The Web and the Rock

by Thomas Wolfe

This novel is about one man's discovery of life and the world," begins Thomas Wolfe in his author's note to The Web and the Rock. A literary theme so ambitious and all-encompassing almost defies attempt, but Wolfe's story of George Webber is nothing less than astonishing. It follows Webber from his southern upbringing to his college days to his travels abroad to his arrival in New York City, where he aspires to become a successful writer. Then he meets Esther Jack, and things go as differently - but wonderfully so - as they possibly could. Beautiful and wealthy, a socialite, stage designer - and married woman - Esther reveals life and New York for him like nothing before.
George Webber's youth and the rise and fall of his turbulent passion for Esther Jack are essential components in Wolfe's complete vision for his protagonist, whose story continues in You Can't Go Home Again. The wisdom Webber suffers - cumulatively, undeniably realized by the close of The Web and the Rock - becomes his fingerpost through subsequent experience.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, American, Novels, Literary Fiction, Adult

712 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

People best know American writer Thomas Clayton Wolfe for his autobiographical novels, including Look Homeward, Angel (1929) and the posthumously published You Can't Go Home Again (1940).

Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels and many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He mixed highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. Wolfe wrote and published books that vividly reflect on American culture and the mores, filtered through his sensitive, sophisticated and hyper-analytical perspective. People widely knew him during his own lifetime.

Wolfe inspired the works of many other authors, including Betty Smith with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Robert Morgan with Gap Creek; Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides, said, "My writing career began the instant I finished Look Homeward, Angel." Jack Kerouac idolized Wolfe. Wolfe influenced Ray Bradbury, who included Wolfe as a character in his books.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many things wrong with this book that I don't know where to begin. It needs trimming, reduction, the head that crafted it needs deflating. The editor needs to be reprimanded. The printer needs to be whipped. The publisher, tarred and feathered. The dialogue is unconscionable. The narration is raw, unrelenting. The repetitive rhythms are maddening. The mentality fueling his lunatic vociferousness needs to be excised. It describes a love, multi-dimensional but falsely bound in youthful dreaming, unrealistic obsessions, and finally an all-consuming narcissism. The naivete is astounding. The book is built upon Hollywoodized misconceptions of the publishing industry, and of love. It perpetuates myths and will feed the infernal fires of ambition infecting the young and the impressionable, the uncompromising wordsmiths whose artistic vision is unparalleled in its unwieldy disruption of reality, its flaunting of writing prompts and Strunk & White's learned advice. This book's nervous system is a parasitic worm feasting entirely on entitlement, immense privilege, and the simpering, whiny, blubbering of infantile artistes who wave unedited manuscripts in peoples' faces, declaiming the undiscovered continent that is their genius. Our main character has less literary fortitude than a college creative writing student. In his late twenties, he has already blown all of his load. With a 1400-page manuscript lodged where his spine should be, possessing as little conception of the real world and the nature of other human beings as common sense and decency. It's painful to endure his humiliating ignorance and to hear him lambast every human façade around him. A colossal monument stretching to the horizon, a testament cast in stone, to vanity, to excess, and to intellectual excrement. - But it's a satire. Right?

Much of it is the rambling of an almost perfect egotist. Wolfe can waver between genius and atrocious hack and back again to lyrical prodigy in a single paragraph. He conveys the tremendous unconquerable yearning, the tempest within every artist, the urge to subsume the universe with the imagination, to conquer the limitless expanse of the mind, to forge with the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscious of himself.

The reader will be treated to butter-thick meals of mounds of dripping steak, spurting blood and oozing gravy potatoes with unfurling skin, gallons of coffee, gouts of steam billowing from them, heavy lamb chops drizzling saltwater, clamped between ravenous, insatiable jaws, guzzling thick berry jam on skyscrapers of extra-crispy toast, teetering in a sea of syrup. Probably the most well-defined image in the book is a disturbingly detailed description of armpit hair within a prolonged sexual fantasy.

This is a sanctification and a dismantling of the American dream communicating the vast drama of a soul in conflict with the world. It is an intense, emotive, and gracious survey of vastly meaningful things, of great American pastures of the mind, of tangled poetics and prosaic mazes, of stormy love, bitter caricatures, reckless idealism, ridiculous conceits suffused with ebullient, fervid romanticism, of burning passions, and straining, seething artistic vision, of abstract yearning for elegiac expression, the honest bluster of arrogant blowhards, the insane, ugly, and unrealistic characters spluttering, yammering, blathering, ranting, frothing at the mouth, dribbling spittle into the reader's face. Their ecstatic and wonderful internal monologuing, with speechifying subconscious rancor, atrocious and unkind dialogue, with outrageously bad, borderline racist jeremiads, and at the very least an unnecessary fixation on race. It's formidable striving, the majesty of the human spirit, our dreams manifest in self-immolating splendor, and our desires like animate poltergeists, the doom-haunted urban panoply, the warm and heavy manure of human civilization settling upon the virginal face of the natural world, heatedly smothering it.

Wolfe is a wild card. His books challenge the reader to annihilate the mold, to question the plight and the responsibility of the artist, and to pity the man who cannot separate himself from the poetic ideal of his idolatry.

[Vasko Genev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Този роман Томас Улф започва като Марк Твен и се преобразява в Бодлер.

В книгата някои неща периодично се повтарят и придобиват особена сакрална стойност:

1. Три часа следобед.

2. "Зелено-златната магия на времето." "Омайващото златно и зелено."

3. Обсесията към пролетта, а така също и към м. Октомври.

4. Кадър на "Котката, която се промъква по оградата на задния двор."

Редакционна колегия ( 10 редактора!!! ) на изданието от Библиотека „Избрани романи“, а в самото начало са сбъркали името на Джордж с това на баща му - Джон?!

