Random House, September 2009
It is not often that one finds a novel for which the reader already knows the ending. Rarer still is such a novel that captivates the reader, holding his attention and interest throughout. E. L. Doctorow is that rare novelist who has not just pulled off this feat in Homer & Langley, but has created a serious work of literature in the bargain. He has taken extensive liberties with the well-known story of Homer and Langley Collyer, and made it into a stunning masterpiece that symbolically criticizes our modern predisposition for consumerism run amok and the impending death of print journalism.
The Collyer brothers were hoarding hermits who lived in the Harlem of the early 20th Century. They died in 1947 (In Doctorow's novel, they live into the 1970s.) when the hoard they had collected over the years collapsed. Langley, who created traps among the collection, was caught by one of them and crushed to death. Homer, who was blind, then starved to death at age 70 after a lifetime in their four-story Fifth Avenue mansion. Although Homer's body was only 10 feet away from Langley's body, it took another 2 weeks to find his body buried under a mound of newspapers. More than 100 tons of "collectibles" and debris were removed from the house, including 25,000 books and a Model T Ford.
It is not often that one finds a novel for which the reader already knows the ending. Rarer still is such a novel that captivates the reader, holding his attention and interest throughout. E. L. Doctorow is that rare novelist who has not just pulled off this feat in Homer & Langley, but has created a serious work of literature in the bargain. He has taken extensive liberties with the well-known story of Homer and Langley Collyer, and made it into a stunning masterpiece that symbolically criticizes our modern predisposition for consumerism run amok and the impending death of print journalism.
The Collyer brothers were hoarding hermits who lived in the Harlem of the early 20th Century. They died in 1947 (In Doctorow's novel, they live into the 1970s.) when the hoard they had collected over the years collapsed. Langley, who created traps among the collection, was caught by one of them and crushed to death. Homer, who was blind, then starved to death at age 70 after a lifetime in their four-story Fifth Avenue mansion. Although Homer's body was only 10 feet away from Langley's body, it took another 2 weeks to find his body buried under a mound of newspapers. More than 100 tons of "collectibles" and debris were removed from the house, including 25,000 books and a Model T Ford.
According to the novel, Langley was injured by mustard gas in World War I and now collects newspapers for his "eternally current and always up-to-date newspaper" as he slowly descends into madness. This newspaper, he thinks in Doctorow's created cosmology, will replace the dozens of papers New York City enjoyed in the 20th Century. His newspaper will answer even the questions that have not been asked yet. This search for eternal truth is symbolic of the brothers' gradual withdrawal from the world; for Homer the "world has shuttered slowly closed" as the accumulation of treasures has made him feel like "a traveler who has lost his map."
The electricity and water are shut off and the brothers find ways to cope, but these actions merely exacerbate their isolation from the world. Homer recognizes that all their actions simply lead them further along "in service to our ruination." And, it is Langley's traps that provide the impetus. Ironically, the traps that have been devised to catch the supposed robbers and reporters gradually imprison both men into a restricted area and ultimately entrap Langley and lead to Homer's death.
The electricity and water are shut off and the brothers find ways to cope, but these actions merely exacerbate their isolation from the world. Homer recognizes that all their actions simply lead them further along "in service to our ruination." And, it is Langley's traps that provide the impetus. Ironically, the traps that have been devised to catch the supposed robbers and reporters gradually imprison both men into a restricted area and ultimately entrap Langley and lead to Homer's death.
Doctorow has noted that a writer hears the voices of his characters, "You're ventriloquizing. You're them." Every conversation feels authentic, based on the historical record. In this case, fiction has heightened and enhanced the reality of their lives. Perhaps, it has helped us understand the brothers just a bit better, even if their ages and roles are often reversed. Perhaps this is because Doctorow, now 78 years old, remembers his cluttered room as a teenager, which gave him a certain empathy for the Collyers. In fiction, he says, "You can go anywhere: reporter, theologian, pornographer..." When he wrote the first sentence, "I am Homer, the blind brother" he knew the whole novel was right there.
And it is right there as the reader accepts the belief that the blind have a keen sense of awareness, an ability to see things that the sighted cannot see. This Homer is a blind poet relating for us a mythological story of a descent from an Olympus of wealth and privilege into circles of Hell proscribed by tottering stacks of newspapers, musical instruments, and just about anything Langley could drag home. The pride here is that Homer is writing this story for his muse, one Jacqueline Roux, a French writer who once helped him across Fifth Avenue. His story ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Is there a reader who does not know E. L. Doctorow? His novels and essays have been published in 32 languages. His awards include 3 National Book Critics Circle, 2 PEN/Faulkner, and a National Book Award.
And it is right there as the reader accepts the belief that the blind have a keen sense of awareness, an ability to see things that the sighted cannot see. This Homer is a blind poet relating for us a mythological story of a descent from an Olympus of wealth and privilege into circles of Hell proscribed by tottering stacks of newspapers, musical instruments, and just about anything Langley could drag home. The pride here is that Homer is writing this story for his muse, one Jacqueline Roux, a French writer who once helped him across Fifth Avenue. His story ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Is there a reader who does not know E. L. Doctorow? His novels and essays have been published in 32 languages. His awards include 3 National Book Critics Circle, 2 PEN/Faulkner, and a National Book Award.
