Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life

by Thomas Wolfe

An elaborate and moving coming-of-age story about Eugene Gant, a restless and energetic character whose passion to experience life takes him from his small, rural hometown in North Carolina to Harvard University and the city of Boston. The novel's pattern is artfully simple--a small town, a large family, high school and college--yet the characters are monumental in their graphic individuality and personality.

• ISBN10: 0613706153
• ISBN13: 9780613706155
• Publish Date: 1 October 1995 (first published 1 January 1920)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 6 April 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Econo-Clad Books, Div. of American Cos., Inc.
• Edition: Turtleback School & Library ed.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 522
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Books are made out of books and many a book has been made out of this one. It lays such a brickwork, you’re almost obliged to read it, fated. But loving it? I couldn’t, not quite. After the first third I was dying for signs of Philip Carey, finding it so paltry and frustrating after something like Of Human Bondage. A metric ton of adjectives and a tenth of the power or story.

The ruinous Gants are mighty memorable, though, and this is the raw material for so many others. Thank you, Thomas Wolfe.

“At last, thought Eugene, I am getting an education. This must be good writing, because it seems so very dull. When it hurts, the dentist says, it does you good. Democracy must be real, because it is so very earnest. It must be a certainty, because it is so elegantly embalmed in this marble mausoleum of language.”

Eugene, you ironist, you.