"You Can't Go Home Again" was published posthumously from a manuscript Wolfe left behind.

As a result, he didn't have the opportunity to collaborate with an editor, make revisions, or rewrite. This might offer an explanation as to why this work doesn't strike me as a traditional novel. It encompasses many aspects: a fictionalized autobiography written in the third person (a feeling that dawned on me as I read and was later confirmed by perusing a brief account of his life); a collection of character sketches through which he delves into the human condition; a selection of essays on American, English, and early Nazi-Germany societies; a rumination on what it means to be a good writer; and more.

The final few chapters are almost like a mini-summary of the book, now written in the first person as a lengthy letter to his (fictional) editor.

If I were his editor (though I'm in no way qualified), I would have trimmed certain sections, telling Wolfe, "This is excellent in its own right, but it doesn't fit here." The pacing is uneven. There's a wealth of great material and excellent, often creative and poetic writing. However, at times, I felt that as a reader, I had to be lenient with Wolfe. He was only in his 30s when he wrote this novel, and unfortunately, we'll never know how his writing would have evolved as he grew older.

By my estimates, I have picked up and put down this book approximately twenty times over the past 7 years. I have this peculiar problem where I feel compelled to finish every book I start, yet this particular one seemed to progress at a sluggish pace for me.

However, I firmly believe that God intervened and made me pick it back up and complete it at precisely the right moment. It's truly remarkable how such things work out.

The final third of this book made the entire endeavor more than worthwhile. It is filled to the brim with an abundance of foresight, to the extent that it might very well be regarded as one of the finest books ever penned.

Here are some quotes that stood out:

'\\"You sink it is so bad here no?-ze vay sings are wiz ze Party and zese stupid people? You sink it vould be better if zere vas anozzer party, like in America? Zen.\\" he said, not waiting for an answer, \\"I sink you are mistaken. It is bad here, of gourse, but I sink it vill be soon no better wiz you. Zese bloody fools-you find zem everyvhere. Zey are ze same wiz you only in a different vay.\\"'

'George felt some reservations to this blanket endorsement of his native land, but he did not utter them. The man's fervor was so genuine that is would have been unkind to try to qualify it. And besides, George, too, was homesick now, and the man's words, generous and whole-hearted as they were, warmed him with their pleasant glow.'

'I saw again the haggard faces of the homeless men, the wanderers, the disinherited of America, the aged workers who had worked and now could work no more, the callow boys who had never worked and now could find no work to do, and who, both together, had been cast loose by a society that had no need of them and left to shift in any way they could-to find their food in garbage cans, to seek for warmth and fellowship in foul latrines like the one near New York's City Hall, to sleep wrapped up in old newspapers on the concrete floors of subway corridors.'

'I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me-and I think for all of us-not only our own hope, but America's everlasting, living dream.'

'I think the true discover of America is before us. I think the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy is still before us.'

This was written in 1934, and it would hold just as true if it were written in 1945, 1970, or even now.

All I know is that Thomas Wolfe was right when he said you can't go home again, just as J.D. Salinger said you can't stop youth from coming of age. Once you cross that threshold, there is no way to restore time to the glorious days of the past. And only a fool would wish for such a thing.

I have experienced many of the same things that George did in his life. Although I never achieved fame, I did leave home, choosing to live far enough away that going back is effectively impossible, even if I were to physically return. I did find love and learned that while it isn't everything, it is most things. Although we must face life as it comes, we are not resigned to simply sit back and do nothing. We must do the very best we can with what we have, while we have it, for the greater good.

“Not a great novelist—but a great writer?” I’ll have to concur with that statement.

At present, I am engaged in re-reading both of Wolfe's masterpieces. The first time I delved into them, the profound words were somewhat lost on my youthful self. Now, I am allowing them to have an impact on my middle-aged years. Wolfe indeed possessed courage, and I must give him credit for that. He had the audacity to attempt to showcase every iota of his personal experience in the unadorned, raw, and at times brutally honest light of truth.

He did this with a fair hand, treating both the extraordinary and the mundane with equal regard. Extraordinary experiences, especially when they are well-written, are likely to be read by most literate individuals to whom they are presented. However, when an author ventures into the realm of the mundane, the realistic and often dull fabric of everyday reality, he risks losing his audience.

This is a pity, for a fresh, intelligent, and honest perspective on the everyday experiences in life that are usually taken for granted can rekindle our appreciation for our own lives and prompt us to consider what we might have been overlooking all this time. It is the infinite variability of experience that makes each of us unique individuals.

NOTE: I am applying this comment to both “Go Home” and “Angel.” I have just completed reading them back-to-back and have grouped them together in my mind.

