From Death to Morning

by Thomas Wolfe

With his reputation again in full flower, Thomas Wolfe stands among our nation's greatest writers. William Faulkner admired his breathtakingly stylish prose, which also inspired Jack Keroac's experimental lyricism. From Death to Morning is the second collection of Thomas Wolfe's short stories that Books-On-Tape has recorded in recent months. Along with The Hills Beyond, this extraordinary compilation is our effort to return a fine writer to his rightful position in America's literary pantheon.

The collection of fourteen stories includes "No Door," "Death the Proud Brother," "The Face of War," "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn," "The Four Lost Men," "Gulliver," "The Web of Earth," and five others.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Literature, Novels, Anthologies, American

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1935

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

[Maria Di Biase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non c’è confine tra la vita del corpo e la scrittura

Dopo Angelo, guarda il passato (1929), aveva in mente un libro enorme, che avrebbe rappresentato quello che per Proust fu la Recherche o La commedia umana per Balzac. Quattro volumi dedicati a ciò che lui riteneva due dei più profondi impulsi dell’uomo: «peregrinare per sempre e di nuovo sulla terra». Aveva scelto anche il titolo, sarebbe stato The October Fair . La vita sembra una grande fiera, diceva Wolfe: compriamo, vendiamo, qualche volta contrattiamo, amiamo, odiamo, certe volte moriamo. Niente di più, niente di meno di questo.

In questa raccolta non ci sono racconti in senso classico. Il critico Nuhn Ferner li definì più correttamente prosimetri, brani che accolgono una commistione tra prosa e poesia. Sono ritratti che si concentrano sui fondamentali della nostra esistenza: Vita, Morte, Guerra, Patria. E così, da questa prospettiva, Dalla morte al mattino è la corretta testimonianza di quell’intenzione che aveva Wolfe, l’idea di scrivere di tutto, di ogni uomo di ogni tempo, a partire da se stesso.

Ne parlo, con una specie di amore, anche qui: link: La distanza è appena una parola

[Lavinia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some of the stories, others I didn't. Most of them are gloomy and pessimistic, haunted by war phantoms and death. I'm still not decided whether or not I liked Wolfe's long phrases, with minute descriptions and infinite epithets. I've had Look Homeward Angel on my reading list for a long time, but now I'm just not sure enough. We'll see.


***

Caci marile distante ale acestei lumi sint cele fractionare, diferentele inspaimintatoare sint cele pe care le putem masura cu palma, cu pasul, cu centimetrul, si care ne despart intr-atit de lumea pe care o vedem, de incaperea, de usa prin care vrem sa intram, de parca le-am privi de la distante astronomice al caror gol nu se poate masura sau umple. Intr-adevar aceasta lume pe care o vedem, si o dorim este chiar mai indepartata decit Marte, caci este aproape a noastra in fiecare clipa, incredibil de apropiata si de calda si de palpabila si incredibil de indepartata, tocmai pentru ca este atit de apropiata – la distanta de numai un zid, un cuvint, o usa, daca am reusi sa-l gasim, sa-l rostim, s-o deschidem – si sintem haituiti de propria noastra furie si sfisiiati de propria noastra foame, prizonieri intre zidurile de fier, inexpugnabile, ale propriei noastre singuratati.

[Ana-Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

o carte gasita in podul casei bunicilor mei..nu mi-a fost recomandata insa n-am regretat ca am citit-o..din pacate nu am ajuns la finalul cartii..ce pot sa zic?!o carte in care iti sunt descrise in detaliu morti absurde..si in acelasi timp reactia oamenilor,unoeri nepasatori si chiar cruzi in ceea ce priveste ororile unei morti..un tanar care traieste in brooklyn, singur, in conditii mizere..singurele lui activitati sunt plimbarile prin acest oras..sunt curioasa ce final poate avea..oricum merita citita de cei pasonati de crima si psihologie like me..