ТРИ ЧАСА

Преди около двадесет и пет години един майски следобед Джордж Уебър (а не Джон Уебър, който е баща му ) се беше излегнал на тревата пред къщата на чичо си в Оулд Кътоба.

След тази книга имам чувството, че мога да прочета всичко, че мога да премина през "гъсталака" и на "най-гъстите" и "сплъстени" изречения.
Няма как да не пиша объркано за този роман.

Това е роман за един човек, който открива живота и света - но това откриване не е внезапно и смайващо като "появата на нова звезда на небосклона", а дълго и мъчително, тъй както е писано на хората да откриват нещата - чрез грешки и изпитания, чрез въображение и илюзии, като стават жертви на лъжи и собствената си глупост, тласкани от безумие и егоизъм, от амбиции и надежди, убедени и обезверени, те грешат и бъркат, като всеки от нас, който се стреми, търси и се осъществява.

Любовна история, разказ за вечното момче, останало влюбено в миговете на детството си и порасналото дете - Мъжът, влюбен в Жената на мечтите си. И Градът. Внушителният град - Скалата, почти чудовище, което ще застане между тях.

Изключително обемна история. Роман с автобиграфичен характер.
Структурата на романа е с вид на "спирала".
Началото: Три часа следобед: "Преди около двадесет и пет години един майски следобед Джордж Уебър се беше излегнал на тревата пред къщата на чичо си в Оулд Кътоба.
Историята продължава през детството на Мънк (Джордж), което ... въпреки слънчевия характер на момчето беше мрачно и тъжно . След ранната смърт на майка му попечетелството е спечелено в полза на неговите леля и чичо, така Джордж е отделен от баща си. Въпреки това, Джордж израства с образа на баща си, образ, който той постоянно ще поддържа в мислите си, който ще го подкрепя и ще му дава сили в самотата му.
По-късно, през есента на 1914г постъпва в Пайн Рок (малък баптистки колеж). В колежа е обсебен от желанието да стане гениален писател и започва да пише своята първа история:
И така, началото на неговия разказ започваше в три часа следобед в двора пред къщата на чичо му.
Тук "спиралата" продължава и докато пише "Краят на златното време" Джордж ще срещне жената на мечтите си. Това е начало на голяма, бурна, луда и измъчена любов. Жената, Джак - едновременно реална и създадена - Нищо в живота ми не се оказа така, както го бях очаквал но също като господ, ако те нямаше, щеше да се наложи да те измисля.

В тази последна история писателя ще избяга от единствената си любов, подгонен от собствената си лудост и внушения... Къде ще стигне, къде ще спре, какво ще разбере?

Романът е изпълнен с поетични изречения. Безкрайни и епични. Всяко тяхно повторение ги превръща в музика.

И все пак, това са над 700 страници... Ужасно трудно се чете роман от 700 страници пълен с поетични изречения.

Любопитно е, че Томас Улф винаги е срещал проблеми с обема на книгите си и въпреки това той трудно е правил компромиси за тяхното редактиране. До такава степен е бил наясно с "проблема", че в "Паяжината и Скалата" на няколко пъти споменава за "този обем", за повторенията, за потопа от думи... - всичко, което трудно би накарало читателя да се пребори с книгата, а издадетеля да я издаде... Но това е желанието му - такава да бъде.

Ще ми отнеме време, за да извадя повечето от набелязаните "безкрайни-поетични-изречения". Но ще го направя задължително.

Толкова огромно количество сравнения и метафори, че получих усещане за спазми в хипоталамуса...

Едновременно с всичко казано до тук за книгата, няма как да не спомена, че е ужасна. Ужасна е, даже самата тя си го признава! Ужасяваща и на моменти ме вбесяваше, идеше ми да го наритам този Мънк... :)
Освен това, не смея да дам по-малко от 5 звезди, за да не ме преследва призръка на Ранс Джойнър... ;)

[G. E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than once, while reading this book, I have risen from my chair and crossed the room to a friend, acquaintance or family member. Needing to show someone a passage just read. The thought of the words trapped dark between the pages, unread, unseen -- cause me to take a quick breath, as i prepare to reveal to them a most glorious paragraph -- then a slow exhale, as I realize my impending oft repeated folly. Not ready -- not nearly ready are they to hear. So I return to my seat, and read more. My jaw drops time and time again, as my eyes step down the lines on the page, through his carefully chosen words -- a ladder providing access to a deep part of my heart -- even the arrangement of syllables and cadence are planned it seems, as he describes things I had considered indescribable.

[Ani Hakobyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Թոմաս Վուլֆի վիպակի հայերեն թարգմանությունը Yavruhrat-ում է աչքովս ընկել։ Ներբեռնեցի ու մեկ օրում ընթերցեցի, չէ, ավելի ճիշտ՝ վայելեցի հայերեն թարգմանությունը. էնքան անուշ լեզու է, էնքան լավ է «նստեցրած» ամերիկյան դասական պատումի վրա մեր ժողովրդական լեցուն, էնքան օրգանիկ է հնչում։ Վերջում էլ կա գրականագիտական համեմատական վերլուծություն Թոմաս Վուլֆ - Հրանտ Մաթևոսյան հեղինակների և «Երկրի ոստայանը»- «Ծառեր», «Աշնան արև» ստեղծագործությունների միջև։ Երկու հեղինակների մոտ էլ գլխավոր հերոսուհին մայրն է՝ ուժեղ, հողին ամուր կանգնած, հոգնատանջ, պայքարող, հեզ, տառապած, հաղթած, թույլ, հուսահատ, բայց միևնույնն է՝ էլի միշտ ուժեղ, հողին ամուր կանգնած։ Հետաքրքիր է, որ Վուլֆն ու Մաթևոսյանը հեռու են իրարից աշխարհագրորեն, ժամանակով, մշակութային միջավայրով, բայց արի ու տես, որ գրական զուգահեռները բավականին ընդգծված երևում են ֆլ��րիդական Էյշֆիլ գյուղաքաղաքի ու մաթևոսյանական Ծմակուտի միջև։ Եվս մեկ անգամ ապացուցվում է, որ գրականությունը նախևառաջ մարդու մասին գիտություն է։

