistic esotericism that conforms with what I see as one of his main thematic thrusts, that the American peoples are founded on directionless nomadism. It is his themes, and chiefly, the way he handles them, that are where he is clearly lesser than Faulkner and Hemingway. Not only are the ideas slightly muddled, being picked up and dropped off randomly (I think especially of his early messaging on randomness' effect on our lives), but he could neither pick the town of Altamont, the Gant family, or Eugene as his primary subject. However, the themes he does faithfully stick to are interesting, which are greed and loneliness. The two work well in tandem as well, as the Gant family's greed provides the small modicum of social critique that acts as the adequate foil to the true personal exploration of loneliness. Overall, I was disappointed in this book, and would only recommend this book to adolescents seeking spiritual fulfillment or those interested in Southern literature.