Rating: 
Summary: The best book I've ever read.
Review: I've read every thing from Nancy Drew to War and Peace (unabridged), and when I think of the best, I think of Thomas
Wolfe and You Can't Go Home Again. It's been 30 years since
I picked it up and I still occasionally pick it up, if only to read that last beautiful paragraph. Some may not find it an easy book to read; Thomas Wolfe was a genius at prose. But take the
time and you'll find it worth your efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the Spirit of a Writer
Review: Just like Look Homeward, Angel, this book tell a story of Wolfe, thus - a story of a true artist, an ideal of what a writer is or should be. It's huge and its sentences span across the pages, but in its magnitude is its beauty. A conclusion to Wolfe's career, You Can't Go Home Again is a powerful testament to the spirit of writing, that never dies, never get dissolved in the mundane reality, that is always flowing like a river and blowing like the wind.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging - A Quest for Truth
Review: Mr. Thomas Wolfe had courage. The courage to attempt showing every ounce of his personal experience in the pure, naked, and sometimes brutal light of truth. This he did with a just hand toward both the the extraordinary and the mundane alike. Extraordinary experiences, especially those well written, will be read by most any literate person they are presented to, but when an author plunges into the world of the mundane, the realistic and dry fabric of every-day reality, he looses audience. It is a shame too, for a fresh, intelligent, and honest perspective of the every-day experiences in life which are taken for granted can renew our appreciation for our own lives and cause us to look at what we may have been missing all this time; the infinite variability of experience that makes us individuals. This book looks into our hearts--into the heart of America, and askes each of us who reads it, "What will you do now to make us better--to make us whole?".
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but lengthy
Review: The plot of the book was very interesting and I think that it holds a special appeal for aspiring authors. However, parts of the book are extremely drawn out, and Wolfe feels the need to tell the reader every small detail about the character's life, without seeming to care whether it is of any significance to the reader. So although the plot is good and the character's well-developed, it is not fast-moving and I think that many people will become bored and restless through certain parts. However, if they keep reading it soon picks up again, and I feel that the book is worth reading even though it has this negative aspect about it. Another good thing about the book is that it does an excellent job of capturing the American spirit that persisted at the time it was written. During the novel the Great Depression takes place, as well as the beginning of World War II. The novel shows the social decay of this era and emptiness which envades American citizens' hearts when they realize that all the money they put so much worth in is nothingness now. If for nothing else one should read this book for an accurate picture of the time period in American history. Be aware of a lot of sexism and rascism throughout this novel, which shows the time period it was written in and hopefully shows us how far we have come- if not in reality, at least in the art of writing. I recommend this book for its plot and its setting, and if you like to read a book such as this and you don't only look for an on-the-edge-of-your-seat success story (and you can resist taking offense to some ugly comments), and especially if you are looking for a book that represents a time and a place very accurately, I think you will really like this book. It definitely has a great literary value and has stood the test of time in the hearts of many readers and lovers of literature.
Rating:
Summary: Who's Afraid of Thomas Wolfe?
Review: There's little doubt that Thomas Wolfe was a good writer, but he wasn't a good storyteller, a fact made abundantly clear through the long, winding, often pointless tangents he embarks upon in You Can't Go Home Again. There are times when Wolfe covers years in a couple of pages and others where he spends six chapters describing one evening in New York, which gives the whole story the jarring motion of riding in a car with someone who's never driven before. Some of the tangents, like detailing the lives of Esther Jack's servants or describing the mythical C. Green who jumps off a building, have little meaning to the story and could have been left out entirely without damaging the piece. This is what I mean by Wolfe is a good writer, but not a good storyteller. There's no technical fault with his writing, but it lacks the focus, the cohesion of a good story; it attempts to tackle everything instead of focusing on one or two key issues. I suppose part of this problem was that by the time the book was published, Wolfe was dead from TB--the book was assembled by his editor from tons of notebooks--and the editor did the best he could to create a unifying thread by trying to make it about George Webber's journey to enlightenment. Although the problem is that the story ends up being a gigantic "come to realize story" because it isn't clear what, if anything, Webber is going to do now that he's unlocked the secrets of the universe. The learning and changing occurs within Wolfe's own mind, spewed out in the last 5 chapters as a letter to his former editor. As I said, though, what action he plans to take is unclear. There were parts of this book that were interesting, flashes of brilliance. When Webber goes back home early in the book, I thought it was entertaining (albeit over-the-top) to see how his hometown had changed in the Roaring 20s. The party at Esther Jack's dragged on for