[Marat M. Yavrumyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Հիասքանչ վիպակ էր. հետո Ժենյա Քալանթարյանի գրախոսական-համեմատականը գտա՝ Հրանտ Մաթոսյանի ստեղծագործություններ հետ։ Ու հանկարծ՝ շըրխկ՝ ահա թե ինչու այդքան հարազատ թվաց։ Ալվարդ Ջիվանյանի թարգմանությունն էլ է շատ լավը։ Ասես հայերենով գրված լիներ։ Թարգմանության ոճը խոսակցային է, բայց այնքան հարթ։ Կարդալ, անպայման։

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was like falling in love. Decades after I closed the book, I still often recall this author's vibrant phrases and the emotions he conveys so well.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The protagonist in The Web and the Rock, George Weber, writes a novel deemed unpublishable due to its extreme length—lazy editors send him insulting rejection letters without bothering to read the manuscript, alcoholic writers give it backhanded praise after admitting to having only read “a page or two, a line here and there” (even Weber’s lover, who believes him a genius, counsels him to cut a few hundred pages). The critical establishment is portrayed as populated by unsuccessful authors who bitterly attack the great writers of the day and explain their own failures by saying that literature isn’t possible in an age (how little has changed!) when “the real poetry is written by advertising men.” These rejections drive Weber into bitterness and paranoia, and ultimately he rejects his lover.

Wolfe himself was a man at war with the attitudes of the critics, with time itself, with his own body, and most of all with the publishing world’s idea of the appropriate length for a novel. His first, “Look Homeward Angel” had faced less the editor’s red pen than the paper shredder, losing countless pages he thought necessary to the story. Outraged, he left his publishing house and sought a contract that allowed no editor to tamper with his works. Wolfe handed off five thousand pages to his new editor, Edward Aswell. This was not a completed manuscript but parts of a large, almost hubristically ambitious project called “Of Time and the River” the basic architecture of which Wolfe hoped to familiarize Aswell with. Unfortunately Wolfe died shortly thereafter, leaving his publisher with a “mess.” Conspiring with Wolfe’s literary executor, Aswell used a loophole in the contract to chop the huge manuscript into three separate books. The story of George Weber was told in “The Web and the Rock” and “You Can’t Go Home Again” with some of the hundreds of pages about Weber’s lineage forming “The Hills Beyond,” published last of the three. But Aswell did not merely make a trilogy of the work—as John Halberstadt writes, “Aswell would take a few pages from a chapter or variant version of a chapter, a few pages from a second, write a line himself, then mix in third and even fourth sources until he had the hybrid he desired.” He also merged characters into composites. This is comparable to the relatively recent editing of Ralph Ellison’s massive incomplete manuscript into a book called “Juneteenth” for posthumous publication, except that in that book’s case the editors were upfront about their process, while Aswell wrote a disingenuous essay claiming that his task had been mainly to polish a nearly complete work. It is almost certain that in both cases the intrusive editing brought the works to a larger readership than they would have found in their behemoth states.

But knowing all this, how does a critic approach “The Web and the Rock”? This, after all, was nothing like Ezra Pound blowing “The Wasteland” to bits and resembling it with TS Eliot’s consent, but nor was it like a ghostwriter inflating a scribble in the notebook of Robert Ludlum or VC Andrews into a complete novel. A literature professor who had been teaching the book for years vowed to stop doing so after dis- covering that it brought up issues of authorial intention more likely to spark smiles on the faces of his more post-modern oriented colleagues. Wolfe criticism was upended by the revelation and as Halberstadt writes, “We may need to study Aswell's biography for clues to Wolfe's psyche.”

The real question then is: did Aswell do a good job in assembling these novels? Richard S. Kennedy believes so, writing, “Wolfe's manuscript was unpublishable in the state he left it, but it contained magnificent material and an over-all design that was generally clear. Aswell fulfilled Wolfe's intentions, as well as he could discern them, and two generations of readers have been grateful.”

As a reader who knew nothing about the book’s editing until I’d read half of its 700 pages, I didn’t notice any odd transitions or shifts in tone. Of course after learning the book’s history I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in-between each scene. While Wolfe can be fairly windy and overly focused on transcendence (this was a man who would hold his breath on the subway in an effort to “break through” into something or other) many of his extended pieces are magnificent, from the evocation of a lynching early in the novel to the scene where a multiple murderer kneels by a river rather than run from the mob chasing him. The book’s first half follows George Weber’s boyhood in the south while the back half treats his adult life in New York City and follows him to Germany. Weber’s love affair with a married woman (Edith) dominates this second half, and the conversations between the lovers, especially as Weber descends into suspicion and begins acting erratically, have remarkable power.

That this material would have likely remained unpublished or put out a state that only scholars would have bothered attempting to navigate had Aswell not intervened argues for the editorial position he took—coherence over completeness.

http://mullatari.parastrophy.com/arch...

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Describing a fist-fight with the tough kids from the wrong side of town, Wolfe says "...they stood there massed against him in the whole concert of their hated qualities...he had to meet them on their own earth of red waning March and Sunday afternoons" - the last phrase a perfect English example of what the Greeks called "hendiadys". He is really only describing one March Sunday afternoon but the rhetorical trope makes a generalization of it.
All the descriptions of his teenaged impressions are this lush; Whitman-esque lists conjoining every sensation imaginable, two pages solely on the smells of his hometown, and so on. His rapturous descriptions of city life when he gets to New York in his early 20s inspire me no less after decades here than they did when I was 17, not yet arrived and reading You Can't Go Home Again.
You really must have a bit of his biography to care about the last few hundred pages (out of 700) of the book, which does slightly run off the rails. What is to some extent supposed to represent the artistic temperament could just as easily be characterized as mental illness as he (the scarcely fictionalized self-representation) becomes increasingly abusive towards and paranoid about his incredibly tolerant older lover, whom he eventually abandons, running off to Europe for a cliched set of late 1920s American abroad experiences ending in a Munich tavern brawl of such brutality that he ends up spending weeks in a hospital looking in a mirror and brooding on his self-hood.
That all of his books were remarkably long and cut down to what was considered publishable length by legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, does not detract from a small urge to take on his unpublished multi-volume The October Fair, envisioned as the American answer to Proust.

