The Web and The Root (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Thomas Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harper Perennial Modern Classics | Publication Date: August 4, 2009

Shortly before his death at a tragically young age, author Thomas Wolfe presented his editor with an epic masterwork that was subsequently published as three separate novels: You Can't Go Home Again, The Hills Beyond, and The Web and the Rock.

The Web and the Root features the three initial sections of the The Web and the Rock, widely considered to be the book's strongest material. A prequel to You Can't Go Home Again, it is the story of George Webber's momentous journey from Libya Falls, North Carolina, to the Golden City of the North—offering vivid, sometimes cutting depictions of rural pleasures and small-town clannishness while exploring boundless urban possibility and the complex, violent undercurrents of the metropolis.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Among his and my contemporaries, I ranked Wolfe first.” (William Faulkner )

“Wolfe has written passage after passage that you want to read aloud, to memorize; no novelist since Conrad has more verbal effectiveness.” (Saturday Review )

“He was one of the most brilliant of them all. He had an enormous appetite for life, and a deep sensitivity.” (New York Herald Tribune )

“Wolfe wrote as one inspired. No one of his generation had his command of language, his passion, his energy.” (The New Yorker )

About the Author

One of the most important American writers of his generation, Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) was born in Asheville, North Carolina. His other novels include Of Time and the River and Look Homeward, Angel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; 1 edition (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061579556
• ISBN-13: 978-0061579554
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,329,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars They got the TITLE wrong!, September 29, 2010

By 

Mark Shanks (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Web and The Root (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (Kindle Edition)

For crying out loud, it's The Web and the ROCK. How could they screw THAT up?

That said, this is more of a slog than anything else Wolfe wrote, and I am at a loss to understand why he spent time on what essentially is an inferior rewrite of Look Homeward, Angel. Instead of Eugene Gant, we have an apelike George Webber. To be fair, The Web and the Rock, as well as You Can't Go Home Again, weren't meant by Wolfe to be stand-alone novels - they were posthumously edited out of a much larger manuscript titled The October Fair. But I would MUCH rather have Of Time and the River than both of the posthumous works together. If you haven't read Look Homeward, Angel, please skip this entirely. And if you've finished both Angel and Of Time and the River, start this one only if you really feel the need, because I was quite disappointed.