E. L. Doctorow. Following the panoramic scope of The March (2005), Doctorow creates a microcosmic and mythic tale of compulsion, alienation, and dark metamorphosis inspired by the famously eccentric Collyer brothers of New York City. Born to wealth in the 1880s, Homer and Langley became recluses and hoarders barricaded inside their Fifth Avenue brownstone, which was crammed with more than 100 tons of moldering junk. Altering facts and tinkering with time, Doctorow has Homer, who is blind, narrate with deadpan humor and spellbinding precision. Homer is devoted to music, and his brother is devoted to him, but Langley, off-kilter after a gas attack in the Great War, is beyond strange. He rebuilds a Model T in the dining room, collects everything from pianos to army surplus, and amasses newspapers to assemble a "forevermore" edition, Doctorow's sly enactment of the fall of print and the rise of the Internet, a realm as chaotic and trash-filled as the Collyer mansion. Over the decades, people come and goûûlovers, a gangster, a jazz musician, a flock of hippies, but finally Homer and Langley are irrevocably alone, prisoners in their fortress of rubbish, trapped in their warped form of brotherly love. Wizardly Doctorow presents an ingenious, haunting odyssey that unfolds within a labyrinth built out of the detritus of war and excess. -- Booklist. (Check Catalog)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Homer & Langley : a novel
E. L. Doctorow. Following the panoramic scope of The March (2005), Doctorow creates a microcosmic and mythic tale of compulsion, alienation, and dark metamorphosis inspired by the famously eccentric Collyer brothers of New York City. Born to wealth in the 1880s, Homer and Langley became recluses and hoarders barricaded inside their Fifth Avenue brownstone, which was crammed with more than 100 tons of moldering junk. Altering facts and tinkering with time, Doctorow has Homer, who is blind, narrate with deadpan humor and spellbinding precision. Homer is devoted to music, and his brother is devoted to him, but Langley, off-kilter after a gas attack in the Great War, is beyond strange. He rebuilds a Model T in the dining room, collects everything from pianos to army surplus, and amasses newspapers to assemble a "forevermore" edition, Doctorow's sly enactment of the fall of print and the rise of the Internet, a realm as chaotic and trash-filled as the Collyer mansion. Over the decades, people come and goûûlovers, a gangster, a jazz musician, a flock of hippies, but finally Homer and Langley are irrevocably alone, prisoners in their fortress of rubbish, trapped in their warped form of brotherly love. Wizardly Doctorow presents an ingenious, haunting odyssey that unfolds within a labyrinth built out of the detritus of war and excess. -- Booklist. (Check Catalog)
