Look No Further For Quality, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                When I recently read Wiley Cash's novel, "A Land More Kind Than Home," between its title, and all the reviewers' references to Thomas Wolfe, I felt it was about time I tackled one of Wolfe's signature works. Especially, since, while still in my twenties, I had  read A. Scott Berg's biography of Wolfe's editor, Maxwell Perkins.

                                                    As I began "Look Homeward, Angel," I did not know what to expect!!!!! This was a Southern novel?  It had none of the lyricism of Truman Capote or Carson McCullers, whom I was accustomed to, and what I think of as Southern writing.  The further I read, the more I thought he was kind of like James Joyce, but without the stream of consciousness.

                                                       Nevertheless, I could not stop reading, and soon its "Southerness" began to fall into place--women of questionable reputation staying a boarding house called "Dixieland," the yearning of the poetic soul to escape from the provincialism of his surroundings--oh, honey, do I know THAT one!!!!--and the family ensnared by matriarchal dominance.  It had a style, and it captured a period in time--and the location was unmistakably Southern.

                                                         I finished "Look Homeward, Angel" satisfied that I had at last read a masterwork of American literature, and that it truly deserved to be called that.  But Thomas Wolfe is like a rich desert.  I cannot go straight from this to "You Can't Go Home Again."  Having cracked the first volume, I have no doubt about reading the second.

                                                             I wonder if Wolfe is in danger of becoming a forgotten author.  Does anyone read him today?  Is he taught anywhere?  All the English literature courses I took in college, some of those American, and I cannot recall Wolfe being mentioned.  There exists The Thomas Wolfe Society, and while I do not feel enough of a groupie to include myself in it, I wonder what they can do to promote this writer's work.

                                                               Do you need to read "Fifty Shades Of Grey?"  No!!!!!!!!!!!!
Should you read "Look Homeward, Angel????????" Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                We can then discuss it over tea, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!