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O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life
The editing of Thomas Wolfe's first novel, originally titled O Lost, has been the subject of literary argument since its 1929 publication in abridged form as Look Homeward, Angel. This powerful coming-of-age novel tells the rich story of Eugene Gant, a young North Carolina man who longs to escape the confines of his small-town life and his tumultuous family. At the insistence of Maxwell Perkins, the legendary editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, Wolfe cut the typescript by 22 percent. Sixty-six thousand words were omitted for reasons of propriety and publishing economics, as well as to remove material deemed expendable by Perkins. To be published for the first time on October 3, 2000 -- the centenary of Wolfe's birth -- O Lost presents the complete text of the novel's manuscript.For seventy years Wolfe scholars have speculated about the merits of the unpublished complete work and about the editorial process -- particularly the reputed collaboration of Perkins and Wolfe. In order to present this classic novel in its original form as written by Wolfe, the text has been established by Arlyn and Matthew J. Bruccoli from the carbon copy of the typescript and from Wolfe's pencil manuscript. In addition to restoring passages omitted from Look Homeward, Angel, the editors have corrected errors introduced by the typist and other mistakes in the original text and have explicated problematic readings. An introduction and appendixes -- including textual, bibliographical, and explanatory notes -- reconstruct Wolfe's process of creation and place it in the context of the publishing process.
694 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2000
About the author
Thomas Wolfe
417 books1,172 followersPeople best know American writer Thomas Clayton Wolfe for his autobiographical novels, including
Look Homeward, Angel
(1929) and the posthumously published
You Can't Go Home Again
(1940).
Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels and many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He mixed highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. Wolfe wrote and published books that vividly reflect on American culture and the mores, filtered through his sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective. People widely knew him during his own lifetime.
Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Morgan with Gap Creek; Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides, said, "My writing career began the instant I finished Look Homeward, Angel." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Wolfe influenced Ray Bradbury, who included Wolfe as a character in his books.
(from Wikipedia)
Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels and many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He mixed highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. Wolfe wrote and published books that vividly reflect on American culture and the mores, filtered through his sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective. People widely knew him during his own lifetime.
Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Morgan with Gap Creek; Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides, said, "My writing career began the instant I finished Look Homeward, Angel." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Wolfe influenced Ray Bradbury, who included Wolfe as a character in his books.
(from Wikipedia)
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September 14, 2016
Perduto spirito, pianto dal vento, torna ancora
“A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces. […] Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mothers's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of his earth”.
“Un sasso, una foglia, una porta nascosta; di un sasso, una foglia, una porta. E di tutti i volti dimenticati. Nudi e soli siamo venuti in esilio. Nel suo oscuro grembo non conoscemmo il volto di nostra madre: dalla prigione della sua carne siamo giunti all'indescrivibile e indicibile prigione di questa terra.”.
Straordinario, turbolento, inarginabile, eccessivo ragazzo della North Carolina, così si presenta nel 1929 Thomas Clayton Wolfe al più famoso editore del tempo, Max Perkins della Scribners's Son, già scopritore di Hemingway e Fitzgerald. E insieme dall'alto dei suoi due metri e dal basso delle sue stravaganti radici, gli racconta della sua famiglia, di quei personaggi artistici e esuberanti e insopportabili che sono i suoi genitori, dalla cui unione sgangherata discende questo giovane e ambizioso scrittore, ultimo di otto figli, carico e sbandato per via di quella casa nativa colma di tristezza, incomprensione, incuria, solitudine, infelicità. Il padre è uno scalpellino di lapidi e pietre tombali, bevitore capace di declamare tanto Shakespeare quanto John Bunyan; la madre è una donna infaticabile e instabile, con un talento per gli investimenti immobiliari e proprietaria di una pensione che diviene luogo aperto e di passaggio per un'umanità libera, romanzesca e perduta. Così nasce il protagonista del libro, un angelo, uno straniero, un tormentato viaggiatore e ricercatore, con la sua storia fatta di incanto e mistero. Il discorso debordante e inesausto di Wolfe sul romantico mito americano è costituito per descriverne l'incertezza e l'insicurezza come tratti congeniti e più umani, per esprimere nella parola letteraria quello stato di fanciullezza che ha sete di vita ed è insaziabile nella scoperta di sé e del desiderio. In esso si genera il conflitto con il mondo inabissato e fantasma, come dimensione inevitabile di quel viaggio intimo nella grazia della fragile coscienza di sé e nell'anima increata dell'essere umano. La lettura è inquietante e inebriante e si sorregge su una tensione realistica e lirica che si svuota nell'estasi dell'elenco e del catalogo, nel rispecchiare la terra e il paesaggio come forme da abitare in senso psichico e passionale oltre che fisico. Troviamo più Whitman che Joyce quindi a guidare i passi di Eugene che percorre la propria strada nel mondo, inventandola con caotica onestà e intransigente ossessione, includendo l'impulso originario e escludendo la presa sul reale, verso un'immaginazione fantastica che rende tutto possibile, atemporale e metafisico, ma insieme violento e audace. Così T.C. Wolfe traccia l'identità nomade del carattere dell'uomo americano e esplica il cambiamento come spinta necessaria nella sua vocazione all'autentico e al naturale. Nell'uso di toni sarcastici e sentimentali a dipingere lo sfacelo domestico e l'ostilità familiare, in un eterno teatro insonne, Wolfe rivela un profondo senso di empatia e altruismo, un'amara inclinazione alla tenerezza e al suo opposto e contemporaneamente il suo personaggio timido e affascinante, tumultuoso e grandioso si sente aggredito e impedito dall'universo circostante di Altamont, dei Gant e dei Pentland, vedendo nel primo orizzonte, nel cerchio dell'infanzia e della carne un nemico temuto e imbattibile, simbolico e presente, così incarnato nel dolore e nei suoi demoni, in personaggi più grandi del vero, che tradiscono se stessi, perseguitati dalle promesse e dal destino, in un Sud fanatico e visionario. Eugene, il nostro eroe, vi oppone una fede inattaccabile in una sregolata felicità e nella forza primordiale delle cose naturali. Wolfe è uno scrittore eclettico e esistenziale, egocentrico e febbrile, potente e originale; la sua scrittura fluviale è stata descritta dalla critica come indomita e spontanea, senza misura e senza controllo. L'eroe di Wolfe nutre un assoluto disprezzo per l'ignoranza e la vigliaccheria e pronuncia un'irrevocabile condanna per l'odio che il mondo prova per chi non sia nel suo profondo corrotto, sconfitto, idiota. Egli è ossessionato dalla vita come idea di vittoria e da un'epica dell'io che contrasta il negativo ed è rifugio dal degrado. La narrazione impetuosa non celebra il mondo, ma cerca di trascriverlo, di ripeterlo, di assimilarlo dentro di sé, nelle contraddizioni e nelle aporie. Come solo la grande letteratura cerca sempre di fare, cogliendo l'occasione di una poetica e inesauribile speranza, di uno sguardo inedito su una nuova nascita e un antico naufragio.
“Adesso so questo: sono sinceramente convinto di essere inevitabile. Ormai possono fermarmi soltanto la pazzia, o la malattia, o la morte... La vita non è tutta cattiva, ma neppure tutta buona, non è tutta brutta, ma neppure tutta bella; è vita, vita, vita: l'unica cosa che conta. E' selvaggia, crudele, benevola, nobile, appassionata, generosa, stupida, brutta, bella, penosa, gioiosa, è tutto questo e altro ancora, e io voglio conoscerlo; e per Dio lo conoscerò, dovessero pure crocifiggermi. Andrò in capo al mondo per trovarlo, per comprenderlo. Quando avrò finito conoscerò questo paese come il palmo della mano, e lo metterò nero su bianco, e ne farò qualcosa di vero e di bello”.
Da una lettera alla madre Elizabeth.