Thomas Wolfe's four novels, 'Look Homeward, Angel', 'Of Time and the River', 'The Web and the Rock,' and 'You Can't Go Home Again', together span about 2,900 pages and were published between 1929 and 1940, with the last two posthumously. I haven't read his biography or short stories. Here, I mainly want to share some of my impressions.

Wolfe's descriptions are remarkable for their attention to detail. It's as if he is right there in front of the scene, person, or object, furiously jotting down everything until it's all turned into text. He uses multiple terms for the same thing, even in the same sentence, and piles on adjectives. He is a master of the metaphor, which vividly focuses the reader's attention on the object of description.

However, Wolfe is not a master of plot. His masterpieces of description are loosely connected, like a string of pearls with too much space between. The sequence of events doesn't always have a thematic logic, and the books read almost like travelogues. But to his credit, the variety of events he depicts is wide-ranging.

Wolfe is famous for writing his own life in fiction, but this isn't unique. John Updike is another example. One reviewer said Wolfe "wrote books about a guy who wrote books," and that's true.

Wolfe's subject matter, aside from the autobiographical aspect, is diverse. He introduces many characters, focuses on them for a while, and then releases them. The protagonists do a lot of traveling, which is sometimes important to the story line. In the four novels, a lot happens to them, and Wolfe observes a great deal of what's going on around him.

Given the number of pages he has to develop characters, Wolfe creates many in minute detail. While this is generally good, there are times when he gets repetitive, and more brutal editing could have improved the overall effect for the reader.

Although I found fault with the scattershot nature of his plot, some of his episode descriptions are excellent. For example, the "hat-check girl" episode in chapter 30 is hilarious, and he uses wonderful verbal tools in the conversations. Another great episode is in chapter 29, involving "C. Green" and his personal tragedy after the 1929 crash.

I've also read other "Southern authors" like William Faulkner, Peter Taylor, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams. Each of them brought something different to the art of fiction, and Thomas Wolfe should be added to that list. His style can range from intense to dull, depending on whether you're reading the pearls or the strings, but the pearls leave a lasting impression and make the effort of reading the strings worthwhile.

I never thought I'd live this long. That's not to say I really ever wanted to die. I only ever used it as a motivating tactic to write a B-level essay that could be raised to an A in the inflation of state school grading. Or tried to kill myself. But more that I seem to be incapable of imagining myself older than the present moment.

For a time, I could fake it. Another year was another year of school. Eventually, I would graduate. Maybe I would fall into the routine of slow career movement in public and academic libraries. But that line of destiny was severed by the pandemic in 2020. And since then, I've been adrift. Employed generally, but with no conception of who I might be in a year or a decade's time.

Thomas Wolfe, in his posthumous fourth novel, postulates that we are all lost in America but someday may be found. I wonder if a century later, he would think we are any closer to that day. I don't know if I have.

It's been over eight years since I first picked this book up. It's sat on my shelf taunting me ever since. Spring break of my freshman year of college, I took the Greyhound to Pittsburgh to visit an internet friend I hadn't ever met. It was the first time in my life that I felt truly independent. A solo bus ride to an unknown city to stay with a relatively unknown person. A true adventure.

I had only gone to college a few miles down the road. That was only independence in the sense that I didn't see my parents every day anymore. The trip went well. And one day, as I was walking through the CMU campus with my friend, there was a book sale going on in the student center. I bought this, thinking it symbolic. You can't go home again. Perhaps not. Perhaps this was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

For the next six years, I would hold the ideal of that trip in my head. Always telling people that one day, with likelihood, I would return to Pittsburgh, perhaps to live.

Two years on, I still hadn't read this. In part because there were so many other things to read as an English major. In part because it was rather long. But I justified it in my way. This was the fourth and final of Wolfe's autobiographical novels. It only tracked that I should read them in order.

At some point, I came into possession of Look Homeward, Angel and brought it with me when I went to Ireland to study abroad. It would be a reminder of the country I missed. The place to which I would one day return. There's not much to say about that term abroad. It was ultimately a lonely one. And so when I read Angel, it moved something deep inside me. At last, a writer who understood how I was feeling at that very moment.

I devoured it and Of Time and The River in those last days overseas. Finishing Time on the plane ride home, moved to tears by the scene where Eugene Gant decries his own term abroad as a waste. For that moment of time, Wolfe was as close as I've ever gotten to feeling truly understood by a work of fiction.

I'm not quite sure why I didn't continue on with Wolfe's novels at the time. Perhaps I had read that the Gant duology were of a different character than the posthumously published Webber duology. Perhaps I just got busy with other things. Campus jobs, relationships, the final year of college, my first postgraduate job at the public library.

