Look Homeward, Angel (by Thomas Wolfe)
I was drawn to Thomas Wolfe while researching things to do in Asheville, North Carolina a few years ago, and I learned learned through the website, Romantic Asheville, that Wolfe is an Asheville native. I absolutely love Asheville, so my interest was piqued with this knowledge.
Side note, I highly recommend the website Romantic Asheville if you’re looking for information about the area of western North Carolina. They provide a thorough guide to the area and the website is very well organized. I have utilized the website many times.
My research of Wolfe’s work concluded that I should probably start with Look Homeward, Angel as it is considered to be autobiographical of Wolfe’s life and set in a fictional Asheville. The story follows the main character, Eugene Gant, from birth to age 19. The reader gets very acquainted with Eugene’s parents and siblings, as this is one chunky book. The novel actually opens with the beginning of the marriage between Eugene’s parents.
It’s a very long book. The audiobook was approximately a 30-hour read. I noticed that Wolfe spent a lot of time describing locations and seasons while focusing less of the story describing characters and having dialogue. The majority of the story seemed rather serious, so moments of good humor were surprising and welcomed. I was interested in the history one gets exposed to by reading a book published in 1929. The culture and lifestyle are obviously so vastly different from today’s 2022; I like immersing myself in a different time period for awhile. The dynamics of such a large family, and one in which the parents separated, seemed so complex and authentic. Family members argued, disagreed, failed to understand one another, and behaved irrationally while always seeming to be drawn and connected to one other. Sadly difficult when one wanted to grow and expand themselves by leaving the fold. I think Wolfe portrayed a most accurate and real family filled with so many complications. I found Wolfe to be a very unique writer and I am so glad I spent time with the Gant family.
According to the Romantic Asheville website, Thomas Wolfe’s mother’s boarding house currently named “My Old Kentucky Home” has been turned into a museum and is open for tours. This house is depicted in the book, Look Homeward, Angel, as Eugene Gant’s mother’s boarding house named “Dixieland.” Thomas Wolfe is also buried in Asheville’s Riverside Cemetery. Now that I’ve read this book, I feel quite drawn to visiting these locations on my next trip to Asheville.
I’m also interested in reading more of Wolfe’s novels, so I suppose I will be researching the next book of his to read.
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