“A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces. […] Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mothers's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of his earth”.
“Un sasso, una foglia, una porta nascosta; di un sasso, una foglia, una porta. E di tutti i volti dimenticati. Nudi e soli siamo venuti in esilio. Nel suo oscuro grembo non conoscemmo il volto di nostra madre: dalla prigione della sua carne siamo giunti all'indescrivibile e indicibile prigione di questa terra.”.
Straordinario, turbolento, inarginabile, eccessivo ragazzo della North Carolina, così si presenta nel 1929 Thomas Clayton Wolfe al più famoso editore del tempo, Max Perkins della Scribners's Son, già scopritore di Hemingway e Fitzgerald. E insieme dall'alto dei suoi due metri e dal basso delle sue stravaganti radici, gli racconta della sua famiglia, di quei personaggi artistici e esuberanti e insopportabili che sono i suoi genitori, dalla cui unione sgangherata discende questo giovane e ambizioso scrittore, ultimo di otto figli, carico e sbandato per via di quella casa nativa colma di tristezza, incomprensione, incuria, solitudine, infelicità. Il padre è uno scalpellino di lapidi e pietre tombali, bevitore capace di declamare tanto Shakespeare quanto John Bunyan; la madre è una donna infaticabile e instabile, con un talento per gli investimenti immobiliari e proprietaria di una pensione che diviene luogo aperto e di passaggio per un'umanità libera, romanzesca e perduta. Così nasce il protagonista del libro, un angelo, uno straniero, un tormentato viaggiatore e ricercatore, con la sua storia fatta di incanto e mistero. Il discorso debordante e inesausto di Wolfe sul romantico mito americano è costituito per descriverne l'incertezza e l'insicurezza come tratti congeniti e più umani, per esprimere nella parola letteraria quello stato di fanciullezza che ha sete di vita ed è insaziabile nella scoperta di sé e del desiderio. In esso si genera il conflitto con il mondo inabissato e fantasma, come dimensione inevitabile di quel viaggio intimo nella grazia della fragile coscienza di sé e nell'anima increata dell'essere umano. La lettura è inquietante e inebriante e si sorregge su una tensione realistica e lirica che si svuota nell'estasi dell'elenco e del catalogo, nel rispecchiare la terra e il paesaggio come forme da abitare in senso psichico e passionale oltre che fisico. Troviamo più Whitman che Joyce quindi a guidare i passi di Eugene che percorre la propria strada nel mondo, inventandola con caotica onestà e intransigente ossessione, includendo l'impulso originario e escludendo la presa sul reale, verso un'immaginazione fantastica che rende tutto possibile, atemporale e metafisico, ma insieme violento e audace. Così T.C. Wolfe traccia l'identità nomade del carattere dell'uomo americano e esplica il cambiamento come spinta necessaria nella sua vocazione all'autentico e al naturale. Nell'uso di toni sarcastici e sentimentali a dipingere lo sfacelo domestico e l'ostilità familiare, in un eterno teatro insonne, Wolfe rivela un profondo senso di empatia e altruismo, un'amara inclinazione alla tenerezza e al suo opposto e contemporaneamente il suo personaggio timido e affascinante, tumultuoso e grandioso si sente aggredito e impedito dall'universo circostante di Altamont, dei Gant e dei Pentland, vedendo nel primo orizzonte, nel cerchio dell'infanzia e della carne un nemico temuto e imbattibile, simbolico e presente, così incarnato nel dolore e nei suoi demoni, in personaggi più grandi del vero, che tradiscono se stessi, perseguitati dalle promesse e dal destino, in un Sud fanatico e visionario. Eugene, il nostro eroe, vi oppone una fede inattaccabile in una sregolata felicità e nella forza primordiale delle cose naturali. Wolfe è uno scrittore eclettico e esistenziale, egocentrico e febbrile, potente e originale; la sua scrittura fluviale è stata descritta dalla critica come indomita e spontanea, senza misura e senza controllo. L'eroe di Wolfe nutre un assoluto disprezzo per l'ignoranza e la vigliaccheria e pronuncia un'irrevocabile condanna per l'odio che il mondo prova per chi non sia nel suo profondo corrotto, sconfitto, idiota. Egli è ossessionato dalla vita come idea di vittoria e da un'epica dell'io che contrasta il negativo ed è rifugio dal degrado. La narrazione impetuosa non celebra il mondo, ma cerca di trascriverlo, di ripeterlo, di assimilarlo dentro di sé, nelle contraddizioni e nelle aporie. Come solo la grande letteratura cerca sempre di fare, cogliendo l'occasione di una poetica e inesauribile speranza, di uno sguardo inedito su una nuova nascita e un antico naufragio.
“Adesso so questo: sono sinceramente convinto di essere inevitabile. Ormai possono fermarmi soltanto la pazzia, o la malattia, o la morte... La vita non è tutta cattiva, ma neppure tutta buona, non è tutta brutta, ma neppure tutta bella; è vita, vita, vita: l'unica cosa che conta. E' selvaggia, crudele, benevola, nobile, appassionata, generosa, stupida, brutta, bella, penosa, gioiosa, è tutto questo e altro ancora, e io voglio conoscerlo; e per Dio lo conoscerò, dovessero pure crocifiggermi. Andrò in capo al mondo per trovarlo, per comprenderlo. Quando avrò finito conoscerò questo paese come il palmo della mano, e lo metterò nero su bianco, e ne farò qualcosa di vero e di bello”.
Da una lettera alla madre Elizabeth.
June 14, 2013
Maxwell Perkins, legendary editor for Scribner & Sons, had a 'stable' of writers that included; Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. At one point in his career, William Faulkner wanted to join the fold, but Perkins scotched that idea, as it would have certainly meant losing Hemingway who was intimidated by Faulkner's talent. For years, I, along with most of the literary world, held Perkins in high regard because of his success. However, we can thank Matthew J Bruccoli, who became interested in the undoctored manuscript of 'O Lost' that Wolfe originally presented to publishers. He has shed new light upon the Perkins mystique. Wolfe offered the book to Perkins after three previous publishers, who all declined the genius of its achievement. Perkins however, at least recognized something of the talent before him and went about the business of editing what became, 'Look Homeward Angel.' That editing was intended to meet constrictions of space along with some the mores of the time. While pale by today's markets (I could hardly call much of what we have today as meeting 'standards'), the scenes in question included the seductions of Eugene Gant often with married women and other times with prostitutes.
I'd read a good portion of 'Look Homeward Angel,' before acquiring 'O Lost' and after one evening of seeing how drastically Perkins altered the fabric of Wolfe's genius, I put down 'LHA' and stuck with the original text. I'm convinced as I suspect Mr. Bruccoli was, that Max Perkins was a great editor because he had great writers to work with. He was good at the mechanics of getting a book to the public, in fact he excelled at it, but I do not believe he understood Wolfe as well as either he, we or even Wolfe himself believed. Remember, Wolfe was desperate to publish after the three rejections. Rejection was something Wolfe, a powerfully sensitive artistic temperament, could not tolerate. The crux of Perkins' approach was threefold, first, he had to bring down the word count to appease his publisher, Scribner & Sons. Publishing costs were very high in Wolfe's time, because books, even galleys and proofs all had to be set by hand. Then there was pricing. More words meant more cost, meant a higher price in stores and generally, fewer sales. The cuts to meet the mores of their time were questionably necessary, although Perkins actually wanted little of that at first. However, the third calculation was Perkins' chief mistake: to make Eugene Gant (aka Wolfe's fictional alter ego) the central protagonist. In doing so, great swaths of material about the Gant family and other characters who like layers of an onion, comprise the whole of its substance, are reconfigured, butchered and in the case of W. O. Gant, Eugene's debauched, alcoholic father, entire chapters of invaluable text are simply erased altogether. See Elizabeth Newell's [Wolfe's literary agent]biography of Wolfe; wherein Perkins, in detail, lays out this gaffe as his intention. Thank goodness for 'O Lost.' It is a glorious book that reveals Thomas Wolfe as perhaps our true, great American literary genius. Twain and Whitman had their entire lives to produce their work; Twain being nothing if not prodigious and Whitman revising one single volume for the length of his career. Wolfe's achievements were astonishing, given his early death at thirty-seven years. I put neither Fitzgerald (whose talent was immense, but his achievement not warranting the accolade) nor Hemingway (whose talent had limits and his scope regarding the human condition, even more so)in this category and Faulkner spent vast stretches of his career lost in the Byzantine corruptions of Hollywood, which took years of his power hostage. 'O Lost' does at times seem in want of constraint, but Wolfe is only using longstanding literary devices, some of which; his penchant for lists and the repetition of phrases, are as old as the Bible and Homer before that. The book is richly textured, the characters so fully dimensional we can smell them, at times even able to sense how each of them breaths. Perkin's cuts and reworking of material severely damages that fabric. For example; he chopped off the entirety of W. O. Gant's young years before becoming a stone cutter. The result is a two dimensional, mean, petulant man. Those early years show us that Gant's foibles and defects were in deed part of a depth of character and they allow for the true tragedy of his small minded fears in contrast to his gargantuan appetites, which were developed through years of hard labor on farm and in the army.