[Ioana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason why I chose 4 stars for this book is that I was surprised to see how talented Wolfe was. This short stories collection has many good stories, with great characters and rich narration. I must admit that I didn't enjoy it that much when I first started reading it, but it grew on me. With each story I got more familiarized with Wolfe's deep style, and with his abundance of description. Too bad that he died at such a young age, because, just like Fitzgerald or Faulkner said, he would've been a solid candidate to become the best writer of the 20th century.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolfe is a complicated but important American author. These stories were sometimes hard to read because of his casual racism, which makes you wince, but he should still be taught because he does begin to change by the time he got to You Can't Go Home Again. After his time in Germany in the late 30s he began to wake up. Who knows how far he could have come if he hadn't died so young.

[Kari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the last story hard to get through. Other stories were quite readable. It is Wolfe, what do you expect.

[Stefan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is, maybe, the best book that exists. This is my preferred book.

[Taylor Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by one of my top 5 favorite authors of all time was pretty darn good, but not as good as his novels. As always, there are sentences here and there that are the most beautiful pieces of prose you will encounter, and in his longer stories he has the ability to weave together many characters and stories from past and present. If you've never read Thomas Wolfe, I wouldn't start with this book. But if you've read his main novels and are looking for more of his mellifluous voice, this is a fun easy collection.

[Fabrizia Gagliardi]

Benché in quasi tutti i racconti sia possibile trovare traccia della vita di Wolfe, tanto da far pensare che non si possa vedere la sua scrittura astratta dall'esperienza personale, i racconti migliori sono quelli dove fonde i ricordi autobiografici e li espande fino a renderli universali.

Continua qui: http://bit.ly/1Yd8R20

[Erin boozer]

it's delicious.

[Ellie K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially, I liked this work by Thomas Wolfe very much. From Death to Morning is a collection of 14 short stories. The title inscription is apt: Vigil strange I kept on the field one night.

The stories mostly take place in and around New York City. I lived in Manhattan the first time I read it. (Although one of the most distinctively NYC stories, 'Only the Dead Know Brooklyn' didn't resonate for me. It is famous for being written in a phonetic rendition of a Brooklyn dialect.) I like anthologies more than novels!

The book didn't appeal to me nearly as much when I re-read it recently. This is partially due to many of the stories being very brief, more of a reverie. It is also due to some of Wolfe's descriptions of people, mocking their appearance yet very conscious of his own poverty as a young man from North Carolina. I guess I didn't notice first time around. For example, from the 2nd story, 'Death the Proud Brother':

...three sleek creatures of the night, a young smooth Broadway-ite wearing a jaunty gray hat and a light spring overcoat of gray, cut inward toward the waist, an assertive and knowing-looking Jew, with a large nose, an aggressive voice, and a vulturesque smile, and an Italian, smaller, with a vulpine face, a ghastly yellow night-time skin, glittering black eyes and hair, all three dressed and overcoated in the flashy Broadway manner now gathered as though they recognized in one another men of substance, worldliness, and knowledge...

'Dark in the Forest, Strange as Time' is a good story. It is about loss and love in Germany following WWI.

'Four Lost Men', about Wolfe's own life when younger and still living at home with his parents and siblings, is good too. Here, and in many of the other stories, Wolfe shows "his expansive, passionate, and stream-of-consciousness prose, that captured the American experience with lyrical intensity" (I think Kirkus Reviews said that) and made his reputation in mid-century American literature. For example, from 'Four Lost Men':

My father was old, he was sick with cancer...and we knew that he was dying. Yet, under the magic life and hope the war had brought to us, his life seemed to have arrived again out of its grief of pain, its sorrow of memory.

For a moment he seemed to live again in his full prime. Instantly we were all released from the black horror of death and time... the golden and jubilant life of childhood, in whose magic we had been sustained by the power of his life, and which had seemed so lost that it had a dreamlike strangeness when we thought of it, had, under this sudden flare of life and joy and war, returned in all its various and triumphant colors... And for a moment, the summertime, the orchard and bright morning would be ours again.

Thomas Wolfe's short fiction is easier to read than his elaborate, lengthy novels. The mood is similar to William Faulkner, but more modern. Some of stories have minimal plots although the prose is often beautiful. The last story in the collection is longer, at over 80 pages, with more plot and character development.

Thomas Wolfe wrote while standing. At 6 feet 6 inches, he was so tall that he used the top of his refrigerator as a desk. He died of tuberculosis at 37 years of age.