[Богиня Книдска · Rating 3 out of 5]

Най-накрая я завърших. Отне ми почти 2 седмици. Рядко чета толкова бавно, но с Улф нямаше как да се получи по друг начин. Този човек наистина не знае кога да спре - всяко съществително върви минимум с по четири прилагателни. Съществителните също са пет-шест. С пояснения. Явление, което Фицджералд би изразил с две изречения, на Улф отнема поне шест страници. Или десет. За по-сигурно.
Красив език има Улф, безспорно, обаче толкова ме изморява това непрекъснато нанизване на подробност след подробност с повече подробност за уточняване на подробността.
Бога ми, може ли да опишеш в 80!!! страници състоянието на мъж, който чака влак?!?! А действието дори не е започнало.
Лавинообразният поток от думи, който се лее почти без прекъсване близо 800стр., оплита като паяжина и почти по същия начин задушава невинната си жертва. Автобиографичността на повествованието създава образа на един рядко неприятен персонаж - егоцентричен, тесногръд расист, женомразец и антисемит, изпълнен с ревност, завист и провинциализъм.
Сега вече знам от кого плагиатствала Дона Тарт.

[Bam cooks the books]

Found this in a used bookstore today.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all four of the huge, generally formless and quite outstanding books Thomas Wolfe completed before his early death, 'The Web and the Rock' is really an autobiography thinly disguised as a rhapsodic coming-of-age novel.

Like his author, George 'Monk' Webber' is from North Carolina, is an ambitious, overly sensitive young man who dreams of finding fame as a writer, and goes to New York where he becomes a teacher and has an affair with an older, married, wealthy woman who supports him.

That's just about it as far as a plot goes. the rest is all memory, mythologizing, navel-gazing and the big notions, the big emotions, the whole spectrum between 'wordless joy' and 'unutterable sorrow', as well as every other type of joy and sorrow.

On memory, Wolfe writes:
'From his childhood he could remember all that people said or did, but as he tried to set it down his memory opened up enormous vistas and associations, going from depth to limitless depth, until the simplest incident conjured up a buried continent of experience.'

He wasn't exaggerating.

I could have picked more than a hundred examples of his gift for creating myths out of the everyday - the people, the places, the seasons and the times of the day - but I like this one, of a childhood friend Nebraska Crane and his father, who:
'seemed to have come straight from the heart of immutable and unperturbed nature. Warmth thy had, staunch friendliness, and the capacity for savage passion, ruthless murder. But they had no more terror than a mountain.'

If you have not yet any Wolfe and were thinking of giving him a go, I think this description the author gives of Crime and Punishment is instructive because he could just as easily be describing his own work.:
'instead of following the conventional line of structure and story, plot, and pattern, seemed to boil outward from secret, unfathomable and subterranean source'.

In Wolfe, America already had its own Beat Poet a full generation before Kerouac et al ever picked up a pen and went out on the road.

[Omar Abu samra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn’t easy at all, overall all it’s an important and interesting style to read. But sometimes it was dubious. Still wasn’t a waste of time at all.

[mi.terapia.alternativa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me encanta el estilo lírico, descriptivo y diría que hasta un pelín obsesivo de Thomas Wolfe, las historias que cuenta y sobre todo como las cuenta .
Llevo todo agosto leyendo esta obra ,muy poco a poco intercalandola con otras porque requiere mucha atención por la multitud de detalles sobre personajes, lugares ,sentimientos o emociones y hay que leerla con calma y paciencia.

En la nota del autor ya nos dice que : "Esta novela trata del descubrimiento de la vida y del mundo por parte de un hombre.
Un descubrimiento a través de ensayo y error, ilusión falsedad, insensatez ,errores y aciertos ,estupidez ,egoísmo esperanzas ,fe y confusión ,es decir, todo lo que somos".

Así a lo largo de siete libros y cincuenta capítulos conoceremos a George "Mico" Weber. Y lo haremos en dos partes.
En la primera nos cuenta la vida de Mico y la de muchos de los habitantes del pequeño pueblo (la red) en el que vive acogido por la familia de su madre,los Joyner ,sus estudios y su viaje a Nueva York(la roca) para convertirse en escritor y su relación con una mujer casada y de un medio social más elevado,Esther Jack.

En la segunda parte dándose cuenta de la complejidad de la vida y hastiado de cómo la está llevando viajará a Europa donde será testigo de los cambios que se están produciendo y del surgimiento de Hitler. Su desencanto con el mundo es notorio y siente que "el buen tiempo ha pasado " y desea volver a sus orígenes pero sabe que "no puede volver a casa".

Una novela de aprendizaje en la que destaca la cultura y costumbres de Estados Unidos del primer tercio del siglo XX , las apreciaciones que sobre la sociedad europea hace un estadounidense y sobre todo lo difícil que es vivir para un joven escritor exitoso sin una familia que lo apoye, solitario y con complejas relaciones personales.

Así que aunque me he encontrado con los mismos temas que ya había en La mirada del ángel y Del tiempo y el río. Y con un personaje con una historia similar a Eugene Gant (protagonista de los anteriores ),he disfrutado muchísimo esta novela publicada póstumamente de Thomas Wolfe y por supuesto si no lo habéis leído ,ya estáis tardando porque es maravilloso.