'O Lost' restores such vital character counterweights and gives us an incredible book that has influenced major writers from Kerouac to Cormac McCarthy. For proof, read Wolfe's denouements of Eugene Gant's farewell to Mrs. Prim in 'O Lost' and then the farewell of Cornelius Suttree and Tripping in the Dew in Cormac McCarthy's 'Suttree.' Read also Kerouac's denouement between Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. All three are breathless in their heartbreak, but it is Wolfe who influenced these other icons of American letters. His genius shines in 'O Lost' and no grasp of American Literature or Thomas Wolfe, is complete without this book.
I'd read a good portion of 'Look Homeward Angel,' before acquiring 'O Lost' and after one evening of seeing how drastically Perkins altered the fabric of Wolfe's genius, I put down 'LHA' and stuck with the original text. I'm convinced as I suspect Mr. Bruccoli was, that Max Perkins was a great editor because he had great writers to work with. He was good at the mechanics of getting a book to the public, in fact he excelled at it, but I do not believe he understood Wolfe as well as either he, we or even Wolfe himself believed. Remember, Wolfe was desperate to publish after the three rejections. Rejection was something Wolfe, a powerfully sensitive artistic temperament, could not tolerate. The crux of Perkins' approach was threefold, first, he had to bring down the word count to appease his publisher, Scribner & Sons. Publishing costs were very high in Wolfe's time, because books, even galleys and proofs all had to be set by hand. Then there was pricing. More words meant more cost, meant a higher price in stores and generally, fewer sales. The cuts to meet the mores of their time were questionably necessary, although Perkins actually wanted little of that at first. However, the third calculation was Perkins' chief mistake: to make Eugene Gant (aka Wolfe's fictional alter ego) the central protagonist. In doing so, great swaths of material about the Gant family and other characters who like layers of an onion, comprise the whole of its substance, are reconfigured, butchered and in the case of W. O. Gant, Eugene's debauched, alcoholic father, entire chapters of invaluable text are simply erased altogether. See Elizabeth Newell's [Wolfe's literary agent]biography of Wolfe; wherein Perkins, in detail, lays out this gaffe as his intention. Thank goodness for 'O Lost.' It is a glorious book that reveals Thomas Wolfe as perhaps our true, great American literary genius. Twain and Whitman had their entire lives to produce their work; Twain being nothing if not prodigious and Whitman revising one single volume for the length of his career. Wolfe's achievements were astonishing, given his early death at thirty-seven years. I put neither Fitzgerald (whose talent was immense, but his achievement not warranting the accolade) nor Hemingway (whose talent had limits and his scope regarding the human condition, even more so)in this category and Faulkner spent vast stretches of his career lost in the Byzantine corruptions of Hollywood, which took years of his power hostage. 'O Lost' does at times seem in want of constraint, but Wolfe is only using longstanding literary devices, some of which; his penchant for lists and the repetition of phrases, are as old as the Bible and Homer before that. The book is richly textured, the characters so fully dimensional we can smell them, at times even able to sense how each of them breaths. Perkin's cuts and reworking of material severely damages that fabric. For example; he chopped off the entirety of W. O. Gant's young years before becoming a stone cutter. The result is a two dimensional, mean, petulant man. Those early years show us that Gant's foibles and defects were in deed part of a depth of character and they allow for the true tragedy of his small minded fears in contrast to his gargantuan appetites, which were developed through years of hard labor on farm and in the army.
'O Lost' restores such vital character counterweights and gives us an incredible book that has influenced major writers from Kerouac to Cormac McCarthy. For proof, read Wolfe's denouements of Eugene Gant's farewell to Mrs. Prim in 'O Lost' and then the farewell of Cornelius Suttree and Tripping in the Dew in Cormac McCarthy's 'Suttree.' Read also Kerouac's denouement between Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. All three are breathless in their heartbreak, but it is Wolfe who influenced these other icons of American letters. His genius shines in 'O Lost' and no grasp of American Literature or Thomas Wolfe, is complete without this book.
July 18, 2012
Read the first ninety pages of this book and ask yourself if you'd have cut them from the book that became Look Homeward, Angel. I'd sooner slash Hamlet's speech.
December 12, 2022
A very favorite book!
May 31, 2020
This is the version of Thomas Wolfe's 1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel that was published in October 2000, the centennial of Thomas's birth. If you've already read Look Homeward, Angel (I hadn't), you'll find this version much longer because it contains the 66,000 words that his editor at Scribners, Max Perkins, took out. Max Perkins wanted the novel to be more of a coming-of-age tale about Thomas's alter ego Eugene "'Gene" Gant instead of the finely wrought panorama of the North Carolina town of Altamont (Asheville in real life) and all of its inhabitants, the Gant family included, that Thomas had originally intended. As you can see, the cover also has a different title, O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life. That was Thomas Wolfe's original title. Max Perkins changed the title to Look Homeward, Angel, which I have to say I still prefer, especially now that I've read the book. It crystallizes the premise of this gorgeously woven narrative in a poetic manner consistent with the author's poetic illustrations of Eugene's inner turmoil throughout his journey.
Yes, in this restored version, Eugene is still the protagonist, and this is still very much a coming-of-age saga. After going into how his father winds up in Altamont after two failed marriages, tries for number three with a local mountain girl named Julia and has several kids with her, the thrust of the narrative starts with the birth of their last child Eugene, which, like Thomas Wolfe's birth in real life, takes place in October 1900. The book ends in the summer of 1920 after 'Gene's graduation at the age of 19 from the university at Pulpit Hill (the stand-in for the Unversity of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where Thomas went in real life).
In between is easily one of the most beautifully written stories I've ever laid eyes on, peopled by characters who pop out of the prose thanks to their creator's literary prowess, so much so that you feel you're friends with them by the end. Altamont is a small North Carolina mountain town, yet the author makes you believe it is vast like the universe, and its inhabitants are as varied and complex and many-layered as the heavenly bodies: beautiful, deeply flawed, tragic, never changing, always changing.
Thomas Wolfe's vocabulary range seemingly knew no boundaries. I'm not sure I've ever come across a novel with a setting so acutely rendered. And by acute, I do not just mean Thomas's eye for the most minute detail. I also mean his bottomless well of affection for his hometown. He, like Eugene, could be very ambivalent about Asheville/Altamont, but make no mistake. He could never have written a book like this if a large part of his heart didn't always reside on Spruce Street at the Old Kentucky Home (Dixieland in the novel). The only thing as profound as that affection was his empathy for everyone who lived there, even those he/Eugene didn't get along with or was, at least outwardly, not very fond of.