[Brian Washines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published adjacently to Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe's collection of shorter works carries within them the burgeoning ideas that would feed into his Proustian epic series of novels rooted in his environment and upbringing, which got him into so much trouble with the locals. From Death To Morning begins with a consternation, "No Door", before entering a lengthy panorama on the nature of death and the public, "Death the Proud Brother". Most of Wolfe's stories are naturalist renditions of sprawling, unbridled life at home and abroad. A couple at a train station, dock workers in between laborious tasks, or disputes over horses, where Wolfe tends to shine are his cerebral passages about time and the land, death and love, and the overwhelming need to devour everything around you whilst you can. From Death To Morning ends with a lengthy track titled "The Web of Earth", a precursor to the hefty fiction Wolfe was writing which editors truncated down into manageable titles like Of Time and the River. Wolfe died prematurely, leaving behind his vast canon of American life. Is all of it indicative or even relevant to our time? Nothing from then is. The racial caricatures tend to behave as flogging marks across the ample flesh of the Wyeth-like portraiture of the prose and the work entire. (Same issue with Henry Miller, an urban variation of Wolfe.) Despite all this I was inspired by the execution of his prose. Plot? Nope. Like life, we can only seek design in the fabrications by life, not the richest representation one could fashion from it. Here's where one could start if you are interested in what Wolfe wrote, the contemporary collection to the two novels he saw published in his lifetime.

[Matt Morris]

I hadn't read Wolfe since tackling Look Homeward, Angel as the only freshman--imagine me, a prodigy!--in Dr. Walther's major American writers class. Remembering the verbose yet poetic passages, I thought it might be rewarding to return to Wolfe. The verbose, poeticized passages are superabundant, but so is baked-in bigotry, however well-intended Wolfe's aim. In that regard, these short stories may not pave the road to hell, but they possibly serve as mile markers. That said, "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" remains enjoyable, though I gave up reading the book in its entirety.

For more reviews, visit The Greater Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge https://miscmss.blogspot.com/2022/08/...

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish this collection of short stories which take place in New York City during the '30s in large part due to its grotesque depiction of "Jews" comparing their features to rats with "huge noses." Also, its histrionic tone and superlatives-laden style is a turn off to me. I get that Wolfe paints a profoundly dark sense of reality existing next to the shining light of a joyful one, but anti-semitism is boring, if nothing else.

[Randy D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Death To Morning is the title of a collection of short stories written by Thomas Wolfe that are panoramic glimpses of the lives of his fellow “Brooklynites,” family members, and fellow travelers, depicted in a philosophical manner. Some of these stories were included in his novels. I wrote a brief synopsis of each short story in this compilation but will not include them in this review so as not to “spoil” this excellent example of Wolfe's authorship. I’ll allow the reader to draw their own conclusions as to their underlying themes.

The writing style of the stories, which comprise From Death To Morning, is far removed from that of Wolfe's novels; in my opinion, Thomas Wolfe was a better short story author than he was a novelist.

And, with that being said, the fourteen stories contained within the pages of this compilation are responsible for its five-star rating. *****

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of uneven short stories that were exercises in voice, mood and accents. Nonetheless, Wolfe still has great power as an author.

" His heart, which had been brave and confident when it looked along the familiar vistas of the rails, was not sick with doubt and horror as it saw the strange and unsuspecting visage of an earth which had always been within a stone's throw of him and which he had never seen or known. And he knew that all the magic of that bright, lost way, the vista of that shining line, the imagined corner of that small universe of hope's desire, was gone forever, could never be got back again."

[Drew]

From Death to Morning by Thomas Wolfe (1963)

[Wordsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant man, what a gift.

[Derick · Rating 4 out of 5]

"a moment of dark time, one of strange million-visaged time's dark faces."

[Emmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite it's very unessesary racial caricature depictions of every other character present in the story, it's a rather interesting read. Best in the beginning and the ending.

[Margaux Tatin Blanc]

Strange book... lots of humanity and basic racism - probably very much anchored in his time and era...
but still makes one wince... and at the same time he seems to be so atuned to the fragility and deep qualities of every human, it is a strange mix...