[Matt Gough · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second time through this one, and I think I liked it better the first time. It ran long in a lot of parts, and, as the introduction points out, Wolfe’s affinity as an author does not run to telling a story. Nothing much happens in this book: George Webber grows up in a southern town, goes to NY, and there falls in love with an older woman. That’s about all of the plot. But, the thing about Wolfe is his turn of phrase, and his insight into life. One review I read said that you could pick up a Wolfe book, open it to any page, read a few paragraphs, and then put the book away again. He writes very upliftingly, very beautifully, but that style of writing begins to bug when there isn’t much story to speak of and when the book goes on for hundreds of pages. But, he’s still a favorite of mine, even if this book is not on the top of my list.

[Ann Otto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third of Thomas Wolfe's five notable novels that follow his life in this case with the fictional name of George Webber. It is the first that was compiled posthumously by his last editor, Edward Aswell with the blessing of Max Perkins, Wolfe's previous long time editor and friend. We continue to meet fascinating characters. But even more than in Wolfe's earlier novels, there is much repetition in descriptions, narrative, and rambling passages which make the reading tedious. Often in the middle of one of these stream-of-consciousness passages, I would decide that I must pass on this book. A minute later the narrative of George's life continues and I know I want to follow the story because although the names of characters and places have changed in this novel, I know it is Wolfe's tormented autobiography.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been revisiting Thomas Wolfe's novels.

"The Web and the Rock, novel by Thomas Wolfe, published posthumously in 1939 after being reworked by editor Edward Aswell from a larger manuscript." ~Encyclopaedia Britannica

I often wondered what differences this novel would be, if Maxwell Perkins was the editor, because of his close relationship with him, before he died. Novels are what they are, but it is interesting to search for raw manuscripts to fill in between the lines of the writer's imagination.

[Mariam]

Էս գրքից բան չհասկացա)

[Moniek · Rating 4 out of 5]

In things like these, and countless others, the vision of the city would come alive and stab him like a knife.

Myślę o tym, jak Max Perkins opłakiwał Wolfe'a.

W "The Web and the Rock" Thomas Wolfe porzuca swoją główną postać z pierwszych dwóch powieści ("Look Homeward, Angel" i "Of Time and the River"), aby przybrać narrację całkowicie (przynajmniej pozornie) wychowanka społeczności południa. George "Monk" Webber przechodzi drogę od dzieciństwa spędzonego bez stałej obecności ojca przez studia do podjęcia pierwszej pracy i poważnego zakochania. "The Web and the Rock" zostało wydane pośmiertnie.

Jako dwa główne elementy powieści wskazałabym częste oddzielne wątki napotkanych postaci oraz, już w drugiej połowie, te słynne długie pięknie napisane manifesty Wolfe'a. To dla mnie dość ciekawe, bo zazwyczaj Wolfe o wiele bardziej skupiał się na głównej postaci i jej linii życia, a tutaj dominują, choć to teraz zabawnie i paradoksalnie zabrzmi, postacie drugoplanowe. Dużo jest rozdziałów, które mówią stricte o bohaterach poznanych przez George'a, przekazują ich historii bez dużego wkładu samego Webbera. Doceniam to jednak, bo te opowieści dużo przekazują czytelnikowi o kulturze tamtych czasów czy mentalności mieszkańców Południa. Wolfe dokonał tutaj świetnej analizy i prezentacji. On tu jest świadkiem historii. No a co do samych "manifestów" Wolfe'a, to moim zdaniem, choćby nawet czytelnik nie do końca je rozumiał czy nie zgadzał się z autorem, to jak Thomas Wolfe o czymś przemawia, to nie da się nie słuchać z uwagą. Jego wypowiedzi i te fragmenty narracyjne są przejmujące i urzekające; dodam jeszcze, że są też dla mnie tak jakby nieśmiertelne.

Co jeszcze do głównego bohatera, to jest to dla mnie kwestia bardzo ciekawa. Szczerze byłam początkowo rozczarowana tym, jak Wolfe porzucił postać Eugene'a Gant, bardzo się do niego i jego rodziny przywiązałam, plus Eugene to postać autobiograficzna. Eugene i George to, czym byłam zaskoczona, dość różne postacie, o różnej sytuacji rodzinnej (give me my BEN BACK). Jednak w pewnym momencie w "The Web and the Rock" George dogania Eugene'a w miejscu, w którym skończyło się "Of Time and the River" i to rzuca się w oczy. Z jednej strony historia George'a biegnie potem w kierunku, który pewnie Wolfe planował dla Eugene'a przed tym całym wydawniczym zamieszaniem, a z drugiej... Fantastycznie jest doświadczyć, jak Wolfe ujmuje swoją osobowość i przeżycia w zupełnie inne fikcyjne odzienie i, moim zdaniem, zmienia perspektywę. Mam nadzieję, że była to w całości jego decyzja, bo interpretuję to jako oznakę wysokiego poziomu samoświadomości i probę zmierzenia się z samym sobą; wyczuwa się tutaj dystans do samego siebie.

W grudniu próbowałam już zmierzyć się z "The Web and the Rock", ale zdecydowanie mi wtedy nie podpasowało. Odstraszyły mnie drastyczne sceny, jednak przy drugim podejściu zrozumiałam, że to nie oznacza, że Wolfe się z tym wszystkim zgadzał. Po prostu był, jak wcześniej wspomniałam, świadkiem historii. I to rzetelnym.

"The Web and the Rock" jest dobrą lekturą, jest intrygujące, ale nie ekscytowało mnie i nie unosiło tak jak wcześniejsze prace Wolfe'a (a przecież "Of Time and the River" mogłabym pisać hymny pochwalne). Na początku myślałam, że to kwestia obniżonej koncentracji na głównym bohaterze. Potem, że przecież Wolfe nie mógł pisać każdej książki takiej świetnej. A na koniec uznałam, że może to przez to, że była wydana pośmiertnie, a redagowanie takiej książki nigdy nie jest łatwym zadaniem, plus pewnie Max Perkins nie był w to zaangażowany. No więc może ducha Maksa mi tu brakowało. I stwierdziłam, że sprawdzę historię wydania tej powieści; sprawdziłam i jestem oburzona.

