Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth

A sequel to Wolfe's most famous novel Look Homeward, Angel,

this book is extremely long, just over 1000 pages. After reaching the predictable ending, I found myself asking, "Did this really need to be written?"

It truly seems to serve no purpose. It's not very entertaining, lacking a strong or memorable story and characters. It also doesn't seem to convey any meaningful message and is rather directionless in almost every aspect.

It's a well-known fact that Wolfe wrote an enormous amount and required a good editor or editors. He's perhaps more famous for that than for his books. It's not that he's a bad writer. Look Homeward Angel is not an easy read, but it does have beautiful descriptions and charm. Despite being difficult, overwritten, and a bit pretentious, it had something likable and said something about family and growing up.

This sequel, while attempting to deal with similar themes like growing up, doesn't do as good a job. It has beautiful descriptions as well, but they are淹没 in the overly written bulk of the book. Characters appear and disappear without adding much to the story. It is definitely pretentious and almost feels like four or five different books or that Wolfe wrote this adventure for the character Eugene Gant four or five different times and combined them all. It had just enough to keep me reading, but it really isn't a good book.

The story of Gulf is the continuation of the book "Turn Home, My Angel", and reading the first one is not a necessary prerequisite for reading "About Time and River".

The story is purely autobiographical. Its central hero, Eugene Gant, is Gulf himself.

The story told by the author is relatively simple, and its development is completely linear: Gant leaves his hometown, a small town in the South, and goes to Harvard to study and become a writer. There, he will go through the stages of his personal maturation, meet people who will influence him, form friendships, and lose family members. From there, he will go to New York, which he is charmed by and has feelings of attraction and repulsion for. Then he will travel to Europe (England, France), where he will form friendships that will shape his personality.

The plot of the story is not of particular significance. What is significant in its flow is the hero's wandering, his ideas, his obsessions, his thirst for knowledge and literature, his monologues, and descriptions of people, landscapes, his encounters and conversations.

With a long-term narrative, lyrical and poetic, impulsive and vivid, the story is not afraid of chit-chat, not afraid of characterizations and repetitions, changes in the rhythm of the narrative, exhaustive details and grand descriptions.

It is a rich book full of symbols and metaphors, with the search for the self as its central theme through the hero's wandering, but it also talks about the search and loss of the father figure.

It is easy to read, only a little courage (and time) is needed.

A book on a truly monumental scale awaits the reader. Spanning nearly a thousand pages, it serves as the sequel to Wolfe's highly acclaimed first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. This remarkable work chronicles the journey of the main character as he transitions from the small town of North Carolina in the early nineteen hundreds to the hallowed halls of Harvard, then onward to the vibrant city of New York and the enchanting landscapes of Europe.

It is a literary masterpiece that is intensely emotional and very passionate. The author's descriptive prowess is on full display as he brings to life the characters, places, and emotions with vivid detail. Every page seems to breathe with life, drawing the reader deeper into the story.

However, this book is not for the faint of heart. It demands the full attention and engagement of the reader, as it delves into the depths of the human experience. But for those who are willing to take on the challenge, it is a rewarding and unforgettable read. I, for one, absolutely love it and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Thomas Wolfe's works have always been a subject of debate. Some, like Faulkner, regarded him as one of the greatest American novelists. However, others, while not denying his literary genius, criticized his excesses, such as his overly lyrical style and his inability to give proper form and structure to his novels. After reading his works, I firmly belong to the latter group.

Just like looking out of the windows of a moving train - a great image that loses its power with overuse - the scenes in his novels follow one after another without a clear connection, separated by passionate interludes of often exaggerated lyricism. I couldn't find a clear structure that would make this river of words into a single, attractive current to follow. Wolfe writes in anguish about the fleeting nature of life, the slipping away of time, and the need to leave a mark and testimony of everything and everyone, although much of what he writes is of little significance. Wolfe's river, with its warm, abundant, and rapid waters, often experiences spectacular floods that, while impressive and worthy of being contemplated and enjoyed, disrupt the course of navigation, leaving the view of the broad landscape very fragmented and dispersed. His prose is too hasty: what it gains in expressiveness, which I don't deny is a lot, it loses in cohesion and unity. I read with the inescapable feeling of being in front of the novel's own manuscript that has come into my hands with its pages disordered. Despite the arduous editing work done on the novel, I wonder if even Gordon Lish would have failed equally.

And as if all this weren't enough, I had to endure more times than desirable his racism, his condescension towards anyone who is not white and Anglo-Saxon, his exacerbated chauvinism, and his tiresome effort to contradict Heraclitus and make us bathe again and again in the same river.

Of Time and the River takes up almost precisely where Look Homeward, Angel concluded. Just like its predecessor, this novel follows Eugene Gant with the same passion and an unending examination of the overwhelming intensity of life in one's youth.

However, unlike Look Homeward, Angel, this book is in a constant state of motion. It is an endless quest for a "what" and a "where" that can only be known upon reaching them. While Look Homeward, Angel delved deep into the unbearable idleness of youth, small-town America, and the cyclical nature of family life, this novel follows Gant into his mid-twenties, out of his small town, and through his search to satisfy his desire for knowledge and the world around him that haunted his younger years. The results are effective, and dare I use that oh-so cringe-worthy term, "life-affirming."