Either way, it wasn't till August 2020 that I finally cracked the spine on The Web and The Rock. And it was a different world in which I did so. The pandemic had sent all the part-time library staffers home with pay in mid-March. But that lenience ran out in July and we were all let go without warning. So it was a scramble of applying for unemployment and to new jobs that fall.

Maybe that had something to do with my lower opinion of Web. But much of it bored me. Half feeling like a lesser reiteration of the two books before. Half spinning out a romance in which I was mostly uninterested and which I felt had been done better when Wouk ripped it off for Youngblood Hawke. I had planned to read Home right after. But it didn't feel like the time. I didn't want Wolfe ripped away from me in such a way. It seemed my lot was to read him in even years. So I set a timer for 2022 and hoped for the best.

As is probably obvious, I didn't read this in 2022. Instead, I went back to Pittsburgh and found that you can't go home again to the promises of youth. The thought of uprooting was constantly on my mind that spring. And it seemed that the time had come to fulfill the promise of Pennsylvania. To move jobs and cities and find something new to fill my days.

When I got there, hyped on the idea of apartment hunting, I quickly realized I was fooling myself. My friend had moved away. I was stuck in my lonely airbnb listening to the guests in the next room having sex well into the night. The spark of 2016 had been the spark of friendship and fresh adventure. In the absence of that, it was just another city on a river.

Apartment hunting was cast to the side. I just did tourist things and had a good time. Returning home with the promise of recommitting myself to living and enjoying the life I had in Lexington. Several months later, I met my now-girlfriend and that takes us to now.

At the end of this week, I'm moving to Columbus with my girlfriend in advance of her starting law school in the fall. As I've always read Wolfe at times of change in my life, it seemed time to finally open Home. (My superstitions also telling that if I read it in another city, maybe I really wouldn't be able to come home again).

And the verdict? The actual review if you're still here reading? It's fine. Much better than Rock but falling short of the Gant duology. But self-evidently a posthumous publication. There's a definite thematic throughline and an overall narrative progression. Webber publishes his first book just as Wolfe did Angel. There's fallout in his hometown as people read themselves into the autobiographical mergings of people. Eventually, he goes back to Europe for a time. And then comes home, but different. A different river, a different man.

It's very sectional. Each "book" of the novel sometimes feels awkwardly connected to the previous (and lampshading this with "in the mean-time" type interstitials only adds to that). Book two is just 150 pages of a party at the Jack's house that closes out the Esther Jack/George Webber romance on which Rock spent most of its time (to my chagrin). It's well-written and has some thematic underpinings. But I mostly wanted to get back to Webber proper while reading it.

The same could be said for book four. Which is alternately about Fox Edwards (Max Perkins), Webber's editor, and a very long examination of a random man who committed suicide and why he might have done so (which I happened to read in an ER, strangely enough). The novel shines when it's about Webber and the townsfolk of Libya Hill. And the European sections are also solid in their own way. A madcap adventure with a Sinclair Lewis stand-in. A train ride that reveals the troubles of Nazi Germany. And the novel's closing section, which is written as a first person address from Webber to Edwards, in which he lays out his philosophy of life, is strong. Albeit feels very much like Perkins, in editing, chopped and pasted a letter from Wolfe to close out the novel with a hope for America and a premonition of death. Editorial overreach? I'm not enough of an English major anymore to decide.

So that's the novel and that's the story of how I came to finally read this novel, days before I left home, with the hope that someday I can come home again, maybe not to stay, but at least to remember where I was once, who I was then. A new chapter approaches. Whether I'll ever reread Wolfe I can't say. Check back in even years. But, for a time, he spoke to me as no other and I cherish that. We are alone in America and we are alone together and that's what makes us Americans. Almost a century on, this holds true. The future awaits. Our (my?) only move is to meet it.

A semi-autobiographical novel is a captivating literary work that is extremely well-written.

It showcases the remarkable talent of the classical novelist, who has the ability to intricately weave the plot with the development of the characters, the era in which the story is set, and the specific location.

This masterful combination allows the readers to gain a profound insight into the timeless nature of patterns and themes that have endured throughout history.

The novel takes the readers on a journey through the author's personal experiences, while also exploring universal human emotions and dilemmas.

It presents a vivid and detailed picture of the past, while at the same time, highlighting the relevance of the story to the present and future.

The well-developed characters come to life on the pages, making the readers empathize with their joys and sorrows.

The plot unfolds in a seamless and engaging manner, keeping the readers hooked from the beginning to the end.