It took me ten weeks to finish this opus. I read it almost every day, but with prose like this, it pays to pace yourself and immerse yourself in it and soak up this man's superlative diction.
This "Angel" will stay with me for a long time.
Yes, in this restored version, Eugene is still the protagonist, and this is still very much a coming-of-age saga. After going into how his father winds up in Altamont after two failed marriages, tries for number three with a local mountain girl named Julia and has several kids with her, the thrust of the narrative starts with the birth of their last child Eugene, which, like Thomas Wolfe's birth in real life, takes place in October 1900. The book ends in the summer of 1920 after 'Gene's graduation at the age of 19 from the university at Pulpit Hill (the stand-in for the Unversity of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where Thomas went in real life).
In between is easily one of the most beautifully written stories I've ever laid eyes on, peopled by characters who pop out of the prose thanks to their creator's literary prowess, so much so that you feel you're friends with them by the end. Altamont is a small North Carolina mountain town, yet the author makes you believe it is vast like the universe, and its inhabitants are as varied and complex and many-layered as the heavenly bodies: beautiful, deeply flawed, tragic, never changing, always changing.
Thomas Wolfe's vocabulary range seemingly knew no boundaries. I'm not sure I've ever come across a novel with a setting so acutely rendered. And by acute, I do not just mean Thomas's eye for the most minute detail. I also mean his bottomless well of affection for his hometown. He, like Eugene, could be very ambivalent about Asheville/Altamont, but make no mistake. He could never have written a book like this if a large part of his heart didn't always reside on Spruce Street at the Old Kentucky Home (Dixieland in the novel). The only thing as profound as that affection was his empathy for everyone who lived there, even those he/Eugene didn't get along with or was, at least outwardly, not very fond of.
It took me ten weeks to finish this opus. I read it almost every day, but with prose like this, it pays to pace yourself and immerse yourself in it and soak up this man's superlative diction.
This "Angel" will stay with me for a long time.
September 13, 2017
La storia di Wolfe e della sua famiglia nell'America di inizio secolo. Un romanzo dove a essere messa in risalto non è la storia con la S maiuscola ma soprattutto la natura umana, la diversità dei caratteri, la follia che sembra intrinseca ad ogni persona, i desideri, le aspirazioni, le marginalità.
Un'opera fiuma potente ed impetuosa, lirica e poetica, a tratti patetica ed esagerata, ma che non può lasciare indifferenti.
Una storia di inquietudine e ricerca impossibile. La vera protagonista è la Fame Insaziabile che consuma tutti i personaggi, e che assume per ognuno un significato diverso, emergendo più o meno chiaramente dalle oscure nebulose dell'anima.
Un'opera fiuma potente ed impetuosa, lirica e poetica, a tratti patetica ed esagerata, ma che non può lasciare indifferenti.
Una storia di inquietudine e ricerca impossibile. La vera protagonista è la Fame Insaziabile che consuma tutti i personaggi, e che assume per ognuno un significato diverso, emergendo più o meno chiaramente dalle oscure nebulose dell'anima.
April 28, 2014
This is the original version of Look Homeward Angel which, of course, is the great American classic written by Thomas Wolfe and published in 1929 to the absolute consternation of the citizens of Ashville, North Carolina (called Altamont in the book). This version of the book starts in 1863 at the battle of Gettysburg when Eugene Gant's (Thomas Wolfe) grandfather fights in the battle and has contact with Fitzhugh Lee, the son of Robert E Lee and the book tells us of Gant's background and the interesting fact that Julia, Eugene's mother, was his third wife, his first marriage ending in a messy, for that time, divorce with Gant being accused of other thing being impotent, and his second marriage ended in the death of his wife named Cynthia and he carried a picture of her around with him until his dying day. You know, as I read this book again, I really begin to appreciate the brilliant writing of Wolfe and if any of my fellow readers are anywhere near Asheville North Carolina, I would heartily recommend a visit to to his boyhood home which is located in downtown Asheville right across from the Radisson Hotel and then you need to get in the car and follow a windy drive to Riverside cemetery, actually it is only a mile or so as a crow flies but you know how that goes, see the graves of Thomas Wolfe and his mother and his father and his brothers including the ill fated Ben.
Frank
Frank
October 16, 2010
Look Homeward, Angel was one of those books that changed my life. I read it maybe 20 years ago, and my memory of it now is that it was simply perfect. Wolfe was someone who's work was beyond question for me, accepting that if something in the book was written a certain way, well I was sure he had a reason and if I thought something was out of place or could be improved I was probably not thinking about it hard enough.
In any case, I picked up "O Lost" to see if there was something I had missed through excessive editing. I did like some of the background material from the first part of the book but by and large it did not add (or detract) from my existing impression of the work. I would say worth reading if you are focused on the details.
In any case, I picked up "O Lost" to see if there was something I had missed through excessive editing. I did like some of the background material from the first part of the book but by and large it did not add (or detract) from my existing impression of the work. I would say worth reading if you are focused on the details.
January 1, 2015
Of the 662 pages in small font, I managed some 360.
I loved the lyrical prose, the wise eye. The attitudes of a past era were fascinating, the racism blatant.
It's a huge work and I can truly understand why it was published originally in reduced form. About half-way in it wanders off on unintelligible tangents, distracts itself utterly.
So many characters wander in and out that the novel feels like a thoroughfare.
Where Wolfe confines himself to his protagonist, the story line is rich, though often sad.
It was worth reading at least half the novel, simply for the sake of experiencing that time, those places, his life.
I loved the lyrical prose, the wise eye. The attitudes of a past era were fascinating, the racism blatant.
It's a huge work and I can truly understand why it was published originally in reduced form. About half-way in it wanders off on unintelligible tangents, distracts itself utterly.
So many characters wander in and out that the novel feels like a thoroughfare.
Where Wolfe confines himself to his protagonist, the story line is rich, though often sad.
It was worth reading at least half the novel, simply for the sake of experiencing that time, those places, his life.
Want to Read
September 14, 2010I picked this up at the library yesterday and read the intro, noting the difference between this original of Wolfe's, and his truncated Look Homeward, Angel. I am intrigued. Apparently, Look Homeward was cut down to Eugene's point of view, where the original novel was more sprawling...and who among us Look Homeward readers would not want MORE of that amazing work??
November 15, 2022
O Lost, versión original no recortada de la famosa novela de Thomas Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel
Esta última ha sido traducida al español por José Ferrer Aleu como El ángel que nos mira y por Miguel Ángel Pérez como La mirada del ángel
Valoración: 5/5
Traducciones:
Miguel Ángel Pérez (Trotalibros): 3/5
José Ferrer Aleu (Valdemar/Bruguera): 3/5
•
“Todas las familias, las felices y las desdichadas, se parecen, aunque cada una a su modo”
He parafraseado (es decir, modificado) las líneas iniciales de Anna Karenina para aplicárselas a la gran novela de Thomas Wolfe, publicada en 1929.
•
La visión narrativa de Wolfe, uno de los grandes escritores norteamericanos del siglo XX, era sin duda tributaria de la de Walt Whitman, solo que Wolfe quiso contar América a través de la historia de dos familias: los Gant y los Pentland, cada una con su visión del mundo. Quizás lo que no previó Wolfe es que en esa saga no solo vería cada americano la de su familia, sino también un lector español como quien esto firma.
•
A ese tema unificador de su narrativa, se suman otros, como el discurrir del tiempo y la imposibilidad de expresar lo que pensamos o de abrir la última puerta hacia el destino buscado.
•
Tras una poda editorial de 66.000 palabras del original (O Lost), la novela quedó reducida a un bildungsroman, el de Eugene Gant, con claras influencias de Joyce (tanto de Retrato del artista adolescente, también un bildungsroman, como de Ulises), pero en una prosa lírica de mayor belleza. Una prosa que, precisamente por su lirismo, ha fascinado a otros escritores, desde Fitzgerald a Peter Handke.
