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Loading... Homer & Langley: A Novel (original 2009; edition 2010)by E.L. Doctorow
Work InformationHomer & Langley by E. L. Doctorow (2009)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Enjoyable and interesting story. Not always factually accurate (it is historical fiction after all), but relates the relationship of the brothers and the odd things they did. ( ) After reading up a bit on the Collyer brothers, I changed my assessment of this novel. I don't take issue with the liberties of timeline and birth order, but I don't understand why Doctorow did it. Sure, the journey through the 50s-70s was interesting and the Collier brothers would no doubt have been an interesting lens for such times, but why make Homer the pianist and the younger brother? Admittedly, I knew little about the Collyer brothers before reading the novel and I think that added to my enjoyment. What struck me is that it is a story about stories in some sense. For much of the world, there were mysteries behind those doors of that brownstone that were sensationalized, yet fantastically truthful. What Doctorow does, however, is digs through the labels of "disorders" and reveals a relationship between two people. Two secluded brothers in history are perfect fodder for fictionalization and maybe that is their legacy--to generate stories. There's a safety in fiction, especially now that they are gone. But Doctorow asks us--with this story--to look beyond all in our present that is eccentric and "unknown" to find the touchstones. Maybe I'm giving him more credit than I should, but that was my takeaway from the book. I first learned of Doctorow's masterpiece, Homer & Langley, through a piece written in Esquire entitled "Two Great New Books on a New Kind of Apocalypse." The review covered both Doctorow's novel and Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem, stating: Both novels make a reader ache for a city long gone. But they also let us know that the end of the world as we know it may only be the end of the world as we know it. What's truly scary is not that life will end but that it will continue in ever reduced circumstances. It is in these circumstances that we find the Collyer brothers as Homer pounds away at the Braille typewriter Langley obtained for him, chronicling the story of their lives. Here are two men who have been through it all. Older brother Langley was returned back from the Great War as damaged goods only to learn that their parents had died during his abscence and his younger brother has taken up with a thieving maid. As the world ended for them, their lives continued on as relics from the past.
This is Forrest Gump by way of Ecclesiastes, a sustained lament over the futility of human endeavor. The achievement of Doctorow’s masterly, compassionate double portrait is that it succeeds for 200 pages in suspending the snigger, elevating the Collyers beyond caricature and turning them into creatures of their times instead of figures of fun. I’m not sure “Homer & Langley” will stand as one of Doctorow’s best, but the story of two brothers united by their imaginations and disabilities ends up being a poignant one – rats, cockroaches, and all – and the ending has striking power. Doctorow’s biggest weakness as a storyteller is his urge to act as a docent at the New York Historical Society. The inner life he gives to Homer is desultory – apart from a few brief love affairs, Homer’s days are marked by boredom and decline. To be additionally saddled with a grandfatherly tendency to long-windedness is a trait the novel can’t recover from. A slight, unsatisfying, Poe-like story that turns out to be a study in morbid psychology.
A free imaginative rendering of the lives of New York's fabled Collyer brothers depicts Homer and Langley as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, facing odyssean perils as they struggle to survive the wars, political movements, and technological advances of the last century. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumE. L. Doctorow's book Homer & Langley was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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