Overall, this semi-autobiographical novel is a must-read for anyone who appreciates great literature and wants to explore the depths of the human experience.

This is an extremely long novel. I'm not precisely sure of the word count, but my edition consists of 576 pages of single-spaced type with a font size of approximately 9. It's truly a very long book, yet Wolfe manages to carry the reader along with his vivid imagery.

Wolfe has the remarkable ability to create scenes that not only grip the reader but are also full of powerful metaphors. He portrays the 1929 crash by vividly describing a house party in an affluent apartment building just a week before. He also depicts everyday America through the reactions of the people on the street to a suicide by jumping from a New York hotel. Additionally, he shows the evil of Nazi Germany, and by implication, all regimes that are indifferent to human dignity, with a journey by train from Berlin to the Belgian border on the way to Paris.

This is not only a literary book but also a compelling page-turner. You can't go home again because both you and your home will have been changed irreversibly. The book delves into this with great insight and explores the problem of how to deal with this inevitability. It also deals with the issue of inequality and suffering, denying their inevitability. It vividly depicts the background of the economic bubbles of the 1920s and the resulting crash in 1929, as well as the avarice and foolishness that led to it and the indifference to the suffering caused by them. Wolfe presents a fatalistic optimism that accepts the existence of difficulties but trusts that things can be made better. Indeed, things do not remain the same. You can't go home again because things will change, and they can be made to change for the better.

The writing of this piece is, at times, truly very beautiful. The words seem to dance on the page, creating a vivid and almost enchanting atmosphere. However, despite this beautiful writing, the plot leaves much to be desired. It is rather boring and lacks the excitement and tension that would keep the reader engaged from start to finish. There are no real surprises or twists, and the story seems to plod along in a rather predictable manner. As a result, while one can appreciate the beauty of the language, it is difficult to fully enjoy the piece due to the uninteresting plot. It is a shame that such beautiful writing is paired with a less than thrilling story.

Probably the best book I've ever read that I would never recommend to anyone else. It's a strange paradox, really. On one hand, it contains some truly remarkable moments. For every long, bloated and overly-descriptive sequence, there's something brilliant buried alongside it. Take, for instance, the account of C. Green's suicide outside the Admiral Drake Hotel. It's a powerful and haunting scene that stays with you long after you've turned the page. Or the final train ride towards the conclusion. It's filled with a sense of anticipation and mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I only realised this was a sequel (and in fact, something of a rehashing of an earlier book by Wolfe) when I was already 300 pages down. But that didn't really matter to me. I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't care about its origins. However, I don't plan on reading its predecessor anytime soon. I'm content with the experience I had with this book and I don't want to taint it by comparing it to something else.

The original sin of much of 21st century literature lies in its blatantly autobiographical nature. This trait, it turns out, has roots deeper than one might imagine. With this novel, we can officially trace it back to Thomas Wolfe. He happily penned his own life in a series of novels, often forgetting to change the names of his characters. This may sound like an exaggeration, but perhaps not by much. Autobiographical fiction predates Wolfe, but the way he blurs the line between reality and fiction has a certain ostentatious theatricality.
Wolfe's first novel, "Look Homeward, Angel," is a bildungsroman about Eugene Gant's childhood and adolescence in Altamont. In it, he criticizes the town as isolated, parochial, and racist. Eugene Gant is widely believed to be a thinly veiled version of Wolfe himself, and Altamont is thought to be his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. "You Can't Go Home Again" was published in 1940, two years after Wolfe's death. It tells the story of George Webber, a disaffected writer who faces a backlash after writing a novel about his hometown.
Webber travels to New York, London, and Berlin before realizing that you can't go back home. He is sincere in his desire to portray the truth, but his writing lacks the necessary craft. The novel has long digressions that add little to the plot or characters. Wolfe's themes are expressed too blatantly, turning his characters into caricatures. In the end, "You Can't Go Home Again" is a magnificent failure. It has great hopes and ambitions, but Wolfe's lack of subtlety and artistic discipline prevent it from being a truly great novel.

A significant number of other reviewers, including those who award this novel four or five stars, remark on its length and density. It's as if the reader is like a traveler burdened with oversized and overstuffed luggage, often having to set the book down and take a break before resuming and continuing on its journey.