•
Tanto O Lost, como la posterior Of time and the river y sus novelas cortas y cuentos, se desprendía de esa única narrativa whitmaniana de Wolfe, inspirada en las sagas de sus linajes paterno y materno, que, como señaló un crítico del Evening Sun en 1935, era como el rio Mississipi: cenagoso y portador de todo tipo de escombros, pero majestuoso y poderoso, terrible y hermoso en su imparable avance.
•
En las hemerotecas de la época vemos que hasta su temprana muerte (37 años) Wolfe fue aclamado por lectores y crítica. Luego se produjo su “cancelación” progresiva, en parte por la hostilidad de los círculos literarios elitistas de la costa este contra un advenedizo del sur al que consideraban un paleto, en parte por considerar que su lenguaje lírico no era suficientemente modernista y, sobre todo, por la incomodidad que causaban las expresiones derogatorias en boca de sus narradores y personajes hacia judíos y negros. El siniestro crítico judío-americano Harold Bloom nunca se lo perdonó.
•
Wolfe es un autor que sufre especialmente al ser traducido. No es el mismo Wolfe el traducido por José Ferrer Aleu que el de Miguel Ángel Pérez (Trotalibros). Ferrer es menos fiel a la literalidad del original, pero más a su gran estilo; Pérez más literal (a veces absurdamente literal), pero más prosaico, menos Wolfe quizás. Ambos en ocasiones fallan en la correcta interpretación del original; en otras palabras, es como si no hubiesen entendido el inglés de Wolfe y hubiesen hecho una paráfrasis aproximada de lo que entendían. Ninguna merece más de 3/5.
Esta última ha sido traducida al español por José Ferrer Aleu como El ángel que nos mira y por Miguel Ángel Pérez como La mirada del ángel
Valoración: 5/5
Traducciones:
Miguel Ángel Pérez (Trotalibros): 3/5
José Ferrer Aleu (Valdemar/Bruguera): 3/5
•
“Todas las familias, las felices y las desdichadas, se parecen, aunque cada una a su modo”
He parafraseado (es decir, modificado) las líneas iniciales de Anna Karenina para aplicárselas a la gran novela de Thomas Wolfe, publicada en 1929.
•
La visión narrativa de Wolfe, uno de los grandes escritores norteamericanos del siglo XX, era sin duda tributaria de la de Walt Whitman, solo que Wolfe quiso contar América a través de la historia de dos familias: los Gant y los Pentland, cada una con su visión del mundo. Quizás lo que no previó Wolfe es que en esa saga no solo vería cada americano la de su familia, sino también un lector español como quien esto firma.
•
A ese tema unificador de su narrativa, se suman otros, como el discurrir del tiempo y la imposibilidad de expresar lo que pensamos o de abrir la última puerta hacia el destino buscado.
•
Tras una poda editorial de 66.000 palabras del original (O Lost), la novela quedó reducida a un bildungsroman, el de Eugene Gant, con claras influencias de Joyce (tanto de Retrato del artista adolescente, también un bildungsroman, como de Ulises), pero en una prosa lírica de mayor belleza. Una prosa que, precisamente por su lirismo, ha fascinado a otros escritores, desde Fitzgerald a Peter Handke.
•
Tanto O Lost, como la posterior Of time and the river y sus novelas cortas y cuentos, se desprendía de esa única narrativa whitmaniana de Wolfe, inspirada en las sagas de sus linajes paterno y materno, que, como señaló un crítico del Evening Sun en 1935, era como el rio Mississipi: cenagoso y portador de todo tipo de escombros, pero majestuoso y poderoso, terrible y hermoso en su imparable avance.
•
En las hemerotecas de la época vemos que hasta su temprana muerte (37 años) Wolfe fue aclamado por lectores y crítica. Luego se produjo su “cancelación” progresiva, en parte por la hostilidad de los círculos literarios elitistas de la costa este contra un advenedizo del sur al que consideraban un paleto, en parte por considerar que su lenguaje lírico no era suficientemente modernista y, sobre todo, por la incomodidad que causaban las expresiones derogatorias en boca de sus narradores y personajes hacia judíos y negros. El siniestro crítico judío-americano Harold Bloom nunca se lo perdonó.
•
Wolfe es un autor que sufre especialmente al ser traducido. No es el mismo Wolfe el traducido por José Ferrer Aleu que el de Miguel Ángel Pérez (Trotalibros). Ferrer es menos fiel a la literalidad del original, pero más a su gran estilo; Pérez más literal (a veces absurdamente literal), pero más prosaico, menos Wolfe quizás. Ambos en ocasiones fallan en la correcta interpretación del original; en otras palabras, es como si no hubiesen entendido el inglés de Wolfe y hubiesen hecho una paráfrasis aproximada de lo que entendían. Ninguna merece más de 3/5.
April 2, 2016
I decided to reread Look Homeward Angel (my favorite book in college), but after discovering that O Lost was the actual full manuscript of LHA - all 300,000 words give or take a few - reading the original version was tempting. It's not light summer reading but is a must-read for admirers of Faulkner/early 20th C. American realism. Wolfe's prose is dense and ornate but simultaneously lyrical and ethereal, and sometimes magical or surreal, especially in passages like this where the young protagonist, Eugene, is wakened before dawn for his paper route: "Staggering blindly in the whitewashed glare his eyes, sleep-corded, opened slowly as anew he was born, umbilically cut, from darkness...Waken, ghost-eared boy, but into darkness. Waken phantom, O into us. Try, try, O try the way. Open the wall of light. Ghost, ghost, who is the ghost? O lost...O whispertongued laughter...A voice, sleepstrange and loud, forever farnear, spoke. Eugene! Spoke, ceased, continued without speaking, to speak. In him spoke. Where darkness, son, is light..." O Lost follows the life of Eugene Gant from before his birth to adulthood and is autobiographical fiction; the Gant family mirrors Wolfe's familial history.
May 17, 2020
The story is that though Thomas Wolfe's first masterpiece, Look Homeward, Angel, was a huge success upon its release in 1929 and is a classic to this day, the original manuscript that Wolfe turned into celebrated editor, Maxwell Perkins, who also edited Hemingway and Fitzgerald, was a greater work, a lengthier, wilder tale of Wolfe's childhood, particularly the first part about the main character's ancestors, which was entirely excised from Look Homeward, Angel. O Lost proves emphatically that Perkins fucked up. He was right to cut a few sections here and there, but the opening, a horribly dark family saga of the 1800s, is among Wolfe's grandest tales, yet it wasn't published until the year 2000.
In 2020, O Lost is the sort of book one has to bid for on Ebay and needs to be reprinted at a reasonable price with a paperback edition.
In 2020, O Lost is the sort of book one has to bid for on Ebay and needs to be reprinted at a reasonable price with a paperback edition.
March 8, 2020
I *finally* finished this book, after having put it down for a year when not quite half through it. I'm glad I decided to finish it. It certainly can be a difficult read sometimes and, as others have pointed out, Wolfe can go off on tangents (long ones) of long prose. But, it's some of the most descriptive writing I've ever come across and, once I re-engaged in the book, I somehow found the flow and enjoyed the story.
It's easy to see where sections of the book would have been edited out for publishing, but frankly, I'm glad I went for the original version to see what Wolfe intended.
It's easy to see where sections of the book would have been edited out for publishing, but frankly, I'm glad I went for the original version to see what Wolfe intended.
March 19, 2013
Took me five years--not continuously--to finish this brick of a book. When I was 15 I thought Wolfe was genius. Now I could easily edit this down to 1/3 of its length. A sample of words found in O, Lost! that one does not hear in regular conversation:
phthisic
ptotic
esemplastic
scrofulic
flensing (a verb apparently)
prognathous
phthisic
ptotic
esemplastic
scrofulic
flensing (a verb apparently)
prognathous
October 15, 2016
Read the first ninety pages of this book and ask yourself if you'd have cut them from the book that became Look Homeward, Angel. I'd sooner slash Hamlet's speech.
