Look Homeward, Angel - by Thomas Wolfe

So, this is my mother's favorite author. She's coming to visit and we're going to see his house. It's a bit of a pilgrimage for her. So, I promised her I'd read the book.

I'm about a hundred pages in and I want to kill something.

It's the most self-indulgent thing I've ever read. It seems Mr. Wolfe entirely forgot he had an audience and just vomited modifiers and four-syllable words all over each of the nearly six hundred pages to purge his internal thesaurus. He draws the same tableau over and over and over in this wacky carousel of non-events, with even the same phraseology cropping up every time his mother thoughtfully purses her lips (which she does, first thing, every time she's mentioned) or his father 'wets his thumb' - which I cannot figure out why he's doing it or with what fluid.

Aaagghhhh!

Can I finish it? Has anyone ever finished this book? Is there a payoff beyond my mother's good will?

I'm trying to keep that in mind. I like plenty of novels that pre-date me and I'm a fan of poetic language. What I can't seem to find, in all those words, is the thread of a plot.

I'm thinking it has to be there. Thomas Wolfe is often hailed as a literary great.

And I'm not saying there haven't been moments I've enjoyed so far. His description of Eugene Gant's babyhood is hilarious. I've had an infant who I'm pretty sure thought we were all idiots.

I guess I just want to hear what you said - that it's worthwhile and for me to buckle down and take my medicine because it's good for me.