Megan's Book Review

I have finally finished the interminable "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe. Maybe my brain is too unsophisticated or immature to handle the epic writing of this book, but I found myself closing the 522 page beast thinking "What the heck was that?" The author had several favorite words that found their way into the story many times, including "inchoate". Everything was inchoate - spring, happiness, education. And his onomatopoeia for laughter was "Wah Wah". Now, who laughs like that? I'm pretty sure, even in the 1920s people did not laugh like that.

Supposedly the book is highly autobiographical, for which I pity the author. It sounds like a pretty dismal life - abusive and alcoholic father, loveless and penny-pinching mother, sickness, death, inescapable failure. The book follows the character Eugene Gant from birth to 19 years, at which point he seems to go crazy. And then his brother dies, and the book ends. Like I said - "What?"

If this were in a public school library, it would probably be censored or removed from the shelves thanks to the use of the terms "niggers" and "darkies" and to their little neighborhood as "Niggertown".

Anyway, there were, however, two passages that I actually found amusing.
One was his description of his father who used to tell them "When I was your age, I had milked four cows, done all the chores, and walked eight miles through the snow by this time." To which the author adds "Indeed, when he described his early schooling, he furnished a landscape that was constantly three feet deep in snow, and frozen hard. He seemed never to have attended school save under polar conditions." ... Dad, I'm looking your way...

The second was his description of a teacher at the university telling him that if he just quit cheating (he was not cheating, he was just better than everyone else at translating/reading in Latin) he wouldn't sound so pretentious, and he could actually take some pride in his work:

"But I think it's a pity, Mr. Gant," said the professor, gravely, "that you're willing to slide along this way. See here, my boy, you're capable of doing first-rate work. I can see that. Why don't you make an effort? Why don't you buckle down and really study, after this?"

Eugene stared at the man, with tears of anger in his eyes. He sputtered but could not speak. But suddenly, as he looked down into the knowing leer, the perfect and preposterous injustice of the thing -- like a caricature -- overcame him: he burst into an explosive laugh of rage and amusement which the teacher, no doubt, accepted as confession.

"Well, what do you say?" he asked. "Will you try?"
"All right! Yes!" the boy yelled. "I'll try it."

He bought at once a copy of the translation used by the class. Thereafter, when he read, faltering prettily here and there over a phrase, until his instructor should come to his aid, the satanic professor listened gravely and attentively, nodding his head in approval from time to time, and saying, with great satisfaction, when he had finished: "Good, Mr. Gant. Very Good. That shows what a little real work will do."

And privately, he would say: "You see the difference, don't you? I knew at once when you stopped using that pony. Your translation is not so smooth, but it's your own now. You're doing good work my boy, and you're getting something out of it. It's worth it, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Eugene gratefully, "it certainly is --"

... I'm looking at you, BYU-Idaho... or at least some of your professors.

Now, if those two excerpts make you think, oh, that doesn't seem that bad, trust me, it's like the trailer of a really bad movie - the only 2 good scenes are on the trailer and the rest is boring/trash. There are pages of "stream of consciousness" writing that make no sense at all.

I'd skip this one if I were you.