talk to me about this guy /lit/, you've probably never heard of him though... is he a good writer? Faulkner ranked him as his #1 contemporary. Does he deserve that distinction or was Faulkner just drunk?
I'm a big fan of Thomas Wolfe. He was very well-known at the time as an intense, serious maximalist writer of roman-a-clef (i.e. thinly-veiled biographical) novels.
I suggest starting with "Look Homeward, Angel" and then reading "You Can't Go Home Again" and "Of Time and the River" if you like that.
For short stories I'd read "From Death to Morning" which is pretty neat.
He was one of the main influences on Jack Kerouac's writing and Wolfe himself published a book about his travel's west (can't remember the name but I've read it) and the style does resemble Kerouac's later writing to a degree in its lengthy sentences, emotional intensity, articulation of thoughts in a way that requires several adjectives to be employed, and a sort of obsession with articulating something until there's nothing left to articulate. Hemingway disliked his writing very much and accused him of being a self-obsessed amateur who couldn't express himself in an intelligent, terse manner.
lol more like gene wolfe
>>7850083
ZZZZ GET TO THE SEX
>>7850083
this is gold
Look Homeward Angel is beautiful
>>7850083
that seems pretty good imho
>>7849952
Hemingway wasn't fan of "big words".
>>7849937
I read some commentary on his works but wasn't the fact that Thomas Wolfe couldn't make any characters that wasn't him killed any chance of him making a truly great novel?
He had talent, sure, but one of the critics said it was mostly wasted since he was extremely full of himself. At least Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck (his other peers) could create characters that weren't themselves, which led to great novels.
Faulkner was the greatest of them all, though.
>>7850804
minimalism is a style you pleb
He's a great writer.
