Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth (Scribner Classics) Hardcover – Special Edition, September 8, 1999

This was a fantastic read!

I have been a fan of Thomas Wolfe since reading, "You Can't Go Home Again." He was an amazingly talented writer, and yes, a genius as the movie about him is titled. I then read, "Look Homeward Angel" and "Lost" and was fully a Wolfe fan. I went to his home in Asheville to see the places he wrote about in such detail. That was a fun and interesting trip. Then, I read the book by A. Scott Berg's on Max Perkins, Wolfe's great editor, and learned far more about the real Thomas Wolfe than could be gleaned from his books. Despite Wolfe's many character-flaws and eccentricities, I remained a Wolfe fan purely for his ability to write so much, so easily, so well. He was 6'5" living in a very small New York apartment, standing in his kitchen where he penned, "Look Homeward Angel" on the top of the refrigerator. When finished, he arrived at Perkins office with a crate full of more than 2000 handwritten pages. When you read his books, his words read like poetry. I've often referred to him as a poet-novelist. But he has his many detractors for his very long sentences. I was always a bit puzzled by the level of distaste. But now I have read, "Of Time and the River," and better understand the fury. Honestly, as hard as Max Perkins worked to get Wolfe to whittle back the novel, it could have been very easily cut by one-third, if not more. It became a real struggle to read. Nonetheless, you learn about Wolfe going to Boston, to Harvard, at the age of 20 and his many experiences. His crazy uncle lived there and became his anchor. There is so much more he tells us about his experiences in Boston and then New York, but the reason to read this 892-page work from a genius, is to understand his life, his points of view, his challenges, his heartaches. Like "You Can't Go Home Again," reading this book takes commitment. Whereas some may dismiss it due to Wolfe's style and length, I viewed it as a challenge. If you are a writer or reader who appreciates great writing talent, I encourage you read Wolfe's last book before he died far too young at the age of 38.

A biography or autobiography is usually read to gain some insight into a famous or infamous personality. Kindles price for this work $2.99 hardly put Thomas Wolfe in those categories, so why read this book?Wolfe digs deep into the human spirit and sours above even the chosen of his generation in the offerings he is making to us, but today his message may be lost in his unrequited love of words. The Quest: "At its rare infrequent best, out of your blind and famished gropings in the jungle-depths, you may pluck out a shining word--achieve a moment's flash of grace and intuition--a half-heard whisper of the vast unuttered language that you seek--perhaps a moment's taste of fame, a brief hour's flash of the imagined glory that you thirst for."There is a story than once he was seen running in the streets of New York shouting "I wrote 10,000 words today, I wrote ...." On a topic that might be a casual aside in a contemporary novel, Wolfe offers us a chapter. His treatment of racial references is in the phraseology of his time but not racist as some reviewers imply elsewhere - they perhaps did not read on. His autobiographical Eugene is on a relentless quest that often is diverted into directionless wanderings that might have been edited out by an already overworked editor Maxwell Evarts Perkins.But if you just want to savor what a word-smith is capable of read his works as you would a book of poetry for its flavor and its impact. I find myself often wandering off into memories ignited by his wanderings. He seems to have missed nothing of life's occurrences; but 1054 pages?He died young of a later conquered disease; our loss.

Book was in excellent condition and well wrapped

I bought Of Time and the River after having first re-read Look Homeward, Angel. Both novels brought back the restless, inexpressible yearnings and passions of youth, of that wordless, intense tangle of desires and emotions only the young seem to feel so strongly. The first reading, when I was in college, left an indelible impression . . . Wolfe had put on the printed page a spiritual biography of ME, but also of all young men. I was a devotee at once. I read Look Homeward, Angel, several times over the years and recommended it to my high school students . . . and while it brought back to me this time something intensely familiar, ironically, I found it fresh and new -- timeless is the word, I think -- as I read it over 40 years later. This sequel, Of Time and the River, is a continuation of Eugene Gant's turbulent life, and even more intense than its precedessor. Wolfe is, doubtless, an acquired taste; to many, his novels may seem tediously long and hopelessly rhapsodic, diverging madly for pages from the narrative, attempting to capture the feelings and experiences of the seasons, of human beings in all their virtue and vice, of longing and loneliness in painfully nostalgic Octobers. And I love his intensity, his painful quest to express the inexpressible. I love this book and Wolfe's first, Look Homeward, Angel. As I visited his hometown, Asheville, NC, and the house he grew up in and immortalized in that first, sprawlng novel, I almost expected to meet him in a corridor there--it was haunting, like coming home. I stood by his grave. I saw the stone angel of the title in the same cemetery. And Wolfe and I seemed to be one. So tragic that he died so young, like an extinguished, white-hot flame.

Over a thousand pages and each page seems like two pages because there is so much to grasp . It might seem old-fashioned in its style but a lot of the writing still fits into these modern times.