"The Web and the Rock" było już zobowiązaniem nowego redaktora Wolfe'a, Edwarda Aswell. Ponoć Wolfe przyniósł tę książkę, jako fragmenty wycięte z poprzednich prac. Zanim zdążył porządnie nad nimi usiąść, odszedł. Aswell usunął pięćdziesiąt rozdziałów, napisał nowe rozpoczęcie, pozamieniał wiele w pozostawionych fragmentach, stworzył coś bardzo innego. Krytycy i biografowie Wolfe'a przyznali to, mówiąc, że to bardziej książka Aswella, oraz, że dokonał on rzezi na materiale oryginalnego autora. Wiem, że Thomas był w pisaniu swoim nieokiełznany, i że to zawsze bardzo trudne zadanie, ale teraz po prostu wiem, że gdybym przeczytala to w pierwotnej postaci, nawet bez większego ładu, to pewnie bym się zakochała. A tak to nawet nie wiem za bardzo, czyją pracę oceniłam i czy to sprawiedliwa ocena.

Wiem, że pewnie mało moich obserwujących czuje zainteresowanie Wolfe'em, ale jestem dumna z tej recenzji i cieszę się, że mogłam wyrazić wszystkie swoje małe myśli.
A z Thomasem, tradycyjnie, widzę się ponownie za rok.

For when they say that some young man has not yet "found himself", they are really saying that he has not lost himself as they.

[Dale Muckerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good by a long shot as Wolfe’s first two novels which are exceptional. The Web and the Rock starts off well, but gets lost along the way. The first part of the book is exceptional, especially when telling the story of old Dick Prosser and describing the people and events of his home town. Once in New York, however, the writing often becomes repetitive and seems confused in its intent. How often do we have to see George and Esther fight, make up, and then do the same thing? How often do we have to hear about George’s hunger for experience and then hear a lot of descriptions about the food he eats? How much are we expected to believe when he waxes poetic about love and then hear him later talk about all things being part of the ever-changing river of time.

I have heard people refer to this book as a Bildungsroman, but that doesn’t seem an apt description for this book. George is a bit old for a coming an age story. He is more in the age group of the midway-through-life hero such as Dante or Jesus. I also feel George doesn’t really grow much in the second half of the novel. He seems just stuck in his attempts to grow.

In some ways the book reminded me of Melville’s Mardi which starts off as a fine adventurous tale and then gets lost in its own lyricism. Melville later learned to control his wild discipline in Moby Dick, and I feel that Wolfe would have also if he had lived longer.

[Heghine Barseghyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Չէի սպասում, որ կհավանեմ, բայց իրականում հավանեցի, թեև չեմ կարող ասել ինչը կամ ինչու 🤔 Ցանկություն առաջացավ "Աշնան արևը" վերընթերցելու։

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wolfe was one of the more important novelists of his day—the dust jacket for this book proclaims him “One of the Immortals”—yet his star has greatly dimmed. Born in North Carolina, he is often considered a “Southern writer,” but he is overshadowed by William Faulkner, who did not have an early death to cut off his production. Both had large plans of interconnected works: Wolfe’s heavy tomes are all autobiographical, with the main character representing himself (“Eugene Gant” in his first two, “George Webber” in his last two), while Faulkner created the intricate web of Yoknapatawpha County. Faulkner’s books, though, have the advantage of being shorter and heavier on plot; Wolfe’s tomes, in contrast, are enormous, and predominate more in lyrical passages than action. Indeed, the first 170 pages of The Web and the Rock are simply background on the protagonist’s childhood; the main plot, the relation between George and Esther, does not begin until around page 300 of almost 700. Yet I think people don’t read Wolfe for the plot.

This is the first of his works that I’ve read, and its formation is stormy. Wolfe had already published two well-received books, Look Homeward, Angel in 1929 and Of Time and the River in 1935. In May 1938, he dropped off a Brobdingnagian manuscript (of over a million words) with his publisher, then left for a vacation in the Pacific Northwest. While there, he caught pneumonia, which turned out to be tuberculosis, and he died of the disease in September. His editor, Edward Aswell, then sculpted Wolfe’s manuscript into two books, The Web and the Rock and You Can’t Go Home Again, which were published in 1939 and 1940, while leaving enough in the scrap pile to later make up another collection, The Hills Beyond, published in 1941. (Most of this came from the opening sections of The Web and the Rock, detailing the protagonist’s family’s history.) The exact extent of Aswell’s editing is debated, and some scholars think he substantially changed Wolfe’s work by how he sliced and diced it; there is no way to know, though, what the end result of the novel would have looked like if Wolfe and Aswell had been able to work together.

As mentioned above, the book has comparatively little plot for its bulk. The main story is this: George Webber is a young man from the small town Libya Hill (read: Asheville), North Carolina. His father, a Northerner, married his mother, a native of Libya Hill, but deserted her when their son was eight; shortly thereafter, George’s mother died, and he was raised by his maternal uncle. George grows up in Libya Hill, hearing many tales of his maternal family—the Joyners—from his aunt, but he longs for the Northern cities whence his father came. He goes to college at Catawba, and then heads to Manhattan. After living in a squalid apartment with some college classmates for a while, George spends a year in Europe, and, on the ship back to New York, he meets Esther Jack, a married set and costume designer. Their relationship blossoms, and they become lovers. George writes a book, which publishers reject for being too long, he suffers from depression and frequently lashes out at Esther, shattering their relationship, yet rebuilding it again almost immediately. After one such quarrel, George heads to Europe again, though Esther still pines for him in New York; he gets into a bar fight at Oktoberfest in Munich, and has a revelatory experience while recovering in the hospital. There the novel abruptly stops, all prepared for its sequel.

