"Oktoberfest," a short story by Thomas Wolfe (1937)

Germany held a special place in Thomas Wolfe’s heart. His first visit in the fall of 1928 was the inspiration behind the short story “Oktoberfest,” published in 1937. Wolfe’s later visits to Germany in 1935 and 1936, after Hitler and the Nazis had taken power, transformed his view of the country, and when he left in 1936, he knew he would never return to Germany. Wolfe chronicled his disillusionment with Germany under fascism in the powerful short novel “I Have a Thing to Tell You,” and the excellent short story “The Dark Messiah.”  

“Oktoberfest” is a portrait of the Germany that Wolfe fell in love with. The story was later incorporated into Wolfe’s posthumous novel The Web and the Rock. It’s not a typical short story with rising action, dramatic tension, and a climax. Rather, “Oktoberfest” is a sketch of a time and place. The story becomes a vehicle for Wolfe’s powerful talent for observation and description. Wolfe is especially good as describing food and drink: “an enormous hunger woke in me, a hunger for flesh such as I had never known: I wanted not only to see the Roasted Ox, I wanted to devour great pieces of it.” (The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, p.310)  

Wolfe and his German friend Heinrich make friends with the locals as they sit in the beer tent, drinking and eating. “We went our way, and they went theirs...The fumes of the heady and powerful beer, and more than that the fumes of fellowship and affection, of friendship and of human warmth, had mounted to our brains and hearts. We knew it was a rare and precious thing, a moment’s spell of wonder and of joy, that it must end, and we were loath to see it go.” (p.315) 

Heinrich says to Wolfe, “A poet, ja. These people did not know you, and they said you were a poet. And you are.”  

This sets up the final paragraph of the story, which is one of my favorite pieces of Wolfe’s writing. 

“And in the moonlight, his lonely scarred and pitted face was transfigured by a look of happiness. And we walked the streets, we walked the streets. We felt the sense of something priceless and unutterable, a world invisible that we must see, a world intangible that we must touch, a world of warmth, of joy, of imminent and impending happiness, of impossible delight, that was almost ours. And we walked the streets, we walked the streets. The moon blazed blank and cold out of the whited brilliance of the sky. And the streets were silent. All the doors were closed. And from the distance came the last and muted murmurs of the fair. And we went home.” (p.315) 

It’s such a beautiful paragraph, capturing the fleeting joy of a memorable evening. Wolfe was such a great writer of joy—his exuberant prose nearly leaps off the page. And there’s such lovely poetry in his repeating the line, “And we walked the streets, we walked the streets.”  

Over just eight pages, “Oktoberfest” gives the reader a sense of why Thomas Wolfe was such a talented writer.  

Thomas Wolfe at 125

Thomas Wolfe, 1900-1938

Thomas Wolfe was born on October 3, 1900, 125 years ago. I’ve been reading The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, along with an expanded version of one of his short stories, The Four Lost Men: The Previously Unpublished Long Version, so he’s been on my mind a lot. 

The best of Wolfe’s work has a kind of breathless exuberance. The words and sentences flow and tumble and cascade around each other, creating a reading experience that I find very moving. Probably the closest literary comparison I could make to Thomas Wolfe would, ironically enough, be Tom Wolfe—the champion of New Journalism and author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities. Both Wolfes sought to explore America and capture its rhythms, its textures, in a way no one had before. Both writers needed a lot of space to express themselves, and they produced works that were long, but also commercially successful.  

Thomas Wolfe’s writing contains such wonderful passages. Here’s just one paragraph, from his short story “No Door.” 

“October had come again, and that year it was sharp and soon: frost was early, burning the thick green on the mountain sides to the massed brilliant hues of blazing colors, painting the air with sharpness, sorrow, and delight. Sometimes, and often, there was warmth by day, and ancient drowsy light, a golden warmth and pollinated haze in afternoon, but over all the earth there was the premonitory breath of frost, an exultancy for all men who were returning and for all those who were gone and would not come again.” (The Complete Short Stories of Thomas Wolfe, p.79)  

That’s such a fantastic paragraph. I’d love to be able to write a paragraph that good. Beautiful, haunting, melancholic, evocative, and masterful.  

Thomas Wolfe died of tuberculosis on September 15, 1938, at the age of 37, less than three weeks before his 38th birthday. This was a huge loss for American literature. Wolfe had only published two novels during his lifetime: Look Homeward, Angel, and Of Time and the River. Two more posthumous novels were carved out of the mountains of manuscript he left behind: The Web and the Rock and You Can’t Go Home Again. I can’t help but wonder what Wolfe’s writing would have been like had he lived longer. Where would he have gone? It’s one of the great what ifs of American literature.  

On a personal level, I keep thinking about the fact that Wolfe died so young. If I had died at the same age as Wolfe, three weeks before turning 38, I would have died in March of 2019. So many things have happened in my life since March of 2019. I’ve written 300 blog posts since March of 2019. I’ve presented at two International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conferences since 2019. I’ve spoken in Asheville at the Thomas Wolfe House. I’ve presented at the Thomas Wolfe Society Conference in Chicago. Not to mention the fact that my two children have been growing up during the six and a half years since March of 2019. It just really hits me how young Thomas Wolfe was when he died, and how much more of life he sadly missed out on.  

Go pick up one of Thomas Wolfe’s books. Lose yourself in it, immerse yourself in the feeling, the rhythms, the textures of his words, and you’ll see why he still speaks to readers today, so many years later.