As for Wolfe? Well, what can be said? It's Wolfe as you have come to expect, as you want him, as you have come to love or hate. He is steeped in the same shameless romanticism that, suddenly, with the turn of a page or the end of a chapter, transforms into the most beautifully dense, strange, and surreal free-verse that probably rivals moments of Ulysses. He is overbearing, ceaselessly descriptive, and tirelessly poetic. He is, without hesitation, like no other writer of the English language. Whether you enjoy it or not is another discussion. Yet, you cannot deny that there is truly no other writer in the English language like him. And the sad thing is, he seems all but forgotten by so many.

Admittedly, Wolfe may not be a writer who can appeal to many today. Although, by reading him, many connections to contemporary writers can be made. However, his appeal, understandably, may not always be immediately obvious.

Nevertheless, this book has a great deal to offer. Wolfe's obsession with exploring every possible aspect of being young leaves something that anyone, regardless of background or gender, could probably find fascinating and immediately familiar. Secondly, Wolfe's descriptions of America and France in the pre-World War 2 period are enough to make this book required reading. (Note: his descriptions of New York City, written almost 80 years ago, are so fascinating and strangely still applicable!) Finally, the most poignant aspect may be that while Wolfe writes about a time that has passed and whose people have since passed away, the experience of what it means to be human that he describes still correlates. Certainly, things are different, but the heavy, overbearing emotion of what it is to be young still resonates effectively over 80 years later.

Yes, he is lengthy and wordy. And yes, with over 900 pages, it does sometimes drag. However, in the end, I don't see how anyone could not find something intensely redeemable about his work. Even for fans of post-modern irony, surrealism, chick-lit, travel narratives, or otherwise. Please indulge.

(steps down from the "Why Wolfe fucking Rules" soap box)

Wow.

I feel as if I have just indulged in a sumptuous 10-course French meal.

This book is truly a masterpiece, filled with breathtakingly beautiful imagery and exquisitely poetic descriptions.

It takes the reader on a vast and enchanting journey, through different landscapes, emotions, and experiences.

With each turn of the page, one is transported to a world of wonder and beauty, where the words seem to dance and come alive.

The author's use of language is simply remarkable, painting vivid pictures in the mind and evoking a wide range of emotions.

It is a journey that I will not soon forget, and one that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a good read.

Whether you are a lover of literature or simply looking for a captivating story, this book is sure to delight and inspire.

So, sit back, relax, and prepare to embark on a journey of a lifetime.

I don't usually get personal with these reviews.

However, I must say that this book will always be entwined in a strange and beautiful way with my mother's death. I was reading it during her last sickness.

I even remember that one of the lyrical sections, the part that Kerouac liked so much about "great boats blowing in the gulf of night", is the last thing I read aloud to her.

Wolfe may have fallen out of fashion, but I really think that the beautiful enthusiasm and the sheer lyrical wonder of this book will transcend all literary trends.

Until - god forbid - people stop reading books altogether. Honestly, it doesn't hold together as a novel in the usual sense, other than the general arc of Gant/Wolfe's awakening into life and the relation of his experiences.

But there is something so inherently American about it, not in a jingoistic or nationalistic way, but in a wholesome, Whitmanic sense.

This makes this work so special. Perhaps because that kind of love for the American land is nearly impossible these days without acknowledging its slow destruction.

Perhaps because this kind of sincerity seems garish at present in the light of the evening news.

But it will stand as a pillar, a kind of glorious aspiration and perhaps as the culmination of American Romanticism in the grandest sense.

After recently watching the movie "Genius" and reading the screenplay, I was deeply intrigued. I searched high and low to find the unedited manuscript, "O Lost". The used copy I purchased is expected to arrive this week. I'm eagerly anticipating its arrival.

This screenplay is not just a great writer's tool of information; it has a certain allure that lures me back in time. We encounter blue eyes everywhere, and perhaps some of us even have blue eyes. But regardless of the eye color, when one is stirred by first love, colors seem to transform into poetry. You could go online and search for various words to describe beautiful eye colors, yet for a young person experiencing first love, those words would never truly capture the essence.

Eugene Grant catches a glimpse of the girl from a distance and writes, '...her eyes were blue beyond blue, like the ocean. A blue he could swim into forever and never miss a fire engine red or a cornstalk yellow.' Just like many first loves from afar, the girl doesn't even notice him. From that moment, Eugene realizes what the poets have been penning about for all these years. All those lost, wandering, lonely souls become his brothers. He knows a love that will never be his. He falls for her so quickly that no one in the room hears a sound, not the whoosh as he falls nor the clatter of his broken heart. It's a silent certainty, but his life is shattered.

You can't help but want to cry when Max Perkins and Thomas Wolfe finally decide on the line: “Eugene saw a woman. Her eyes were blue. So quickly did he fall for her that no one in the room even heard the sound.” Now, imagine a manuscript that had 900 pages cut, but it originally started with 5,000 handwritten pages. I hope you enjoy reading "Of Time and the River" as much as I did.

P.S. Unedited... if you're as old as I am, you'll recognize Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes. Good luck editing the following. I loved every word. "But it was her eyes that stopped his breath; that made his heart leap up. Blue they were, even through the swirling vapors of pompous Chesterfields and arrogant Lucky Strikes he saw her eyes were a blue beyond blue, like the ocean. A blue he could swim into forever and never miss a fire engine red or a cornstalk yellow. Across the chasm of that room, that blue, those eyes, devoured him and looked past him and never saw him and never would, of that he was sure. From that moment, Eugene understood what the poets had been writing about these many years, all the lost, wandering, lonely souls who were now his brothers. He knew a love that would never be his. So quickly did he fall for her that no one in the room even heard the sound, the whoosh as he fell, the clatter of his broken heart. It was a sure silence, but his life was shattered." -Genius 2016