Product Description: 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 For seventy years Wolfe scholars have speculated about the merits of the unpublished complete work and about the editorial process -- particularly the reputed collaboration of Perkins and Wolfe.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.
treasure for Thomas Wolfe I am so glad this book was written in fullness. I am a distant relative of Thomas Wolfe, and I know this means so much to Thomas Wolfe fans and others who love him.
"Forever And The Earth" I have Ray Bradbury to thank for meeting with Thomas Wolfe early in my life - when I probably would have never heard about him otherwise. He never was (still isn't) a part of school literature programme in Russia.
Bradbury's magnificent short story "Forever and the Earth" in a remarkably good Russian translation was the reason why as soon as I saw a Wolfe's novel in a bookshop in 1983, I bought it immediately. It was "You Can't Go Home Again". Ever since I keep reading him and re-reading again and again. It is a slow read but so intoxicating. Being a fast reader, I have to do it by 10 or 15 pages at a a time - otherwise I get rather tipsy on his words.
"He was a wirlwind. He lifted up mountains and collected winds... Tom Wolfe's the man, the necessary man, to write of space, of time, of huge things like nebulae and galactic war, meteors and planets, all the dakr things that he loved and put on paper were like this.He was born out of his time. He needed really big things to play with and never found them on Earth." (Ray Bradbury "Forever and the Earth". ) I still think there is nothing written about Thomas Wolfe's work that is better than Bradbury's short story.
Interesting, but not revolutionary Look Homeward Angel has for decades been a standard coming of age book read devotedly by people in their late teens and early twenties. Over the years, stories developed concerning the amount of cutting that editor Maxwell Perkins (who also edited Hemingway and Fitzgerald) did on the book. The accepted wisdom was that Perkins pulled a masterpiece out of a huge, unpublishable manuscript. This edition, which is based on Wolfe's orginial manuscript and uses his chosen title, shows that while Perkins did help to shape the book, the text that he began with was not the monstrosity it was later believed to be. Some of the cuts Perkins made, such as W.O. Gant's memories of Gettysburg, would appear in Of Time and the River, and Perkins later admitted that he was wrong to cut it. Other material that one reads for the first time seems less important. Overall, I did not find the book to be that different from Look Homeward Angel. It shows both Wolfe's strengts and weaknesses, his abiliy to create Whitmanesque passages, and to engage in self-indulgent prose. I agree with the other reviewers that it is unfortunate that this book so quickly was allowed to go out of print. Whichever version you read, this is a book best read before you are 30.
Finally, the lost is found I first re read Look Homeward Angel,( which I had not read for almost 50 years) then O Lost. I think that the original manuscript is far superior to the edited version, that was originally published. Certainly the introduction is excellant and sets the stage for W.O.Gant's odessey. Admittedly, some editing would be helpful, to make a smoother transition from one chapter to another, but only minor ones, not the radical surgery that was actually done.
I think that Wolfe realized this, and that was why he changed publishers. I look forward to the unedited manuscripts of the Web and the Rock, and You can't go home again.
My only problem is that during the period when I first read these novels, I have had medical and particularly psychiatric training. It is obvious that W.O. suffered from severe bipolar or manic depressive psychosis. With modern treatment, he would have been a happier man, or at least those around him would have had better lives. But then perhaps Thomas Wolfe would not have been the writer that he was to become.
Time regained What a wonderful book. It's too bad so many readers today know only Tom Wolfe, not Thomas Wolfe. Even though it has been at least 10 years since reading Look Homewood Angel, I knew almost immediately when I came to the new sections. They add a depth to the novel, bringing in the whole town and relatives, rather being only about Eugene Gant. My favorite Wolfe readings involve trains; the experience about time stopping for a moment when you look into the eyes of someone looking directly at you into the train, is exactly as I remember my earlier train rides.What are they doing now, that the train has passed? Other 800 page books might be dull, but not this one. Having been given it as a present recently, I am very surprised and disappointed that it is already 'out of print." More people should know about O Lost!
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
