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    Homer and Langley
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    Homer and Langley
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    Homer and Langley
    Audiobook6 hours

    Homer and Langley

    Written by E.L. Doctorow

    Narrated by William Hope

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers – one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets. Yet even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, and government agents.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateMay 7, 2015
    ISBN9781471292996
    Unavailable
    Homer and Langley

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    Reviews for Homer and Langley

    4/5

    658 ratings87 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Boy, he sure can string the sentences togther.Everything good that there is about a novel. This is the first Doctorow novel I've read, and I will certainly be reading more. There is also a biography of these two brothers that I am going to have to read as well now that I've whetted my appetite for these crazy hermits. A whole bunch of themes I can relate to in this one... the music, the collecting, the reclusiveness, etc... great stuff. He seems to have taken lots of liberties with the facts here, but I can see why... Langley was the pianist, not Homer... they died in the 40s, not the 70s... but it all works fine in the end.The NY Times story from the time wrote what Langley was wearing when they found his body: a tweed jacket over blue-gray dungarees, over brown pants, over khaki pants and blue big overalls, with no underwear, but an onion sack worn like an ascot, and a gunnysack pinned to his shoulders. Now THAT'S pretty kooky.
    • 5/5
      Great, great book. This is the first Doctorow book I've read, and it definitely will not be the last. It's short, but reads like an epic novel, managing to chronicle the events of the 20th century while telling a sad but touching tale of brotherly love. Doctorow tells the story of the Collyer brothers through the "eyes" of the blind Homer. The book is made even greater by Doctorow's ability to place the reader both as an observer and in the shoes of Homer, so that the reader experiences not only the vivid imagery of the book, but also the heightening of other senses that comes with complete darkness.
    • 3/5
      starts out rather slow. Interesting but not the best Doctorow I've read.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully, elegantly written. Profound, not pretentious; stark and tender at the same time. The new crop of self-consciously literary novelists could take a lesson from Doctorow. Makes me want to go back and read some others by him.
    • 4/5
      What is left to say about Doctorow? I am an easy mark for this book both as an admirer of E.L.'s lustrous, matter-of-fact prose and hoarding. There is grace and terror in this book as well as that pervasive humanity that runs through his work no matter what crimes are committed or endured. Still, I would have preferred an briefer time-line and longer book. Worth it for the explanation of the newspapers.
    • 3/5
      As many will know, this is based on the true story of two eccentric, shut-in New York brothers, Homer & Langley Collyer, who became a sensation when, upon their passing, the townhouse they shared was discovered to be stuffed to the gills with detritus. Think of the event as America’s first, most famous episode of “Hoarders.”It’s not a particularly savory story – credit Doctorow with endeavoring to transform such unpromising material into – if not a sympathetic tale, then at least an appealing picaresque. His technique might be called the “Forrest Gump Method” (keeping in mind that this was written decades before the eponymous movie): in this case, he uses items dragged posthumously from the house to suggest incidents and anecdotes that touch upon all the major world events and cultural changes that our nation endured during the brothers’ lifetimes. Thus a collection of aged pianos gives rise to a tale of how one Homer, a gifted but blind musician, comes to work at a silent film theater as an accompanist, assisted by an Irish immigrant girl who describes the scenes to him so that his music reflects the appropriate mood; a gramophone and records retrieved from the wreckage inspires the tale of tea dances functioning as a salve to a nation still raw from war; rusty bed springs give rise to a tale of prohibition gangsters on the run; a collection of abandoned Japanese figurines blossoms into the story of Japanese servants who are carted away in the middle of the night to internment camps; a rusty coronet inspires a particularly touching vignette of a Cajun cook and her gifted jazz musician son who loses his life in the second world war; and a baby carriage inspires the tale of hippies who turn the brownstone into a commune during the ‘60s. Other items (the typewriters, the books, the human organs pickled in jars) Doctorow works into the fabric of his underlying tale, the story of two brothers – one a blind musician, the other mentally damaged by war – whose gradual retreat from the world culminates in a tragic (tragic sad AND tragic horror) end. For above all, this is a work about loneliness: specifically about people who pursue substitutes for human attachment – religion, duty, fear, social/financial security, social justice, patriotism, sexual freedom, fads, mania – at the cost of cutting themselves off from genuine, healthy affection. And the house? Under Doctorow’s hand, it becomes a symbol of the emotional and psychological decay that occur when humans isolate themselves from human interaction. I’m not sure I would recommend this read to others. Despite Doctorow’s efforts to humanize the brothers and expand the story to encompass political and social change, knowing the ultimate outcome of the story (for me) robbed the story of a key ingredient – hope. I kept hoping the brothers would emerge from their self-inflicted isolation and rejoin the world, but I knew they never would, which lent every anecdote a fatalistic bitterness. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s an almost Poe-esque horror to the final chapter that I’m still trying to shake off. But lots of critics smarter than me found this worthwhile (it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Price in 2009), so you may wish to brush my insights aside and make up your own mind. If nothing else, this story serves as a reminder of how easy it can be to inadvertently or carelessly isolate oneself, and of the potential consequences of isolation on one’s ultimate happiness, health, and sanity.
    • 3/5
      "[Langley] had brought home a nudist magazine that was fervent in its advocacy of radical health regimens. Not that we were to about without clothes, but that, for instance, heavy doses of vitamins A through E reinforced with herbs and certain ground nuts found only in Mongolia might not only ensure long life but even reverse pathological conditions such as cancer and blindness. So now I found at the breakfast table, beside the usual bowl of viscous oatmeal, handfuls of capsules and nuts and powdered leaves of one kind or another, which I dutifully swallowed to no appreciable affects as far as I could determine." At times humorous and at times poignant or sad, sometimes hopeful and sometimes hopeless, "Homer & Langley" is an interesting character study of two brothers - one physically limited by blindness and the other limited by cynicism and PTSD. Orphaned, the brothers form a family from the household servants, but as the servants age and die, or leave their employ, the brothers find themselves more and more isolated from the world as they retreat into a world of their own. The story reads slowly but nevertheless keeps you engaged as Doctorow weaves incredibly detailed characterizations and a perspective on life - on hopes and dreams and disappointments and small victories. I am not much of a fan of character studies but this one drew me in and kept me reading until Homer (the narrator) reaches that point which we all will share one day.
    • 2/5
      I think a good deal of the reason I got so behind in reviewing my books is my reluctance to write about this one. There was a fair amount of pressure to do so -- I got this book free as a part of a publicity giveaway in advance of publication, and they even followed up with a postcard to remind me to post a review (before I'd even read the book.) So, dutifully I moved the book to the top of my to-read pile, finished it fairly quickly, then... stalled.

