You Can't Go Home Again

Rating:
Summary: Fourth and last of Wolfe's brilliant novels.
Review: This is the fourth, and last, of Wolfe's novels - which together make up a chronological account of his life, and the lives of his friends and his family, although all under pseudonyms. They were the only novels he ever wrote, and are all an utter delight to read. They can be read separately, they don't really work as a series in the proper sense of the word - but once you get hooked on Wolfe, you'll want to read them all. "You Can't go Home Again" is his best, in my opinion, and consists of several anecdotes, or short stories, which together make up a beautifully written, heart-achingly fine novel. This is the kind of stuff to make you want to run out on the street and tell people you love them. Passionately recommended. Check out the three preceeding novels, "Look Homeward, Angel", "Of Time and the River" and "The Web and the Rock".

Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: This novel, the sequel to "The Web and the Rock", is like other works by Wolfe, a mixed bag of writing, varying from brilliantly evocative, powerful and well-observed prose to the self-indugent and just plain banal. "You Can't Go Home Again" has enough of the good to (just) outweigh the bad.

In particular, I enjoyed the descriptions of Webber's train journey home to the South with the menacing, blind Judge Rumford Bland, the fire in the New York apartment block, and the Royal-obsessed Londoner, Mrs Purvis (hilariously accurate, and I'm afraid the type still exists!).

I welcomed the introduction of descriptions of the home life of Esther Jack and her husband (a puzzling omission from "The Web and the Rock"). Yet unless I missed something, Esther just disappears midway through this novel with little explanation as to the final break-up of her relationship with Webber - again, very strange.

Scattered among these joys were more self-indulgent descriptions of the writer's life, when I felt that Wolfe drifted away from the novel into semi-autobiographical reflections: as a result, the flow of the novel was interrupted.

Wolfe is very much an acquired taste, and you have to accept that in among the delights, there are meanderings and flights of fancy which have to be endured rather than enjoyed. But I thought that this novel was more inconsistent than his earlier ones - a pity.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Great American Classics
Review: This one of those rare books that once you get into it you are captivated. Wolfe's character developement and descriptions are his greatest atributes as an author. His desription of the Japanese man that lived in his building is so poignant. The cockney accent of the woman who was his maid while living in England was one of the best ever written as well as humorous. I felt as if I had met these characters personally. I encourage everyone to read this book or get the book on tape. Do not miss this Great American Classic. I read this book ten years ago and I have never forgotten it.

Rating:
Summary: Ugh
Review: This was one of the worst books that i have ever read. don't bother reading it. It was so slow, and so hard to get through. Also the "plot" just moved off on tangents...

Rating:
Summary: The best novel by America's greatest writer
Review: Thomas Wolfe was not a good novelist, but he was a GREAT writer. As I tell my American History students, no one ever put words together in the English language more beautifully than Wolfe. I've read through - at times skimmed through - all of his books. This is the only one I found interesting as a novel. BUT the prose-poetry which pervades everything he wrote is so extraordinary as to be heartbreaking. One reads and reads, and suddenly one encounters the most breathtaking passage, and then another, and another. In You Can't Go Home Again, the eloquence comes on virtually every page. And the conclusion, with Wolfe's paean to his former editor, Maxwell Perkins, and his reflections on our America, is overwhelming.

Rating:
Summary: Ingenius, Incisive, Intuitive with Incredible Clarity
Review: Thomas Wolfe's book "You Can't Go Home Again" is undeniably an immortal American classic. What is truly impressive and unique about Wolfe's writing is not only the intuitive incisiveness with which he articulates human thought and emotion; but just as astonishing, is his ability to articulate these things with utter and precise clarity.

There is not one sentence in his book that does not make total sense upon first reading. If it seems not to, it is only because the reader has skipped a line. With a vocabulary that is vast, but which he uses with unique precision, Wolfe tells the story of George Webber, a writer, who is in essence, Thomas Wolfe, the writer. Wolfe ultimately sees himself as an artist that is an observer of human thought and action. But in addition, one that has an obligation to do what one can, to stamp out ugliness, violence, injustice, inhumanity, and so many other wrongs that rear their heads in society from time to time.

Yet, even with this extraordinary brilliance, clarity, and understanding of the human condition, like all great writers and great artists, he leaves the reader with a question. If clearly, it is his understanding of his personal duty, his personal philosophy to work to do what one can do, to end injustice, then why, is he, personally, always running away? As the book is a picture of one always on the move, always observing people, always changing venue, but wisely with great proficiency and efficacy, storing these experiences away as he seeks his understanding of the human condition; he is constantly yet on the move. And so, how does one work to stamp out injustice, if one is always running from the place he is at, and believes "He can't go home again?" This then becomes the challenge to the reader as well. And thus, the questions of the "meaning of life" are never fully answered. How really could they be?

