David Lentz's Reviews > Homer & Langley

E.L. Doctorow is a wonder among living American novelists and in "H&L" he offers much to contemplate in his historical novel about the evolution of two wounded brothers and the New York in which they reside. Homer, as the classical name suggests, is a contemporary blind writer who relies upon his sighted brother Langley, wounded by mustard gas in WWI. They evolve into nearly total recluses living in a once stately manse across 5th Avenue from Central Park. The times, they are a-changing and the boys try to keep up to date but can't quite manage it. They withdraw deeper into the privacy of their own solitude under the assumption that, if they can only keep the outside world at bay, they will survive. However, despite great invention in coping, this contrarian "every-man-is-an-island" strategy is destined to fail on the island of Manhattan. It is possible to see shades of Samuel Beckett in such a narrative as the brothers wait for Godot to come. The last chapter is stunning in its conclusive brevity and power, comparable as such to the profundity and vivid clarity of Michael Cunningham in his peerless first chapter of "The Hours." Brevity is the soul of wit, indeed. Doctorow carries one along in his American narrative and we blithely plod through the main events of the 20th century with the two all-too-human brothers, one unable to see and the other struggling to connect to a world, which has almost destroyed him. Langley is a noteworthy brother who watches protectively over his unsighted sibling with an endearing diligence. Homer is no less remarkable in his drive to engage life by virtue of those senses heightened to compensate for his diminished vision. We relate empathetically to both of them and the affinity for their noble attributes heightens our sense of pathos at closure. We do so because we are both them: unsighted and able to gain only a glimmer of the external world through the flawed lenses of our nearsightedness too soon to become absolute blindness. And who hasn't been drawn like a moth to the flame by the illusion that seclusion and withdrawal equals personal safety. But, alas, if only that were true. Doctorow is an American novelist who is well worth reading and his accolades mark a prodigious literary nature rarely to be found in American letters. I had read a while ago his glorious novel, "Ragtime," which I also must highly recommend. Give this one a go: it's well worth the read.