      I simply have no strong opinions on this book. I enjoyed it enough to read quickly, yet was almost always conscious that if this book hadn't been free, I never would have read it. Based on real life peole (which I actually didn't realize while reading it), it tells the stories of two brothers who become increasingly cut off from the world, Homer by blindness and Langley by his bitterness caused by his wartime experience. They hole up in their massive house (left to them by their parents) in New York City, interacting with outsiders only rarely (but usually very memorably), and slowly boxing themselves in with Langley's growing compulsion to collect and hoard.

      Now, I have some hoarding compulsions myself, but I was never able to really connect with Langley. And while the novel said some interesting things about the value of community, they were said rather obliquely, and were never in focus. So, to the reader with no previous exposure to the Collyer brothers legend, what was the point?
    • 4/5
      I haven’t read Doctorow in a long time, but always enjoyed him. Like many of his books, it is a fictional takeoff on real-life events and people, in this case the reclusive Collyer brothers who turned their Manhattan brownstone into a squalid hoarders’ nest. The book is narrated by blind Homer (I would have faulted Doctorow for naming his blind character Homer, except that part is absolutely true) but Langley is the more compelling character. A World War I vet suffering from severe PTSD, Langley is the hoarder, a complete misanthrope, and dedicated to the crazy task of created one generic newspaper issue that would stand for all time. He is an oddly likeable character, even though the reader has to wonder if somewhat saner Homer would have had a better chance in life were he not in thrall to his dominant brother.
    • 4/5
      An endearing story of brothers one blind and one incapacitated living in a New York mansion. The author does really well in getting into the skin of his blind character and feeling how he experiences the world.
    • 3/5
      This is loosely based on Collyer brothers...wealthy hoarders from New York city
    • 4/5
      Absorbing read and stylish too.
    • 5/5
      I am predisposed to like anything that E.L.Doctorow writes and for me, this book is no exception. Homer and Langley is loosely based on the lives of two eccentric hoarders living on Fifth Avenue from the turn of the Century onward. One brother became blind in his teens, the other was damaged in body and soul by exposure to mustard gas in the Great War. They stay together in their four-story brownstone for their entire lives.Homer & Langley tells the story of these two brothers within the framework of American history - war, politics, technology - from the blind Homer's perspective. The book is rich in detail and it is possible to visualize the house, the people, the 'found objects' much as Homer would have visualized them. I loved this book.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. More accurately I loved the first half of it and then became saddened as things went downhill as the book progressed. There were a few things that bothered me about the storytelling and I think that is why Homer & Langley gets mixed reviews. Some of the faults will bother some people more than others.This is a strange story of two brothers bound together. A highly fictionalized version of real life people. Poor Homer was really a victim of his brother's madness ... and then at some point he seems to have joined him. I hoped until the very last paragraph that Homer would somehow escape and find a bit of happiness late in life. 4 - 4 1/2 stars.
    • 4/5
      If Homer and Langley were still alive they would be the subject of reality TV shows like Hoarders. They were certainly a pair of odd ducks.Homer and Langley Collyer were eccentrics who lived in a brownstone on 5th Avenue across the street from Central Park. After going blind Homer kept to the house and Langley stayed to look after him. Eventually Homer stopped going out and Langley only went out late at night. Both men died in the house surrounded by tons of garbage. Doctorow has based his book loosely on these facts and written it as if Homer was speaking. Each slide away from "normalcy" is explained by Homer as justified in the circumstances but it is obvious that both men were delusional at best and psychotic at worst.
    • 4/5
      HOMER & LANGLEY, by E.L. Doctorow.Haven't read Doctorow since RAGTIME, and don't remember much about that, as it was years ago. I would classify this book as more of an "entertainment," than really serious fiction. A fictionalized version of two very real people, the Collyer brothers, Doctorow chooses to extend their lives (they were found dead in their house in 1947) by fifty-plus years, creating a kind of fantasy, as well as a commentary on the craziness and crassness of the twentieth century. He links the brothers up with some major events as well as all the wars and upheavals, a la FOREST GUMP. Sorry, Mr. Doctorow, but I liked Groom's book a lot more. I cared about Forest. Gump's story was funnier and more moving. These brothers? Not so much. Like I said, 'entertaining,' but in the end? Meh.
    • 5/5
      Very enjoyable read! The one thing I really didn't understand was why they had a mortgage after living in the house their entire lives....even a thirty year mortgage should have been paid off by circa WWII. Still, a wonderful book, full of insight, character, and anti-war/government loathing.
    • 1/5
      I'm a huge fan of E.L. Doctorow, but I'm at a loss to explain the mess that is "Homer and Langley". I've tried to write this review several times and each revision is more disgusted than the previous. I'm not going to put any more effort into it, just as you shouldn't put any effort into reading this glorification of a blind second-rate Forrest Gump who revels in the filth and decay that is 50 years of hoarding. The narrator literally and figuratively stumbles blindly through life and even the payoff at the end of the novel wasn't enough to offset the atrocious 150 page setup.
    • 3/5
      I found this to be a quick read and enjoyable. There were certain parts I really enjoyed (loved the hippies). It was fascinating to me that even secluded the brothers experienced a change of times through the home.