July 31, 2014
per me la lettura di questo torrenziale romanzo è stata paragonabile a una volontaria immersione in un mare forza nove: "o lost" mi ha travolta in una corrente di pagine, sbatacchiandomi senza pietà tra citazioni, azioni, personaggi.
dalla prima riga del prologo alla fine del romanzo, ho provato le stesse sensazioni: fatica, appagamento, emozione, fastidio. tutto insieme, tutto too much, senza un attimo di respiro, senza avere il tempo di paragonare le impressioni di lettura alle mie aspettative (altissime). eppure, la storia è semplice: i primi vent'anni di vita dell'alter ego di thomas wolfe, la storia della sua famiglia che s'intreccia con la storia degli stati uniti. ma la prosa è debordante, i personaggi fuori dall'ordinario (perdenti, sognatori, disillusi, accecati dall'avidità, profondamente umani) come sanno esserlo le persone normali, il ritmo senza tregua, 750 pagine forsennate e fragorose,l'impressione, perenne, è che molta letteratura successiva venga da qui. l'unico modo per non arenarsi è lasciarsi andare, arrivare alla fine e pensarci a mente fredda.
(sarei curiosa di leggere la versione impietosamente sforbiciata da maxwell perkins, per fare i dovuti raffronti)
dalla prima riga del prologo alla fine del romanzo, ho provato le stesse sensazioni: fatica, appagamento, emozione, fastidio. tutto insieme, tutto too much, senza un attimo di respiro, senza avere il tempo di paragonare le impressioni di lettura alle mie aspettative (altissime). eppure, la storia è semplice: i primi vent'anni di vita dell'alter ego di thomas wolfe, la storia della sua famiglia che s'intreccia con la storia degli stati uniti. ma la prosa è debordante, i personaggi fuori dall'ordinario (perdenti, sognatori, disillusi, accecati dall'avidità, profondamente umani) come sanno esserlo le persone normali, il ritmo senza tregua, 750 pagine forsennate e fragorose,l'impressione, perenne, è che molta letteratura successiva venga da qui. l'unico modo per non arenarsi è lasciarsi andare, arrivare alla fine e pensarci a mente fredda.
(sarei curiosa di leggere la versione impietosamente sforbiciata da maxwell perkins, per fare i dovuti raffronti)
April 5, 2017
I like to throw in the occasional "classic" on my read list. Instead of "Look Homeward Angel", I decided to go all in and read the first draft. Ok, I am now convinced of the value of a good editor. This does ramble in parts.
Good book overall. Definitely not an action novel. Not a lot happening, just a coming of age story. A history story. A cultural reference story. A thesaurus. And because of the latter, and my love of language I gave it four stars instead of three and a half.
Good book overall. Definitely not an action novel. Not a lot happening, just a coming of age story. A history story. A cultural reference story. A thesaurus. And because of the latter, and my love of language I gave it four stars instead of three and a half.
January 12, 2023
This is a long, and sometimes tedious book. It also has frequent flashes of brilliance. It is the product of a brilliant but perhaps undisciplined mind. Being autobiographical fiction, it's hard to discuss the book as written separately from the author. I don’t know if the author kept journals or not, but I couldn’t read the book as other than literally taken largely from diaries. The first part of the book is a brief genealogical sketch of his grandmother’s family near Gettysburg. Much of the early prose is in a heavily lyrical style that requires some determination to plow through. When Eugene becomes old enough to have his own memories, the writing style shifts to a more narrative approach, with occasional bouts of lyrical exposition. The main theme of most of the book is the disfunction of his family. From his father’s side, there appears to run an outsized emotional energy that becomes manic at times, even hysterical, and then at other times depressive. Eugene seems to be able to harness the manic energy into his education, which becomes another main theme in the second half of the book. Anyone who is in the tail of the intelligence curve will probably find a lot to identify with in the latter half of the book. Eugene appears to be the smartest kid in his provincial backwoods town. Consequently, he comes across as pretentious and arrogant to some of his classmates, though his heart is in the right place.
Regarding education, Eugene observes that public education of that time and place was pretty poor, but that he appears to have received a very good private education at a school founded by people with a passion for a classical liberal education. At university, it’s interesting to note that the Hegelian dialectic is already being taught to unsuspecting students. A stick is a piece of wood, and not a piece of wood.
The book has a documentary quality. It is probably best considered as capturing the zeitgeist of a specific time in North Carolina, as experienced by one precocious young man. The book is probably best read several times, with adequate time for contemplation. But once was enough for me.
Here's maybe my favorite quote from the book. Very The Catcher in the Rye. What would he have made of today's social media influencers and wanna-bes? Page 128:
Regarding education, Eugene observes that public education of that time and place was pretty poor, but that he appears to have received a very good private education at a school founded by people with a passion for a classical liberal education. At university, it’s interesting to note that the Hegelian dialectic is already being taught to unsuspecting students. A stick is a piece of wood, and not a piece of wood.
The book has a documentary quality. It is probably best considered as capturing the zeitgeist of a specific time in North Carolina, as experienced by one precocious young man. The book is probably best read several times, with adequate time for contemplation. But once was enough for me.
Here's maybe my favorite quote from the book. Very The Catcher in the Rye. What would he have made of today's social media influencers and wanna-bes? Page 128:
Thus, before he was ten Eugene's brooding spirit was netted in the complexity of truth and seeming. He could find no words, no answers, to the puzzles that baffled and maddened him; he found himself loathing that which bore the stamp of virtue, sick with weariness and horror at what was considered noble. His suspicion, his savage jeering thrusts in later years at an act which glistened too conspicuously, too publicly, or at an utterance which bore a little too luridly the advertisement of a great soul, had its birth probably at that time when he began to learn that the greatest wounds that were to be inflicted on him would come from the activity of great hearts and noble spirits. He was hurled, at eight years, against the torturing paradox of the ungenerous-generous, the selfish-unselfish, the noble-base, and unable to fathom or define those deep springs of desire in the human spirit that seek public gratification by virtuous pretension, he was made wretched by the conviction of his own sinfulness.
i-get-the-picture
June 16, 2024This looks like a vast improvement in many ways over the Perkins edition — the corpus of Thomas Wolfe being a hot mess. But I’d recommend anyone thinking of reading or rereading Wolfe to think about starting with this, rather than with Maxwell Perkins’ heavily edited *Look Homeward, Angel*. That said, I’ve probably outgrown Wolfe.
August 3, 2022
In 1929, Thomas Wolfe submitted his manuscript to Maxwell Perkins, legendary editor at Charles Scribner's Sons. Significantly edited and restructured, that manuscript became Mr. Wolfe's debut novel, Look Homeward, Angel. But was the editing and restructuring necessary? F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't think so. In a letter to Mr. Perkins (who was also Mr. Fitzgerald's editor), referring to Mr. Wolfe, he wrote, "He strikes me as a man who should be let alone as to length, if has to be published in five volumes."
Arlyn and Matthew J. Bruccoli decided to see if Mr. Fitzgerald was correct. Using the carbon copy of the typescript as well as the notebooks where Mr. Wolfe wrote out the story in longhand, they published O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life in the 2000, the centenary of Mr. Wolfe's birth. The restored version is about 22% longer than Look Homeward, Angel, detailing more of the story of the other members of the Gant family, especially the early years of W.O. Gant (the patriarch), and the family of Julia Pentland Gant (the matriarch) as well as their children: Effie, Mabel, Frank, Fred, Grover, Ben, and Eugene.