too long, but had its moments. Then, after the book really sags in the middle, we get to the meeting with Lloyd McCarg(?), which was amusing. Finally, after suffering through page after page of horrible German dialect and a lot of vague stuff about how Germany has changed, Wolfe shows the horror of the Nazis through the incident on the train, which was the most touching moment of the story, IMO. The thing is, none of it really connects to each other, except that George is involved with everything. We never really find out what happens to Esther Jack and company during the Depression or about George's love interest in Germany or a whole lot about the devastation to his hometown. Everything is touched on briefly and then disappears, a flash in the pan. So, as I said, there are flashes of brilliance and that's the problem. A good writer is hit-or-miss while a good storyteller is consistent in holding the audience's attention by creating a vivid, interesting story. To use another of my unpatented sports analogies, a lot of pitchers have a good arm--throwing in the upper 90s, maybe tickling 100mph--but they don't have the command of their pitches to find the strike zone on a consistent basis. Those guys are throwers, not pitchers. Great pitchers may not always throw as hard, but because they have good control (most days) they get the hitters out. Thus a good pitcher will last a lot longer than a thrower. A guy like Wolfe is definitely a thrower, able to write well, but unable to hit the mark consistently enough to create a captivating story. A guy like my boy John Irving, on the other hand, is a good pitcher, who has enough command of his story to keep readers hooked...at least in most of his books--even the best pitchers have off days. Wolfe may have been brilliant and a genius, but he lacked the refinement necessary to put him up there with the greats. Still, you have to appreciate that the books has survived in our collective memory for this long. It's not for the faint of heart though. If you want light beach reading, look elsewhere. And if you want a better STORY, read "The World According to Garp" and see a great storyteller in action.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Wolfe, go home
Review: This book could have been written in 50 pages, maybe 55. Thomas Wolfe, obviously, a gifted, talented writer who conveys a point using 25 similes where one would do. He is anti Hemingway. You can easily skip 20 pages anywhere in the book and not miss a thing of any importance. Characters are so over analyzed that you would think you grew up with them.
It has a juicy beginning about a writer, George Weber, whose first book is published to rare reviews. The book is about corruption, petty politics, racism in small town in North Carolina and how the author exposes their hypocrisy. But he is heart broken when the town retaliates with venom as his comeuppance for telling the whole world their petty doings.
Then the book drifts into his love affair with a married woman, his travel abroad, first to England and then to his favorite land, Germany. But dark clouds are on the horizon as his beloved Germany is falling in the hands of Nazis. His encounter with racism of a different kind as witnessed in a train journey from Berlin to Paris is narrated in heart wrenching detail.
The book ends with an open letter to his best friend, his editor where the author pours his heart, a kin to a suicide note. Most believe this book is Wolf's autobiography. With all due respect I would rather read the other Tom Wolfe.
Rating: 
Summary: You Can't Go Home Again
Review: This book is a classic!!The main character George Weber tranforms through out the book. He starts out meek and mild and in the end he emerges as a strong and well respected author.
The inflex of Hitler is too softly approached in my opinion, however, you definetely feel the sadness of the German people .
Rating: 
Summary: Might as well be sleeping.......
Review: This book rates umong the worst books I have ever read. Wolfe goes into unnecessary details about everyone mentioned in the book. As a reader, I do not like to waste my time reading the life history of a person who has no impact on the story. I found myself wanting to just skip over these parts instead of reading them. They seem to be completely irrelevant to the story. The book would be better if it followed the life of the main character instead of characters who mean nothing. Overall, there are about 100 pages of good reading, while the other 600+ are a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Off to a good start, but then takes a nose-dive...
Review: This book starts off great. Characters are very interesting. Very descriptive. But then Wolfe gets too descriptive, to the point of boredom. I agree with those who said parts of the book could have been deleted. I actually did skim and skip through parts of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and Entertaining
Review: This is an excellent piece of literature. I found it not only interesting to read with extremely lifelike characters, but it was extremely insightful and discussed many ideas that affect people. I found the character of George Webber to be one of the most lifelike characters in any book I've read, Wolfe's characterization is excellent. Throughout this book you see Webber grow and change as a person, I found that very interesting. I especially enjoyed book 6, which is about the nazi control in Germany. I found that to be a sad, yet extremely interesting portion of the book because it shows to some degree what the German citizens felt about the nazi control. As a whole, I enjoyed the book very much. I only gave it 4 stars because it was a bit too wordy, the plot dragged in spots and Wolfe discussed some ideas in far too much detail. However despite that I still found it to be an excellent novel.
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