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Title: How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom ISBN: 0-684-85907-6 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 25 September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (52 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: English 26 For The Rest Of Us
Comment: I recommend Yale Professor Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why (a title that itself requires close reading and thought) to those who, as I do, read a lot, wish to better understand and enjoy writers of great fiction, but lack the benefit of instruction in literary appreciation. I'd read only a dozen pages of the library copy of this book when I knew I wanted a copy of my own.
Bloom, a natural teacher, possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, instructs us and stimulates us with his love of great writing. He examines, in turn, 57 pieces of great literature in four forms: the short story, the novel, the poem, and the play. We watch him analyze and interpret great works by close reading and the exercise of his marvelous memory and imagination, revealing to us the insight, creativity, and emotions of the author, and his genius for expression. He encourages us to develop our own skills to perform this critical function and enrich our lives. As usual, the rest is left to the student, but Bloom has pointed the way.
For the dedicated, who knows? We may find ourselves thinking differently. Our own writing, whether formal, creative pieces or informal letters to friends, may even become more polished and interesting.
Rating: 4
Summary: Violence and the Angry White Male....
Comment: Harold Bloom's new book, "How to Read and Why" consists of an anthology of written works from Western culture (short stories, poetry, novels, drama) he considers noteworthy because they instruct the careful reader. Anyone who's taken a few college level literature courses will recognize most of the authors and many of the works: "The Kiss" by Checkov; "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by O'Connor; "Moby Dick" by Melville; "Paradise Lost" by Milton; "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by Keats. A few of the other works are a tad more obscure to non-English majors, but can ususally be found in second or third level college literature courses. One can picture this book being assigned to a Freshman level "Survey of Western Literature."
I read the book, and then asked myself, "What is it about?" Surely this is not just one more collection of well known works destined to become a college text? Bloom says early in the book the "How to Read" consists of 1) Clearing the mind of Cant (eschew topics like multiculturism, sexism, racism); 2) Reading to improve yourself not others; 3) Reading to become a scholar, "a candle which the love and desire of all men will light"; 4) Reading like an inventor -- engage in "creative dyslexia"; 5) Reading to recover the ironic. Bloom believes the loss of irony is the death of reading.
What struck me about Bloom's collection is that almost without exception, these works include violence. Most of the violence stems from angry White males. Some are suffering rejection or loss, real or imagined -- ("La Belle.." by Keats, Milton's "Pardise Lost" (isn't Satan a White Male?), Hamlet, Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying", McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"). Some of the violence is induced by males, "Hedda Gabler" by Ibsen, Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge. Even Ellison's "Invisible Man" and Austen's "Emma" are affected. ("Emma" has a violent scene where angry whites who have been disenfranchised by the Enclosure Acts attack Emma and Miss Smith, however, Bloom does not discuss it.)
I personally like many of the writers Bloom includes in his anthology -- Dickensen, Austen, Keats, Whitman, and Wilde, but wonder why he did not include George Elliot, Virginia Wolfe, Nathanial Hawthorn, Henry David Thoreau, or Mark Twain in other than passing comment. I would not have chosen some of the examples of the author's works that he included, but it's his book and reflects his taste. And, I disagree with one or two of his interpretations. For example, I think Robert Groves was correct when he linked "La Belle.." by Keats to the White Goddess. Bloom discounts Groves interpretation, linking it to his troubles with his personal love life, but a few pages later Bloom implies the reader shouldn't get too "Freudian" when reading, which I think is exactly what had done with Groves and "La Belle..."
This book left me weary, unlike the much longer, recently realeasd collection of Lionel Trilling's essays "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent." One wonders if Trilling had lived to the end of the 20th Century if he would have reflected such bitterness and nihilism. I think not.
Rating: 3
Summary: Worshiping at the Altar of Shakespeare
Comment: 'Worshiping at the Altar of Shakespeare' would be a more appropriate title for Professor Bloom's book. Or possibly, 'WHAT to Read and Why.' As it stands, 'How to Read and Why' is excruciatingly inappropriate for what Bloom sets forth.
Bloom asserts in his preface that his book teaches HOW to read and why. The word "how" presupposes that the reader requires instruction in beginning to read, in this case, some of the Western world's greatest literature. Anyone who is new to great literature certainly needs help in how to read it. Such a reader requires assistance in literary devices, content, historical significance, cultural influences, etc. inherent in the works. That type of foundation will help teach you HOW to read. Bloom gives no such help. Rather, he tells you WHAT to read, and why it should be read. (He also assumes that the reader comes to the table with an already vast knowledge of literature and "how" to read it.)
Even if Bloom changed his title to 'What to Read and Why,' he might as well call it, 'Shakespeare is All You Need,' or 'How to Read Shakespeare into All the Great Masterpieces of World Literature.' Sure, Shakespeare was profoundly influential (and continues to be) in the realm of literature, no one would deny that. But to CONSTANTLY compare every author and every piece of writing to Shakespeare is like telling a child, "That's good, Johnny, but you'll never be as good as your big brother, you know that, don't you?" Even Shakespeare himself would have to grow tired of all the adoration spewed out by Bloom. Enough already.
Don't get me wrong - Bloom is obviously a genius. Anyone who read (and understood) Blake, Tennyson, and Browning at age eight, knows a thing or two. Bloom gives the reader prime examples of great literature. He just doesn't tell you HOW to read them; he tells you WHY.
Another reviewer hit the nail on the head: Take the list of works that Bloom suggests, and read them for yourself. Try to find out something about them: the time they were written, the literary devices they use, the cultural and societal influences, the authors who wrote them. The more you discover, the more you will enjoy and appreciate these masterpieces.
283 pages
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Title: The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages by Harold Bloom ISBN: 1573225142 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds by Harold Bloom ISBN: 0446527173 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.95 |
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Title: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom ISBN: 157322751X Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The New Lifetime Reading Plan : The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded by Clifton Fadiman, John S. Major ISBN: 0062720732 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Hamlet: Poem Unlimited by Harold Bloom ISBN: 157322233X Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 10 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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