Homer & Langley

I am a huge fan of E.L. Doctorow’s books. I have had Homer and Langley for quite a few years and only last week did I decide it was time to read it. And I am so glad I did. I knew Homer and Langley Collyers were real people but wasn’t familiar with their actual life stories. I found this book insightful, humorous and completely unputdownable (if that’s a word). It’s a novel based on fact. As with all of Doctorow’s works, this one highlights historical events and persons as it weaves them seamlessly through the lives of the two brothers. It spans the history of our country from WWI to Viet Nam as seen through the blind eyes of Homer and the lost grip on reality of Langley.

Quite simply, "Homer & Langley" is one of the most imaginative, interesting and compelling novels I've read in years. Like many books I end up admiring the most, "Homer & Langley" felt a bit slow at first before it gathered momentum. Toward the end, I felt as if I carried the weight and the burden of the stuff these brothers had accumulated in their "kingdom of rubble." Doctorow's clean, clear imagination is powerful. The prose is straightforward, unadorned. We are deep inside the world of increasingly blind Homer Collyer, whose brother Langley returns from World War I and never seems the same. Homer can't comprehend what Langley has endured in Europe. "Langley would tell me through the following weeks, interrupted occasionally by poundings on the door by the army constabulary for he had left his unit before being legally mustered out and given his discharge papers, and of all the difficulties with the law we were to endure in the years to come, this one, the matter of his technical desertion, was like the preview." "Technical desertion," for me, is the theme here. What rights does anyone have to define their surroundings, their environment? If you live in the city--particularly if you live in the city--is there an expected level of conformance? Do you have a right not to pay your mortgage or your bill to the "electromonopoly?" The Collyer brothers push the boundaries, whether it's on purpose or not. "The truth is that Langley couldn't say why he'd put the Model T in the dining room. I knew his mind worked: he'd operated from an unthinking impulse, seeing the car on one of his collecting jaunts around town and instantly deciding he must have it while trusting that the reason he found it so valuable would eventually come clear to him." Doctorow takes the Collyer brothers' fictional life decades beyond the real people this book is based upon--and to me toward the end it was hard to separate the Collyers' struggles and slow demise with parallel woes the country faces, including the "the endless process of corporate mutations in which nothing changes or is improved." The story spans the 20th century, from "glorious elegance" of post-World War I, including free-flowing tea and dance parties, until the brothers live in one giant but miserable enclave and "tunneled passageways." You can't help but feel the weight of their world and admire Doctorow's ability to show their gradual withdrawal from society even as they remained kind and human to each other.

I was dazzled by this book. I believe Doctorow is metaphorically portraying pathological aspects of the American character in his rendering of the Collyer brothers. They withdraw from engagement with their fellow man, wall themselves up inside mounds of material possessions, refuse to pay for the resources they use, and fail to recognize the depths of their disease. They may have an occasional impulse to engage (as with the hippies), but ultimately, the stream of human history flows through and around them. They die sad and alone, blind, deaf and malnourished inside their fortress of stuff.

I generally do not care for Mr Doctorow's style. One should not be put off by perceived "historical inaccuracies". The author never promises an accuracy. First off, there is great comedy here. So many of Homer's um, reactions to his brother's antics are hysterical. How many could be SNL skits. But there is great poignancy here. And I think it is about helplessness, how helpless we are against all the tides that move against us and inevitably wash us away, not to be seen again. Near the end Homer writes: "Our every act of opposition and assertion of our self-reliance, every instance of our creativity and resolute expression of our principles was in service of our ruination." I thought the book a true work of art.

I've long been fascinated by Homer and Langley story. I first heard their tale, twisted though it was, on a Ripley's Believe it or Not years ago. Over the years they would find mention in the odd article here and there. I was very happy to see that E. L. Doctorow devoted a book to them, though it is, after-all a fictional account. Still, Homer and Langley is worth reading. As in all cases when an author turns a true story into a novel, the reader has to be careful about how much they should actually believe. I was completely convinced by Doctorow's treatment of these two sympathetic misfits. He does a masterful job at taking their story and then creating a world that the story can proceed in. Two brothers inherit the plush 5th Avenue home of their parents and move in. It isn't long before their odd behavior begins to isolate them from their neighbors. During the ensuing years, Homer quietly goes blind relying on Langley to take care of him. Langley does take care of Homer, but also manages to stuff their plush home full of odd items collected over the years. Not only are odd items hidden in the Harlem brownstone, but Langley saves newspapers and magazines galore. For those of you not familiar with the story, you'll need to read Homer and Langley to see what happens. Doctorow does plays with time just a bit, moving the story a few years. However, within the confines of the tale, time is relative and in this case simply doesn't matter. Doctorow also chooses to let the story play out and end in pretty much the same way the real one did and I congratulate him for that. One final thought. For some reason, E. L. Doctorow is always a challenge for me to read. I suspect the difficulty is with me and probably related to his style. However, like and addict, I can't resist his novels. I must admit I had less difficulty with Homer and Langley than City of God, The Waterworks, or Billy Bathgate. Homer and Langley is one of the stranger stories you'll read. Just keep telling yourself, "its based on reality." I highly recommend. Peace always.

Homer and Langley Collyer were real people. These two brothers were found dead in their Harlem apartment in 1947. They were pack rats. Or, at least Langley was. When their brownstone revealed a hundred tons of newspapers and junk inside, stuff like an old car, the public was amazed and fascinated. Their story has been the stuff of legend ever since. Doctorow imagines their story as fiction - he furnishes the telling details about their family - the twists and turns that led them to their lonely fates. They live longer in his version by at least 20 some years. There is a wonderful section where hippies move in with them for a bit. They have love affairs. The blind one, Homer, tells the story and Doctorow allows us to share the visions observed with Homer's supposedly sightless eyes. Michiko Kakutani panned the book today in the NY Times. That's good. When Michiko hates on a book I often love it. And I loved this one. Doctorow's pithy trip down memory lane with these two loveable oddballs is strangely exhilarating. Homer is a sweetheart, so gentle. Langley is powerful and brilliant. They make for quite a pair.