For those who wish to see an example of one man try to find those answers, with the clearest articulation I have ever seen in any book, one should read Wolfe's book as soon as possible. It reads moderately quickly, due to Wolfe's amazing clarity. And it does articulate many of the answers to many of the questions that all thinking people ask themselves as they go through life.

Rating:
Summary: Ingenius, Incisive, Intuitive with Incredible Clarity
Review: Thomas Wolfe's book "You Can't Go Home Again" is undeniably an immortal American classic. What is truly impressive and unique about Wolfe's writing is not only the intuitive incisiveness with which he articulates human thought and emotion; but just as astonishing, is his ability to articulate these things with utter and precise clarity.

There is not one sentence in his book that does not make total sense upon first reading. If it seems not to, it is only because the reader has skipped a line. With a vocabulary that is vast, but which he uses with unique precision, Wolfe tells the story of George Webber, a writer, who is in essence, Thomas Wolfe, the writer. Wolfe ultimately sees himself as an artist that is an observer of human thought and action. But in addition, one that has an obligation to do what one can, to stamp out ugliness, violence, injustice, inhumanity, and so many other wrongs that rear their heads in society from time to time.

Yet, even with this extraordinary brilliance, clarity, and understanding of the human condition, like all great writers and great artists, he leaves the reader with a question. If clearly, it is his understanding of his personal duty, his personal philosophy to work to do what one can do, to end injustice, then why, is he, personally, always running away? As the book is a picture of one always on the move, always observing people, always changing venue, but wisely with great proficiency and efficacy, storing these experiences away as he seeks his understanding of the human condition; he is constantly yet on the move. And so, how does one work to stamp out injustice, if one is always running from the place he is at, and believes "He can't go home again?" This then becomes the challenge to the reader as well. And thus, the questions of the "meaning of life" are never fully answered. How really could they be?

For those who wish to see an example of one man try to find those answers, with the clearest articulation I have ever seen in any book, one should read Wolfe's book as soon as possible. It reads moderately quickly, due to Wolfe's amazing clarity. And it does articulate many of the answers to many of the questions that all thinking people ask themselves as they go through life.

Rating:
Summary: Ingenius, Incisive, Intuitive with Incredible Clarity
Review: Thomas Wolfe's book "You Can't Go Home Again" is undeniably an immortal American classic. What is truly impressive and unique about Wolfe's writing is not only the intuitive incisiveness with which he articulates human thought and emotion; but just as astonishing, is his ability to articulate these things with utter and precise clarity.

There is not one sentence in his book that does not make total sense upon first reading. If it seems not to, it is only because the reader has skipped a line. With a vocabulary that is vast, but which he uses with unique precision, Wolfe tells the story of George Webber, a writer, who is in essence, Thomas Wolfe, the writer. Wolfe ultimately sees himself as an artist that is an observer of human thought and action. But in addition, one that has an obligation to do what one can, to stamp out ugliness, violence, injustice, inhumanity, and so many other wrongs that rear their heads in society from time to time.

Yet, even with this extraordinary brilliance, clarity, and understanding of the human condition, like all great writers and great artists, he leaves the reader with a question. If clearly, it is his understanding of his personal duty, his personal philosophy to work to do what one can do, to end injustice, then why, is he, personally, always running away? As the book is a picture of one always on the move, always observing people, always changing venue, but wisely with great proficiency and efficacy, storing these experiences away as he seeks his understanding of the human condition; he is constantly yet on the move. And so, how does one work to stamp out injustice, if one is always running from the place he is at, and believes "He can't go home again?" This then becomes the challenge to the reader as well. And thus, the questions of the "meaning of life" are never fully answered. How really could they be?

For those who wish to see an example of one man try to find those answers, with the clearest articulation I have ever seen in any book, one should read Wolfe's book as soon as possible. It reads moderately quickly, due to Wolfe's amazing clarity. And it does articulate many of the answers to many of the questions that all thinking people ask themselves as they go through life.

Rating:
Summary: Sincerely the best book I've ever read.
Review: Til this novel, I could never pinpoint the "best book I've ever read." This is it. But it is a book that must be read word by word, no skimming. And it is not an easy book to read. Wolfe writes prose; a dozen words to describe what one author would take two. But if you are willing to make the effort it is a beautiful story (autobiographical) of a man from a small town who becomes an author and writes of this town. He returns to find all is not what it was and some didn't appreciate his writing about them. Hence you can't go home again.

Rating:
Summary: Sincerely the best book I've ever read.
Review: Til this novel, I could never pinpoint the "best book I've ever read." This is it. But it is a book that must be read word by word, no skimming. And it is not an easy book to read. Wolfe writes prose; a dozen words to describe what one author would take two. But if you are willing to make the effort it is a beautiful story (autobiographical) of a man from a small town who becomes an author and writes of this town. He returns to find all is not what it was and some didn't appreciate his writing about them. Hence you can't go home again.