You Can't Go Home Again [Paperback]

Thomas Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1973

Story of an artist who flees scandal and despair as he journeys from his family home in a small Southern town to the capitals of prewar Europe.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by Thomas Wolfe, published posthumously in 1940 after heavy editing by Edward Aswell. This novel, like Wolfe's other works, is largely autobiographical, reflecting details of his life in the 1930s. As the sequel to The Web and the Rock (1939), You Can't Go Home Again continues the story of George Webber, a thoughtful author in search of meaning in his personal life and in American society. Leaving New York City, he is dismayed at the social decay he finds on his travels to England, Germany, and his small hometown in the Carolinas. Nonetheless, he is optimistic about the future of the United States. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Thomas Wolfe was born on October 3, 1900, among the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, North Carolina, a childhood which he immortalized through the creation of Eugene Gant, the hero of Look Homeward, Angel (1929). Wolfe enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the age of fifteen, determined to become a playwright, but despite the success of his college productions, and later, the plays he wrote during his studies at Harvard University's renowned 47 Workshop, he was unable to interest professional New York producers in his work.

Fearing penury and professional failure, Wolfe was encouraged to turn to the writing of fiction full-time by Aline Bernstein, a set designer for the New York Theatre Guild, with whom Wolfe carried on a five-year affair (and who appears in Wolfe's fiction as the Esther Jack character in The Web and the Rock (1939) and Of Time and the River .) Scribner's legendary Maxwell Perkins was the only editor to appreciate Wolfe's freshman effort, Look Homeward, Angel, and after extensive revisions and collaborative editing sessions, the novel was published in 1929. The largely autobiographical book was received with unequivocal enthusiasm. The residents of Asheville, however, the real-life denizens of this "drab circumstance," rebelled against Wolfe's often scathing portrayal of his hometown. The public outcry was so great that Wolfe did not return to his hometown for seven years.

Rewarded with commercial success and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Wolfe wrote a second autobiographical saga about the life of Eugene Gant, Of Time and the River , in which Eugene, an aspiring novelist, details his travels to Europe. This time, the critics were torn. Wolfe's apparent formlessness was both a constant source of delight and frustration to critics, many of whom felt that Wolfe was pioneering new literary ground, while others insisted that the overweening passion inherent in Wolfe's rambling narratives betrayed the author's immaturity and solipsism.

Furthermore, Wolfe's intimate collaboration with his editor, Perkins, were often derided by contemporaries, who insisted that Wolfe's inability to master novelistic form without significant editorial assistance rendered him artistically deficient. The rancorous extent of the criticism led to Wolfe's eventual break with Perkins, and in 1927, Wolfe signed with Edward C. Aswell at Harper. Yet Aswell had no less significant a role in reshaping and trimming Wolfe's future works than Perkins did previously.

The early part of 1938 found Wolfe in Brooklyn, this time writing with a new social agenda. Agreeing with some of his critics that his earlier work was indeed too egocentric, Wolfe rechristened Eugene Gant as George "Monk" Webber, and embarked on writing a new novel dedicated to exploring worldwide social and political ills. This mammoth undertaking, after gargantuan editorial efforts on the part of Aswell, would be published posthumously, and as two novels, The Web and the Rock (1939) and You Can't Go Home Again (1940), as well as The Hills Beyond (1941), a collection which contained short fiction, a play, and a novella. Wolfe's development as a novelist was truncated by his sudden death at the age of thirty-eight, yet the progression of his novels showcases Wolfe's ever-evolving capacities as a writer. Navigating his way from self-obsessed chronicler of his own adolescence to sophisticated assessor of the adolescence of America itself, Wolfe was a writer who grew up in step with the country that both made him and maddened him. He died in 1938.. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (December 1973)
• Language: German
• ISBN-10: 0060803142
• ISBN-13: 978-0060803148
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,173,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ingenius, Incisive, Intuitive with Incredible Clarity, September 27, 2003

By 

Jon Linden (Warren, N.J. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Can't Go Home Again (Hardcover)

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.

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sublime and full of magic, October 5, 2000

By 

Jeff Ross "rossanova" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Can't Go Home Again (Hardcover)

I've been reading these other reviews and I've come to the conclusion that most of these folks just don't GET Wolfe. They keep talking about this being "wordy" and "drawn-out". Hello..Thomas Wolfe could write three pages about a man staring out of a window and have me in tears, contemplating the meaning of life. He's rarely about the story. He's always about the beauty of the moment. For sheer power of description and fearless romantic vision no one has come close to Thomas Wolfe.

No one moves me like he does.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of You Can't Go Home Again, October 13, 2000

By 

Douglas F. Voerding (Montrose, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Can't Go Home Again (Paperback)

Wolfe weaves, very deliberately, in and out of images and situations from his own lost generation in this, his last novel, largely autobiographical. He was the most lyrical writer of his time, this book no exception, and although at times it's obvious he struggled with structure, Wolfe gives the reader the unique ability to truly understand each of his characters as multi-dimensional and on numerous levels. There's a bit of George Weber in all of us, searching for something we know we've either lost or never found, times when we feel alone, and the world is so large. If you've ever read Fitzgerald, you will enjoy this novel, and even if you haven't, you should. It's a timeless classic, with a theme so prevaliant in literature and society even today, and stated so clearly in the title.