Thoughts?

Sometimes it is amazing, at times it's frustratie af. Im glad i read it, i Will read other of his works but i don't rlly look forward to it.

>>9783100
isn't its his only generally recognized masterpiece anon? im reading it now (in the middle) and it is very hard for me to understand why it's not so popular (among /lit/ too). IMO it might just be as admired as cather in rye is

>>9782839
Overwritten but I still enjoyed it. The casual racism and anti-semitism pretty much insured it would never be taught in English lit classes, so that's probably why he isn't as well known as his contemporaries. And he isn't as good as Faulkner is another reason.

>>9783229
I gotta agree with the Faulkner thing. I love Thomas Wolfe but he's one of the most uneven authors. I would add that his reputation was ruined by bad press after he died.

>>9782839
I thought it was great, especially the prose, though it'd overwhleming sometimes. Nontheless, a pleasure to read.
Who else discovered it becasue of the Wolf's biopic?

>>9783246
My biggest problem with that movie is that they didn't get a 7 foot tall giant to play Wolfe and a seedy old Jewess to play Bernstein.

>>9783229
practically every book written before 1960 has casual racism and antisemitism i dont think that could have held him back

File: IMG_0620.jpg (95KB, 526x660px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 526x660px

Aside from Salinger, I don't recall anyone else having as great a first novel debut. Perkins did his best to help shape it, but good lord it hasn't aged as well as his contemporaries.

Wolfe was a try-hard. He wanted to be the best and measured himself against great works like Ulysses. I like that everything about him was just bigger than life, his vision, his books, his pants, etc.

File: IMG_0621.jpg (49KB, 190x296px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 190x296px

Wolfe with his fucking crates of Look Homeward.

>>9783881
i can think of a lot of people who had excellent debuts.. pynchon for one.. i think poor folk is one of dostoys better works

>>9782839
It's a severely underrated book. Wolfe was a fantastic writer, but he did have an issue with overwriting, which is one of the reasons why he was overshadowed by the other great modernist writers. Some parts of this book are absolutely unforgettable, like this one:

Come up into the hills, O my young love. Return! O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again, as first I knew you in the timeless valley, where we shall feel ourselves anew, bedded on magic in the month of June. There was a place where all the sun went glistening in your hair, and from the hill we could have put a finger on a star. Where is the day that melted into one rich noise? Where the music of your flesh, the rhyme of your teeth, the dainty languor of your legs, your small firm arms, your slender fingers, to be bitten like an apple, and the little cherry-teats of your white breasts? And where are all the tiny wires of finespun maidenhair? Quick are the mouths of earth, and quick the teeth that fed upon this loveliness. You who were made for music, will hear music no more: in your dark house the winds are silent. Ghost, ghost, come back from that marriage that we did not foresee, return not into life, but into magic, where we have never died, into the enchanted wood, where we still live, strewn on the grass. Come up into the hills, O my young love: return. O lost, and by the wind grieved ghost, come back again

>>9783239
He seems very old fashioned compared to Faulkner. Faulkner was much more interested in modernism and experimenting with different narrative techniques. Wolfe seems more like a Whitmanesque romantic. Or a less degenerate Kerouac.