What makes the book stand out is not the plot as such, but the countless lyrical passages. This is Wolfe’s trademark: if you love it, you’ll love Wolfe, and, if not, don’t bother reading him. The passages are long, and convey their power best when read in full. If you’re unsure, and you can borrow a copy, I would recommend the very short Chapter 4, “The Golden City,” which portrays the young George’s romanticized vision of the Northern cities that were his father’s home. “Far-off and shining, it rose upward in his vision from an opalescent mist, upborne and sustained as lightly as a cloud, yet firm and soaring with full golden light. It was a vision simple, unperplexed, carved from deep substances of light and shade, and exultant with its prophecy of glory, love, and triumph.” He loves to pile on details: “The light was brown-gold like ground coffee, merchants, and the walnut houses where they lived; brown-gold like old brick buildings grimed with money and the smell of trade; brown-gold like morning in great gleaming bars of swart mahogany, the fresh wet beer-wash, lemon rind, and the smell of Angostura bitters.” (That repetition of the opening phrase of a clause, called anaphora in classical rhetoric, is a characteristic of Wolfe’s lyricism.)

Amidst the strict lyricism, there are also vignettes and character sketches, which can often be more interesting than the main characters. These are particularly strong in the opening section, describing the Joyners and the residents of Libya Hill. The one that struck me the most is found in Chapter 8, “The Child by Tiger,” which describes Dick Prosser, the black servant of one of the families in the town, a big-hearted, Bible-toting man, until he suddenly snaps. Besides the childhood ones, there are a few such vignettes in George’s college days, but they peter off as the novel approaches its second half, where the relationship of George and Esther dominate the tale.

Theirs is a strange relationship. At first, it seems like Esther is treating George as a bit of a fling: he is a young, naïve, aspiring writer, a change of pace from her husband. But she is sincerely devoted to him, and he is devoted to her, at least at first. Yet, over time, he starts to strike out at her in the strangest ways, complaining about her friends and her life working at the theatre, claiming she doesn’t really love him, cheating on her with various other girls, though it seems she is faithful to him (discounting her husband). The relationship shatters as he treats her in awful ways, but she continues to come back to him; even when, fed up, he flees to Europe, she still pines for him, writes letters, etc. It is never quite clear why she loves him so deeply, but she does.

The best part of their relationship, in terms of the novel’s themes, is her relation to the city. George, as a child, had a romanticized idea of Manhattan and the city in general; his first experience there, with his college classmates, is quite wretched, as their apartment is squalid; through Esther, though, he comes to see the glamor and wonder of the city again. But, over time, the glamor dims, and he comes to see the phoniness of the city, and all the squalor hidden in the glitter. These are the times he most strikes out at Esther, eventually giving up on New York altogether. At the end, he longs to return to his hometown, to the country, to the South, but he realizes “You can never go home again,” and so leads in to the sequel. The relationship between George and the city—conceptual or real—is the driving force behind much of the novel, and I found it interesting, even if the relationship with Esther was a bit stranger.

Yet, mixed in with both these relations—the city and Esther—is the weirdest debate about Jews. Esther is a (nominal) Jew and George a (nominal) Christian, a Gentile. Some of their fiercest battles are framed in this context. George cries out, “You’re acting like a Jew! A damned, crafty Jezebel of a Jew!...Why, every God-damned one of you, man or woman, will crawl upon your hands and knees—yes!—creep and crawl and contrive until you have a Gentile in your clutches!” Esther fights back, though, claiming, “We’re too good for you, that’s all. You know nothing about us, and you will never be able in your vile, low soul to understand what we are like as long as you live.” The dichotomy presented is that the Jew loves the good things in life, while all Christians are ascetic, flavorless, and bland. One of Esther’s strongest threats is, “Just wait till you are married to some anæmic little Christian girl—she’ll get your cup of coffee for you. Christian coffee! Two grains of coffee in a bucketful of stale dish water! That’s the kind of coffee that you’ll get!” Esther’s sumptuous cooking is a constant presence, and it is, for some reason, attributed to her being Jewish. There is also discussion of the different ways rich Christians and Jews act. The rich Jew, for instance, still lives above his shop, but he eats sumptuously and dives into the pleasures of life, while the rich Christian separates himself from the world. Not knowing too much about Wolfe himself, I can’t say for sure whether this is his anti-Semitism, or at least strange tropes, coming through, or whether it is entirely in the characters’ minds: however, the autobiographical nature of his work does give some argument for thinking this characterization of Jews and Christians is his own. It is a strange element, quite shocking to read nowadays, but there is good to find in the novel by cutting around these bits.

In conclusion, Wolfe is decidedly a particular taste. Some will like his long lyrical passages, his interesting sketches and vignettes, and will not mind the diffusiveness and the lack of a driving plot. Others will simply find it boring or, in the case of the Jewish characterization, appalling. Personally, a fan of the lyricism and vignettes, I loved the opening half or so of the novel, though I certainly wouldn’t have minded more of a plot to move it along; though I like some parts of the latter half, with George and Esther, it felt like what little plot there was had stalled, since it was simply “George living with Esther in the city” for hundreds of pages. The city vignettes, many of them involving rich parties or theatre folk, were also not as interesting to me as George’s Southern kinsmen and townsmen. Above all, though, the last portion of the book, with George and Esther’s vicious, disgusting catfights, and the completely boring European expedition, really flubbed the landing for me; in particular, I had trouble seeing how Esther could possibly still want to be with George after how awfully he had treated her. Perhaps, though, it becomes clearer in the sequel. Certainly, even if I disliked the ending, I acquired a taste for Wolfe from reading The Web and the Rock, and I will gladly pick up any other of his works that I run across. Though it was lacking in many respects, it gave me a taste for Wolfe, a particular taste that will, above all, dictate your liking for this work.