    • 4/5
      Read it on a whim, then listened to it on Audiobook many years later. The ending still gave me the chills. It can feel like it's plodding along, but in it's way that's just how Homer (the narrator) is, how he lives life, how he sees life: plodding along and just letting it happen to him.
    • 3/5
      Homer and Langley have entered the canon of American folklore in a way that few other eccentrics have. Books have been written about them (we all know the kind, best described as “salacious” or “tell-all”), they have been turned into lurid objects of intrigue, almost wholly with little respect for their humanity or the forces that shaped them into the kinds of people they were. Doctorow’s project is different. He is interested in the historical forces that made Homer and Langley, not the sensationalizing journalism that turns them into “hoarders,” a word that thankfully doesn’t even appear in the novel. After Langley returns from World War I shell shocked, he learns what Homer has known for a while: both of their parents have succumb to the Spanish Flu. Their parents left them a four-story brownstone and an income is never disclosed, but through ingenuity they do well for themselves. They host a series of public dances for the community’s benefit. As time wears on, Langley starts to become increasing paranoid about the household finances, even challenging the utilities companies and the bank who holds the house to come and get what they’re owed from him personally. This is when his collections of books, musical instruments, automobiles, and other material all started to appear. Throughout the book, both brothers but especially Homer encounter romantic attachments that never blossom. Doctorow draws Langley as a more aloof figure, but I really, truly, deeply felt Homer’s need for love and affection. Maybe like Tiresias his blindness conferred upon him another, greater kind of sight – of innocence, love, and companionship, all of which Langley wanted nothing to do with. All I can really say here is that Homer’s disappointments were heartbreaking for me as a reader.E. L. Doctorow is as fascinated with American history as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon are with American hysteria. Though this is only my second Doctorow novel (the first was “The City of God,” which I don’t remember much about at all), but it seems that much of his work is crafted in such a way as to have the reader feel that history is actually running past, or even though, you. The effect of this can be both enchanting and disorienting. Doctorow extends their lifetimes by several decades (they both died in 1947) so that we read of them speaking about the moon landing and Jonestown. This is partially what I mean by disorienting. I realize that this is a work of fiction, but this need to extend their lives by more than a generation seemed like an odd, out-of-place decision. I felt that there was plenty of fascinating history to deal with before the date of their real deaths to not have to turn them into centenarians. On the whole, this was an empathetic portrayal of two people whose historiographies were in dire need of empathy, and I appreciate that. There is something about the overall execution of the novel that I can’t quite put my finger on that leaves me, on the whole, not as moved as I felt I should have been, despite Langley’s experiences in the War and Homer’s failures in love. I’m curious to know what readers of other Doctorow novels think compared to this, or if they can even be compared.
    • 4/5
      Doctorow takes as his subjects two reclusive brothers who became the bane of New York City utility departments and object of fascination for the public. This is a finely done portrait of the brothers' tragic story.
    • 4/5
      Liked it; didn't love it as I'd hoped to. There was something slightly flat in aspect. I know Doctorow's a straight-ahead storyteller and not necessarily known for high dramatic tension, but the plot seemed to want a bit more mounting dread. It touched that in places, but the psychological horror that I wanted was missing. I realize that's more about my expectations than the writing, which is quite good. Maybe it's a matter of form following function: Otherwise innocuous and even beautiful writing, all amassed in one place until it suddenly, unexpectedly, falls down on us. I guess I just hoped for a little more edge. Still -- very worth reading, and well done.
    • 5/5
      Must add my 5 stars to this fascinating and very readable book about two bizarre eccentric brothers in NY. Doctorow's ability to meld the story of these two reclusive brothers with so much US and world history is amazing. The portrayal of Homer's loss of hearing is so compelling and the ending just sends chills up the spine. I just reread "Ragtime" and loved it the second time; I think this one exceeds that.
    • 4/5
      Historically interesting look at the lives of the Collyer brothers in their 5th Avenue manse. Through the years they lose it all, including sanity, sight and hearing.
    • 3/5
      I really liked this book a lot. Sorry this is so late coming, but a ton had gone on and I was out of town. When I got back I skimmed back over this book, furthering my good opinion. The thing that I liked best is you never knew what was going to happen next - I guess the randomness of the book appealed to me. The characters were exquisitely written, and it was a wonderful story.
    • 2/5
      I am a big fan of roughly half of Doctorow's work. Though this one started with a sense of greatness, ultimately it falls in line with the least favored half of his oeuvre for me. Like several others reviewers, I was disenchanted by Doctorow's blatant changes to the Collyer brothers' story. The truth has enough pathos--I don't think Doctorow needed to distort it to make his telling a captivating one. I also often had a sneaking feeling that the book had multiple small continuity slip-ups, as when the blind narrator Homer frequently describes visual scenes in abundant detail, or when now-deaf Homer mentions sounds. These issues can be rationalized a few times--maybe Langely told Homer what something looked like down to every sumptuous detail--but recurring as they do they add up.