Some parts of the book are truly beautiful. When these passages appear, the reader can simply relax and enjoy the scenery, much like when the main character, George Webber, is on a train and "sat by the window and watched the stifled land stroke past him." It was unseasonably hot for September, with no rain for weeks. The entire afternoon, the contours of the eastern seaboard faded into the weary hazes of the heat. The soil was parched and dusty, and under a glazed and burning sky, coarse yellow grasses and the withered stalks of weeds simmered and flashed beside the tracks. The whole continent seemed to be gasping for breath. In the hot green depths of the train, a powder of fine cinders beat in through the meshes of the screens, and during the pauses at stations, the little fans at both ends of the cars hummed monotonously, as if it were the voice of the heat itself. During these intervals when the train stood still, enormous engines steamed slowly by on adjacent tracks or stood panting, passive like great cats, and their engineers wiped wads of blackened waste across their grimy faces, while the passengers feebly fanned themselves with sheaves of languid paper or sat in soaked and sweltering dejection. Come to think of it, that description sounds like a journey through Hell, yet it is so powerfully evoked that it is truly mesmerizing.

While the above-referenced scene gives the reader a sense of a destination, much of the rest of the novel does not. Like a four-year-old in the back of my father's 1958 Oldsmobile, I was often frustrated and wanted to ask, "Are we almost there?" when I had no idea where the driver was taking me. Part of this problem may stem from the autobiographical nature of the novel. There is a troubling tension between the reader who desires to progress forward through a story with a traditional beginning, middle, and end, and a writer who is describing his meandering journey from the perspective of a rearview mirror. The meandering journey might actually work if it were not further complicated by Wolfe's use of an omniscient narrator who flits from one character to another, both major and minor, and allows their inner musings to dominate the novel for pages at a time, periods in which anticipation gives way to a numbing stasis. A maid or an elevator operator or a jaded socialite takes the narrative hostage while George Webber and his amorous counterpart, Esther Jack, simply disappear. The story, such as it is, is often told through introspection and exposition, which severely dampens any dramatic effect. Wolfe resorts to this approach again and again, instead of allowing the story and its central characters to develop more richly and fully through action and interaction.

Additionally, Wolfe's writing is very uneven. For every passage as wonderful as the one quoted above, there are others that are overwrought or downright confusing. Wolfe is like Will Rogers of diction in that he never met an adjective or adverb he didn't like. For example, in one passage, a human character becomes an "It" that was "calmly, quietly, modestly, prosaically, and matter-of-factly peeling off Its own trousers and pulling on a pair of canvas pants." Even worse is the instance in which a character's tone of voice changes "imperceptibly." Really? If the listener cannot perceive a tonal shift, how does he or she know that a change has occurred? In another instance, a party goer "looked the very distinguished woman that she was," and in the next sentence, she is referred to as "this bland lady." Three paragraphs later, the same woman is described as having a "very handsome and striking appearance." Skipping another sentence, her "face was almost impossibly bland." Maybe things were so different in the early 20th Century that a person could be both striking and bland simultaneously, but neither my parents nor grandparents are around for me to confirm this possibility. And don't even get me started on the man who looks like a vulture, but he's a "benevolent vulture," one who can smile "vulturesquely." I kid you not.

As the title states, You Can't Go Home Again, and with this novel, I'm not tempted to.

Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" is a comprehensive exploration of a writer's life.

It begins with his early years of self-doubt and anonymity, progresses through the harsh responses to his first book, and reaches its zenith with the moment of fame. This seemingly autobiographical account is filled with profound insights into America before, during, and after the Great Depression. Wolfe also takes us to England and pre-war Germany, presenting sharp contrasts and vivid depictions of the ethical dilemmas in daily life.

One of the most captivating aspects of the novel is its portrayal of the transition between the busy, impersonal city and the provincial town. As the protagonist, George Webber, witnesses his hometown being devoured by a money-driven craze, the horror is palpable, accurately reflecting the social obsessions that still resonate today, such as stock market mania, cryptocurrency, and NFTs.

Wolfe's detailed descriptions of New York's upper class, sophisticated yet warped by their luxurious lifestyles, are poignant. The divide between them and the working-class residents of Brooklyn, the homeless under bridges, and the unemployed men loitering on street corners is stark but subtly presented.

Webber's journey to Berlin offers a chilling look at how fascism infiltrates everyday life, changing our perception of what is normal. The parallels with the present day are striking, making this part of the novel both thrilling and terrifying.

The book also features a variety of vividly drawn character types, representing different roles in society. These portraits are not only fascinating character studies but also a deep exploration of the social fabric of an era.

Finally, it is interesting to consider how much has changed since the novel was published. What was once considered a progressive mindset now often seems naive or even ignorant. Wolfe's awareness of class struggles and global processes is evident, but his perspective is that of a white cisgender man, and this is reflected in his blind spots. His portrayal of America lacks the diversity of nonwhite people and women who do not conform to the traditional image of carefreeness. This reminds us that even the most perceptive thinkers can overlook significant aspects of the picture, and no perspective is ever truly complete.