- Paperback
- Publisher: Ballantine Books (Feb 12 1988)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0449902862
- ISBN-13: 978-0449902868
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 4.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 794 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Thomas Wolfe was a writer who famously spewed out words upon the page in endless streams, attempting to achieve The Great American Novel by putting his own life on paper. He wrote four massive novels, combining passages of over-the-top bad writing with some of the most beautiful prose ever committed to paper. His editors Maxwell Perkins and Edward Aswell became almost as famous as Wolfe for their Herculean efforts in getting his titanic manuscripts into publishable form. Look Homeward, Angel (1929), Of Time and the River (1935), and his two posthumously published works, The Web and the Rock (1939) and You Can't Go Home Again (1940) are classics of American literature, though today entirely unfashionable. Harvard historian David Herbert Donald won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for this appreciative biography of the genius of purple prose.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Wolfe's editor, Maxwell Perkins, argued that no writer was ever less in need of a biographer, so rich and candid was the autobiographical content of his fiction. Donald is the third biographer in 25 years to gainsay Perkinsand the most successful. Less worshipful than his predecessors, Donald has other advantages, too: full access to Wolfe's papers and the death of most of those whose feelings hitherto had to be spared. What emerges is a forthright but disciplined portrait of an explosive genius and his place in modern American letters. Wolfe's turbulent life, extraordinary learning, surprisingly conscious craft, and complex relations with his editors all affected his artistic development. Donald analyzes these matters without psychological or critical buzzwords but leaves unresolved Wolfe's ultimate literary worth. Arthur Waldhorn, English Dept., City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By
This review is from: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolf (Paperback)
I thought that this was a very assured and informative biography of Thomas Wolfe, not only shedding light on his development and work as an author, but also bringing the reader close to getting a feel of what Wolfe the human being must have been like.I felt that Donald, whilst being a fan of Wolfe's work, maintained a balanced assessment of him: Wolfe had highly unattractive traits - a heavy drinker, untidy and unkempt, intolerant (especially of Jews, which was ironic given the fact that he had a long relationship with Mrs Aline Bernstein, who was herself Jewish) and frequently overbearing. Wolfe's early struggles to establish himself as a playwright and his emergence as a novelist are described in detail. Wolfe was essentially a "prose machine" unable to control the flows of words and thus the length and structure of his novels. I found the accounts of Wolfe's relationship with his editors, Maxwell E Perkins and latterly Edward C Aswell, fascinating. A must for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of this interesting novelist.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Major Historian On a Major Writer,
By Kevin M. Derby - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (Paperback)
David Herbert Donald is an expert on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. What in the world is he doing writing a book on the tormented North Carolina novelist Thomas Wolfe? Yet Donald pulls it off wonderfully, recreating Wolfe's troubled life and capturing his creative process. Only two of Wolfe's novels were published in his short life but Donald is perhaps at his best when he examines his subject's unpublished works as well as two posthumous novels assembled by an editor. Donald may not convince you that Wolfe was a great American writer but he may just convince you that you may not know the real Thomas Wolfe. While not the most scholarly of works, Donald's biography is vivid and captures a larger than life figure (in more ways than one) and his epic vision of America and art. This is one of the best biographies of a major American writer and, best of all, it is very accessible and readable.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good biography,
By QBraly - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolf (Paperback)
The book is a good biography of Thomas Wolfe. Obviously, the author did his homework; the research is impressive. I never got bored reading this, but then, I am a Thomas Wolfe fan.
9 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I wish I could live in Asheville too,
By Walker E. Rowe III "Walker Elliott Rowe" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (Hardcover)
Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway all had the same editor at Charles Scribner's and Sons: Maxwell Perkins. Some critics have said that Perkins basically wrote Tom Wolfe's last novel because it was a too-long mess that needed to be edited into a cohesive whole. I read halfway through "Look HomeWard Angel" and "Of Time and the River". Both read like a hot day in Asheville, North Carolina. When I have time I plan to go back and reread these novels because Shelby Foote and Walker Percy spoke highly of them.
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