      Doctorow can be a fantastic writer, but in this one he doesn't seem to be achieving either his full potential or the potential of his story.
    • 3/5
      Short novel about the lives of the Collyer brothers, and the mythos that developed around them. Odd how they went from just being reclustive to total hoarding and isolation. A bit dull in the later bits, but the very end is tragic. Doctorow gains points for his style.
    • 5/5
      To have 12 readers agreeing to the pleasure of one book is no mean feat, but that is exactly what happened this month with Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow. Every one of us enjoyed the connectivity that the author created with the two Collyer brothers, even if he took some license with the facts. Denise felt we needed to put the real story of Homer and Langley Collyer away, and simply enjoy Doctorow’s brilliant characterisation of these two extraordinary souls. The economic writing was a hit with the group, as was McCarthy’s a few years back, and the black humour, descriptive writing and astute observations made us all instant fans.A few of us felt Doctorow used his characters as a platform for some of his own social and political views, but we are no strangers to this (Coetzee comes to mind) and were more than happy to absorb them within the context of the story. Langley’s entertaining fight with the authorities was enjoyed by all and our empathy leaned strongly towards the brothers throughout the book. Ann questioned our acceptance of such eccentric individuals today, or if we found them actually living next door. Good point Ann, and it had us contemplating society’s tolerance to mental health.There was so much to discuss in this small, unassuming book and we were all surprised by its scope and integrity. Should you read Homer and Langley? If you like a book packed with emotion that makes you laugh, cry and think, then yes, get a copy without delay!
    • 4/5
      Homer and Langley is a wonderful story about two brothers which are living at the Fifth Avenue during the 20th century. Homer had lost his eyesight when he was a teenager, but his other senses were really sharp especially his sense of hearing. They have lost their parents early and were living together their whole live. The most important 'credo' was their self-reliance and they worked it out excessively. During nearly the whole century they were confronted by all different kinds of social changes and it seems that they were diving into those adventures with a great pleasure.