[Chr*s Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last time I read Thomas Wolfe, I was at the tail end of my time abroad in Ireland and something about his lush descriptions of childhood in turn of the century North Carolina struck a chord with me. Yes, he was over-descriptive to a fault and prone to seemingly endless tangents about how everyone in America is deeply lost and lonely, but I devoured it, speeding through Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River, finishing the last 400 odd pages of the latter on my plane home. And then, I thought, I'll wait a few years to read his other two.

And so here we are, two years, three months, one relationship, one graduation, three-ish jobs and the subsequent loss of each of them later, and I'm unemployed and getting around to Wolfe's third novel. And I wanted to love it, really I did, but I don't. Maybe I've grown distant from his style, but I'm not sure that's entirely it. Mostly I think it's that this is a lesser work than the two before. As with all Wolfe's novels, it's essentially autobiographical and thus he returns to the territory mined in his earlier books and rewrites it again (for if Of Time and the River rewrites some of Look Homeward at its onset, then the first three sections of this novel are essentially a compression and revision of those two novels), but this time it just isn't as good. Partly, that stems from a strange change in racial attitude - where Wolfe's first novels didn't really have any truck one way or another with black characters and white attitudes toward black characters, this novel seems intent on remedying that by deploying the n-word far too frequently and casually. In addition, it just doesn't have the same magic; I can't explain it, but all the sections of this novel, save the third and Webber's college years, are distinctly lacking in oomph.

And then there's the new material, and the great love affair of George Webber and Esther Jack, a theme promised in the closing pages of Time. To put it bluntly, it mostly sucks, at least in my estimation. Having been privy to (but thankfully never a part of) romantic relationships built on screaming one's hate then reconciling in love shortly after, I really have no desire to read it here, and Wolfe doesn't really do anything interesting with the material. As much as this is an idealized tale of his own life, it's kind of weird to read his attitude towards Esther; there's a very obvious "great man who thinks all women must be obsessed with him" taint to at least half of the book that's annoying at best and gross at worst. It's also, as these relationships tend to be, incredibly repetitive, to the detriment of any plot at all. I'm not opposed to plotless works, but there's gotta be something for the reader. I wasn't finding anything here.

So yeah, I'm disappointed, and most of that disappointment stems from boredom, when I at least expected stunning passages. Wolfe's writing is still solid here, to be sure, but he's just so lost in the weeds that I hardly care to find him. It also doesn’t help that I’d read Wouk’s Youngblood Hawks a few months before, and it, being in its own way Wouk’s rewrite of the Wolfe novels transposed to the fifties, is far more intriguing, rife in plot developments, and while having a similar love affair to the one in this novel, dramatizes it with far less handwringing repetition. I'd planned to read You Can't Go Home Again directly after this (being, as it seems, a continuation of George Webber's life), but I think I'm gonna take a breather and get to that one when I get to it. I don't care to lose all my anticipation so easily.

[Mykyta Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Просто добавлю несколько любимых отрывков
***
Заявляя, что некий молодой человек «еще не нашел себя», эти люди, в сущности, говорят, что он не потерял себя, как они. Люди часто говорят, что «нашли себя», когда на самом деле загнаны в колею грубой принудительной силой обстоятельств.
***
Потому что молодые люди этой страны не являются, как часто о них говорят, «потерянным» племенем – они еще не открытое племя. И вся тайна, наука, знание, как открыть его, заключена в них самих – они сознают это, чувствуют, носят в себе – и не могут высказать.
***
У него появились чувство уверенности, вера в себя, которых не было раньше. А верить в себя он стал потому, что кто-то в него поверил. Война его против всего мира стала менее ожесточенной, так как прекратилась война с собой.
***
Ощущение «принаряженности» – сильное, воодушевляющее. Впервые подобающе одеться по принятым в обществе требованиям – одно из достопамятных событий в жизни человека.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason, this third novel sees Wolfe changing the main character's name from Eugene Gant to George Webber, and there is a little bit of overlap with the first two, although this one concentrates on his great love affair with "Esther Jack" (who has the same name when she appears at the end of "Of Time And The River"). Anyway, it is, of course, another stunning work of epic autobiographical fiction. I suspect anything else I read after finishing Wolfe's novels will seriously pale in comparison.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A neglected classic. Although the narrative sags at times (especially the mid-to-late sections centered on protagonist George Webber's relationship with Esther), to complain of such is to miss the point of the book. Wolfe is focused on tracing in detail the full psychological and existential contours of one character's mind. As such, plot is secondary (yet there are brief moments of narrative pathos, such as the chapter "Child by Tiger," which would make a moving short story in its own right).

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In all the world there was nothing but Food -- glorious Food. And Beer -- October Beer. The world was one enormous Belly -- there was no higher heaven than the Paradise of Cram and Gorge." Heaven indeed!

[Ruby Rue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ահագին հետաքրքիր էր գրված, բայց գրքի ռասիզմը մի տեսակ խանգարում էր։ Իրականում պարզ է, որ նախորդ դարի ամերիկացիներն էդքան ռասիստ կլինեին, նույնիսկ հիմա են հարավում ռասիզմի տարրերը պահպանված, բայց կարդալիս մի տեսակ տհաճ էր։
Թարգմանությունն էլ ահագին կենդանի էր արված։

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I loved Look Homeward Angel and Of Time and the River, I found this novel uneven, tedious, and considerably less enjoyable. I am still a fan of Wolfe, but would not recommend this novel to anyone.

[Rich Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great passages here. It's prose poetry.
But it seems cobbled together. It was, after Wolfe died.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The content-order of the four major novels:
Look Homeward, Angel
Of Time and the River
The Web and the Rock
You Can't Go Home Again