Look Homeward Angel: A Book Review

You know my reading routine?   Fiction.  Fiction.  Non Fiction.  Classic.  And repeat.

I picked Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe as my classic choice.

He’s a local(ish) author from Asheville and he’s a classic that I avoided somehow throughout my illustrious college career.

I’m not even certain if this will count as a valid book review, but hey – this blog might be the one and only place where I actually make all the rules so I’m going to call this whatever I feel like calling this.  And I call this a book review.

You see, I am not going to finish this novel.

I struggle sometimes with guilt about not finishing a book when I start it.

But I’m just returning this thick book right back to the library shelves from whence it came before I force myself to chug through 528 pages.

The main character – Gant – is unlikable in pretty much every manner.  And it’s okay to have an unlikable lead character.  But the sentences are long and nothing happens and he just continues to struggle in the same way with nothing to redeem his character or his actions or his choices.  There’s no sympathy to be had for him.  No charm to endear him to the reader.

I made it to page 72 and although half of his life had already passed in those less than one hundred pages, I still did not care one whit for Gant or for his family that suffered so terribly under his “leadership”.  I quickly skimmed/read another hundred pages or so and it was simply more of the same.

If so much nothing was happening but yet so much time was passing, what on earth could possibly fill up the other 300 pages?  I figured maybe Gant would die or something but when I read the last few chapters – turns out, he made it through the novel.

But I still didn’t care.

I don’t feel guilty this time for not enjoying this classic and I think it’s perfectly okay if it rests quietly on the shelf at the public library.