This version is obviously autobiographical. The names of the parents and the siblings of Eugene are the actual names of Mr. Wolfe's family. Eugene's mother runs a boarding house; his father owns a monument company. The story is set in the town of "Altamont," in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and Eugene attends a "State University" in "Pulpit Hill." At the end of the novel, Eugene has decided to continue his studies at Harvard. Mr. Wolfe was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina before attending Harvard. His mother did run a boarding house and his father did own a "monument" business that featured marble angels.
The family dynamic is tempestuous. There is love, but there is misunderstanding and selfishness. Eugene is restless and lost and really has no one to guide him in life, except perhaps his brother, Ben. Eugene is told repeatedly that he is special, that he is worth more than the rest of the family, but much is expected of him and he has to make his own way. His parents, especially Julia, alternately smother him and push him away. His siblings are loving, cruel, and jealous of what they see as the "advantages" Eugene has been given.
Eugene feels trapped in his small Southern town; he feels he doesn't belong. He is funny looking, by his own description, as is much of his family, given to strange outbursts and tics that seem to be ignored by his family and also by those around him. (How much of this is actual and how much is poetic license? I don't know. Mr. Wolfe treats Eugene's outbursts and tics as real.) His teachers give him knowledge, but not wisdom nor much advice on how best to navigate the world. Eugene must learn hard lessons of survival on his own.
Mr. Wolfe's writing is lyrical. His use of the language is facile; if he can't find the adjective he needs, he makes one up. Much of the "action" (such as it is) takes place at night or during the pre-dawn hours. Maybe it's the heat and the humidity, but Mr. Wolfe's writing and descriptions remind me of other Southern writers I've read, e.g., Pat Conroy, Sue Monk Kidd, Delia Owens. Mr. Wolfe's sentences remind me of F. Scott Fitzgerald's, long, musical, but convoluted and requiring some unraveling to get at the meaning. (I'm not sure if this was an affect of the education they received, the age, or the influence of the post-war ex-pat community in Europe.)
This novel is not for everyone. It begins with W.O. Gant watching the Union and Confederate armies pass by his family farm in Pennsylvania on the way to Gettysburg. The attitudes of the characters towards minorities, especially towards Black Americans, is typical of that time and place. The town is segregated, and the area where Black Americans live is casually referred to by what is today considered an epithet. The actions and attitudes of the parents towards their children would be considered abusive today. Medicine is primitive; there are no antibiotics and children die young. Automobiles are still a new invention. But the story of a young man desperate to find where he belongs in the world and his purpose is eternal.
Arlyn and Matthew J. Bruccoli decided to see if Mr. Fitzgerald was correct. Using the carbon copy of the typescript as well as the notebooks where Mr. Wolfe wrote out the story in longhand, they published O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life in the 2000, the centenary of Mr. Wolfe's birth. The restored version is about 22% longer than Look Homeward, Angel, detailing more of the story of the other members of the Gant family, especially the early years of W.O. Gant (the patriarch), and the family of Julia Pentland Gant (the matriarch) as well as their children: Effie, Mabel, Frank, Fred, Grover, Ben, and Eugene.
This version is obviously autobiographical. The names of the parents and the siblings of Eugene are the actual names of Mr. Wolfe's family. Eugene's mother runs a boarding house; his father owns a monument company. The story is set in the town of "Altamont," in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and Eugene attends a "State University" in "Pulpit Hill." At the end of the novel, Eugene has decided to continue his studies at Harvard. Mr. Wolfe was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina before attending Harvard. His mother did run a boarding house and his father did own a "monument" business that featured marble angels.
The family dynamic is tempestuous. There is love, but there is misunderstanding and selfishness. Eugene is restless and lost and really has no one to guide him in life, except perhaps his brother, Ben. Eugene is told repeatedly that he is special, that he is worth more than the rest of the family, but much is expected of him and he has to make his own way. His parents, especially Julia, alternately smother him and push him away. His siblings are loving, cruel, and jealous of what they see as the "advantages" Eugene has been given.
Eugene feels trapped in his small Southern town; he feels he doesn't belong. He is funny looking, by his own description, as is much of his family, given to strange outbursts and tics that seem to be ignored by his family and also by those around him. (How much of this is actual and how much is poetic license? I don't know. Mr. Wolfe treats Eugene's outbursts and tics as real.) His teachers give him knowledge, but not wisdom nor much advice on how best to navigate the world. Eugene must learn hard lessons of survival on his own.
Mr. Wolfe's writing is lyrical. His use of the language is facile; if he can't find the adjective he needs, he makes one up. Much of the "action" (such as it is) takes place at night or during the pre-dawn hours. Maybe it's the heat and the humidity, but Mr. Wolfe's writing and descriptions remind me of other Southern writers I've read, e.g., Pat Conroy, Sue Monk Kidd, Delia Owens. Mr. Wolfe's sentences remind me of F. Scott Fitzgerald's, long, musical, but convoluted and requiring some unraveling to get at the meaning. (I'm not sure if this was an affect of the education they received, the age, or the influence of the post-war ex-pat community in Europe.)
This novel is not for everyone. It begins with W.O. Gant watching the Union and Confederate armies pass by his family farm in Pennsylvania on the way to Gettysburg. The attitudes of the characters towards minorities, especially towards Black Americans, is typical of that time and place. The town is segregated, and the area where Black Americans live is casually referred to by what is today considered an epithet. The actions and attitudes of the parents towards their children would be considered abusive today. Medicine is primitive; there are no antibiotics and children die young. Automobiles are still a new invention. But the story of a young man desperate to find where he belongs in the world and his purpose is eternal.
December 18, 2021
much improved over the Perkins edit
October 13, 2021
Genius.
Un film di Michael Grandage, con Colin Firth e Jude Law.
È lì che per la prima volta ho sentito parlare di Thomas Wolfe, del suo mitico editor Maxwell Perkins (scopritore di Scott Fitzgerald e di Hemingway), e della sua Pantagruelica opera:
O Lost (Storia della vita perduta).
Il film mi è piaciuto, mi sono incuriosito e ho voluto leggere il libro. Sapevo già che prima di diventare “grandiosa”, l'opera era “colossale”; perciò dopo le prime 100 pagine ho ringraziato Perkins di averla ridotta da”colossale” a “Pantagruelica”.
Più che una lettura è stata una lotta.
Ma dopo 100 pagine non potevo lasciare. E dopo 200, neanche. Tantomeno dopo 300. Sotto sotto,
intanto, a tratti, cominciava a piacermi. Prima di iniziare la lettura mi riempivo di buoni propositi e partivo deciso. Personaggi tanti, e per ciascuno dettagli e descrizioni così particolareggiate che
dopo un po' la mia mente inseriva il “pilota automatico” e accelerava, sorvolava, o addirittura glissava a piacimento, su quello che gli pareva.
«Tradurre Thomas Wolfe è stata un’impresa esaltante e impegnativa, che ci ha costretto a compiere per ogni capoverso una serie di scelte e decisioni non scontate. Inducendoci perfino a corredare il romanzo di note,» Questo, alla fine del libro, il commento delle due brave, eroiche, traduttrici: Maria Baiocchi e AnnaTagliavini.
Prima di chiudere però, voglio condividere un pensiero dell'autore che mi ha particolarmente colpito.
“La vita non ci insegna nulla. Rivela soltanto quel che abbiamo sempre saputo.
Con i piedi sull’abisso delle tenebre, guardò e vide le luci di nessuna città.
Era quella, pensò, la medicina forte e buona della morte. Questa è la fine, disse. Ho divorato la vita e non l’ho trovato. Non viaggerò oltre.”
Aveva meno di vent'anni. Morira a 38.
Decisamente un grande della letteratura.
Da affrontare però, con giusta preparazione, animo aperto e disponibilità di tempo molto generosa.
Cose che io non ho avuto nella misura che l'opera richiedeva.
Rileggerlo? No.
Raccomandarlo? No.
Lo metto nello scaffale delle occasioni perse e vado oltre.
Un film di Michael Grandage, con Colin Firth e Jude Law.
È lì che per la prima volta ho sentito parlare di Thomas Wolfe, del suo mitico editor Maxwell Perkins (scopritore di Scott Fitzgerald e di Hemingway), e della sua Pantagruelica opera:
O Lost (Storia della vita perduta).
Il film mi è piaciuto, mi sono incuriosito e ho voluto leggere il libro. Sapevo già che prima di diventare “grandiosa”, l'opera era “colossale”; perciò dopo le prime 100 pagine ho ringraziato Perkins di averla ridotta da”colossale” a “Pantagruelica”.
Più che una lettura è stata una lotta.
Ma dopo 100 pagine non potevo lasciare. E dopo 200, neanche. Tantomeno dopo 300. Sotto sotto,
intanto, a tratti, cominciava a piacermi. Prima di iniziare la lettura mi riempivo di buoni propositi e partivo deciso. Personaggi tanti, e per ciascuno dettagli e descrizioni così particolareggiate che
dopo un po' la mia mente inseriva il “pilota automatico” e accelerava, sorvolava, o addirittura glissava a piacimento, su quello che gli pareva.
«Tradurre Thomas Wolfe è stata un’impresa esaltante e impegnativa, che ci ha costretto a compiere per ogni capoverso una serie di scelte e decisioni non scontate. Inducendoci perfino a corredare il romanzo di note,» Questo, alla fine del libro, il commento delle due brave, eroiche, traduttrici: Maria Baiocchi e AnnaTagliavini.
Prima di chiudere però, voglio condividere un pensiero dell'autore che mi ha particolarmente colpito.
“La vita non ci insegna nulla. Rivela soltanto quel che abbiamo sempre saputo.
Con i piedi sull’abisso delle tenebre, guardò e vide le luci di nessuna città.
Era quella, pensò, la medicina forte e buona della morte. Questa è la fine, disse. Ho divorato la vita e non l’ho trovato. Non viaggerò oltre.”
Aveva meno di vent'anni. Morira a 38.
Decisamente un grande della letteratura.
Da affrontare però, con giusta preparazione, animo aperto e disponibilità di tempo molto generosa.
Cose che io non ho avuto nella misura che l'opera richiedeva.
Rileggerlo? No.
Raccomandarlo? No.
Lo metto nello scaffale delle occasioni perse e vado oltre.
May 5, 2022
I read the first 100 pages or so of "Look Homeward, Angel" before discovering the story of "O Lost."
I found O Lost easier to get into and read from the start. Look Homeward, Angel seems relatively sterile, i.e. as if much of the art was lost in the editing.
The story itself took me through feelings of solidarity and I found it to provide valuable perspective. Many times while reading it I would think to myself, "this book is full of life truth!"
I found O Lost easier to get into and read from the start. Look Homeward, Angel seems relatively sterile, i.e. as if much of the art was lost in the editing.
The story itself took me through feelings of solidarity and I found it to provide valuable perspective. Many times while reading it I would think to myself, "this book is full of life truth!"
November 12, 2020
La prosa è molto ricercata, si notano sia la bravura dell'autore che le grandi doti del traduttore. Purtroppo non sono riuscita a portare avanti la lettura oltre le cento pagine, la prosa è lenta, macchinosa, quasi uno sforzo.
September 15, 2026
I just bought this book after telling myself I wasn't going buy anymore books. I just go it and just started it and of course I'm delaying reading because I have tooooooooooooooo many distactions. It's supposed to be really good so we shall se.
January 25, 2023
It's a heavy read, at times it drags on but the are many incredible passages.
February 22, 2025
I am in love with this book and Thomas Wolfe, maybe because I lived in Asheville for a year. The downtown and wider area left quite an impression on me.
This is a painful and well-illustrated fictionalized memoir, both in feeling and in detailed circumstance, of a sensitive, under-parented, and highly intelligent young man growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family in an Appalachian town.
The "clan narrative" introduction to his bloodlines are replete with regional Civil War history and mystical mountain lore. The two branches of his immediate family become distinctly known to the reader in a regional way. In getting to know the fictional characters that are Wolfe's real family, I got a better sense of post Civil War culture and the early generational tributaries.
Because the author is quite different from his other family members - more of a hyper-aware, brooding, and intellectually precocious child, he is cast into the role of family scapegoat.
If anyone is looking for a stunning example of dysfunctional family dynamics in good modern literature, this is a poignant one.
In relating to the struggles of his connection with his mother, I felt embedded as a guilty observer in the hotel she ran. I also felt neatly packed into his landscape of not only the odd and distinct love that emits from the earth in this part of the country, but a quirky, close-knit conclave of downtown Asheville dwellers. Wolfe is masterful at knowing the psychological landmines and possibility in every moment of every interaction.
Asheville dwellers also included the African American community that lived in the South Slope neighborhood. Although this was a thriving area with many Black-owned businesses, Wolfe’s portrayal—at least in O, Lost —focuses more on his family’s internal struggles than on the surrounding prosperity. The presence of Black servants, while not deeply explored, can be seen echoing the emotional servitude that trauma imposes on members of this fractured family. His mother treated the servants badly, and many did come back to work for her.
It truly is a book of time and place, and the ghosts of such, suggesting that the souls inhabiting Asheville are themselves inhabited by regional and supernatural forces.
Ultimately, the book is a beautifully introspective work by a towering soul in an awkwardly tall body - a survivor and an adventurer who begins setting himself free from generational trauma and the limitations of an Appalachian town. His love of literature and the pursuit of knowledge are his ultimate escape and salvation. The following of his journey, for these things alone, is also worth the read.
This is a painful and well-illustrated fictionalized memoir, both in feeling and in detailed circumstance, of a sensitive, under-parented, and highly intelligent young man growing up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family in an Appalachian town.
The "clan narrative" introduction to his bloodlines are replete with regional Civil War history and mystical mountain lore. The two branches of his immediate family become distinctly known to the reader in a regional way. In getting to know the fictional characters that are Wolfe's real family, I got a better sense of post Civil War culture and the early generational tributaries.
Because the author is quite different from his other family members - more of a hyper-aware, brooding, and intellectually precocious child, he is cast into the role of family scapegoat.
If anyone is looking for a stunning example of dysfunctional family dynamics in good modern literature, this is a poignant one.
In relating to the struggles of his connection with his mother, I felt embedded as a guilty observer in the hotel she ran. I also felt neatly packed into his landscape of not only the odd and distinct love that emits from the earth in this part of the country, but a quirky, close-knit conclave of downtown Asheville dwellers. Wolfe is masterful at knowing the psychological landmines and possibility in every moment of every interaction.
Asheville dwellers also included the African American community that lived in the South Slope neighborhood. Although this was a thriving area with many Black-owned businesses, Wolfe’s portrayal—at least in O, Lost —focuses more on his family’s internal struggles than on the surrounding prosperity. The presence of Black servants, while not deeply explored, can be seen echoing the emotional servitude that trauma imposes on members of this fractured family. His mother treated the servants badly, and many did come back to work for her.
It truly is a book of time and place, and the ghosts of such, suggesting that the souls inhabiting Asheville are themselves inhabited by regional and supernatural forces.
Ultimately, the book is a beautifully introspective work by a towering soul in an awkwardly tall body - a survivor and an adventurer who begins setting himself free from generational trauma and the limitations of an Appalachian town. His love of literature and the pursuit of knowledge are his ultimate escape and salvation. The following of his journey, for these things alone, is also worth the read.
September 21, 2025
Grande capolavoro della letteratura americana: bellissimo.
November 29, 2008
For consistency, my rating reflects entertainment value as defined in the other books that I have rated. This book is a literary classic... I have been enlightened with pieces of history in the time spent reading (it).
It is a book made for study, with complex structure, in depth character building, and moving plot.
It is a book made for study, with complex structure, in depth character building, and moving plot.
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