This is honestly the most /lit/ book I've ever read.
hell the frick yeah, man, HB is the greatest.
The list in the back of the book is nice but Bloom's writing is completely worthless. He can't go two sentences without referencing a different book or author from the one he's talking about and as a result he says nothing meaningful about anything. He's too wrapped up in his own mode of thinking to properly articulate what it is he's thinking.
>>7832130
Huh, I'm not getting that impression at all. I know what you're saying, he certainly pulls references all over the place, but I think he manages to stay coherent.
>The list in the back of the book is nice
I don't really agree with that either, imo a list without considerable justification is totally worthless.
>>7832150
I think it's technically appeal to authority or something, but if someone whose ideas or writing I respect recommends something I will read pretty much just based on that with no further justification. I haven't read Bloom though, this is just a general comment.
>>7832150
From the list itself I see really good material and that's enough to say the material I haven't read is also good, not to mention bloom has read all of these and far more than that too, I trust him just as a reader. The dude doesn't say anything though.
>>7832208
That's fair enough, but I think he says a lot. Read the preface and the first chapter alone and he talks a lot about the importance of aesthetic above all, as well as the nature of the Canon.
It certainly got me into reading some of the books he talks about but once you do you start to realize how shallow all of what he has to say is. Bloom is more interested in pointless value judgement about all those authors than what the authors have to say. He also repeats himself a lot. There's a reason academics don't generally take him seriously.
That being said, definitely check out all the books he talks about, they're very good.
>Bloom: But can we make an agreement? Let’s forget that damned list.
>Interviewer: Ha. Do you mean the appendix in the back of the book that lists all the canonical works?
>Bloom: The list was not my idea. It was the idea of the publisher, the editor, and my agents. I fought it. I finally gave up. I hated it. I did it off the top of my head. I left out a lot of things that should be there and I probably put in a couple of things that I now would like to kick out. I kept it out of the Italian and the Swedish translations, but it’s in all the other translations—about 15 or 18 of them. I’m sick of the whole thing. All over the world, including here, people reviewed and attacked the list and didn’t read the book. So let’s agree right now, my dear. We will not mention the list.
>>7831994
>>7832130
>>can't write
>> constantly changing references
>> says nothing meaningful about anything
>> most /lit/ book i've ever read
Sums it up.
From a Tom Lathrop criticism of Blooms introduction to Don Quixote (read this morning on a recommendation from anon, ...so much for "completely worthless"):
Don’t be deceived into thinking that there are lots of solid citations from the literary critics, either, for most of the people mentioned are just names bandied about.
>>7832322
Which is funny because the list is the best part of his book.
>>7833860
Bloom's hundreds of anthologies of literary criticism are good though
>>7833949
Same poster.
Bloom's anthologies are hit or miss. The Moby Dick anthology was entirely about gnosticism. Admittedly lent me a new perspective on the book, but hardly represented the range of criticism out there, nor even a wide take on the book; clearly just essays that aligned closest to his own take.
His anthology on Tolstoy (at least I think it was a Bloom anthology) was really pretty stellar.
I've got a lot of respect for Bloom and tend often to agree with him. But >>7832317 was right, he's more interested in value judgements than scholarship (sound like /lit/ at all?). I first thought Bloom was just trying to flout his knowledge of the canon, but I've since come to think that his sensibilities come closer to an author of fiction than a scholar, hence the total lack of focus.
This seems true for a lot of authors turned critic. Lawrence's essay on Moby Dick is a rambling mess; Mann's essay on Tolstoy and Homer was profound, but hardly lucid, at times incoherent; even Burgess's excellent books on Joyce are disorganized.
So when looking to Bloom for insight, remember that even Lawrence wrote better fiction.
>>7833995
Bloom consider Lawrence one of the best novelists and poets of the 20th century of course
>>7834008
I've never enjoyed Lawrence. Does Bloom (or anon) have any defense or grounds upon which I should reconsider?
>>7834364
don't read for enjoyment
>>7834364
do you not know how to fap, anon?
what's this list
>>7834391
http://interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html
>>7834378
ironic in a post about bloom
>>7834398
why couldn't the authors be in alphabetical order
>>7834535
Because chronological is better (though it's only roughly chronological). If you need to find an author you can just search the page
>>7834398
There's no fucking way he's read everything on that list. Absolutely no way. half of the entries of the authors just say "works" or "plays," meaning all of them.
>>7834563
You better believe it, it's bloom motherfucker.
>>7834563
http://radioopensource.org/at-home-with-harold-bloom-2-on-the-humanities/
>In his early thirties, the basic Bloomian reading speed with a serious text was 1000 pages an hour
Muh Cannonigga <3
There’s no discernible talent.
There’s no discernible talent.
There’s no discernible talent.
There’s no discernible talent.
There’s no discernible talent.
>>7834640
>large print
>>7834563
He was 64 years old when the book was published and had been reading since he was a very small child. There's no reason he couldn't have read all of them (he claims to have read all of them at least twice).
>>7834640
He said 500 pages an hour. 1000 is a myth
>>7835981
when people "read" that fast it makes me wonder why they don't just pretend they read the book and spend the hour doing something else. It seems obvious that people read that fast with the intention of telling everyone about the book they just read.
>>7836000
IDK. Apparently he can read that fast and still memorize what he reads. Maybe he has the same ability that Kim Peek had.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Best times/worst times, age wisdom/foolishness, epoch belief/incredulity, season Light/Darkness, spring hope, winter despair.
– Charles Dickens, the skimmed version.
Does one read the western canon before or after reading the 26 writers mentioned?
Fuck he suggested the Lattimore trans. of the Iliad instead of Fagles.
Achilleus<Achilles
>>7835981
>>7835989
>>7836000
He hasn't been examined scientifically, and only has one other "confirmer" to support his claims. It's also been claimed he's recited Paradise Lost backwards, but where are the recordings? Bloom is likely a fraud, and is a good example today of modern mythologizing.
Personally, I think he's full of shit. He has a good memory, but I doubt it's as photographic as he claims, otherwise picking up languages would be like breathing to him, and he'd be fluent in several languages other than the handful he knows.
>>7836433
>being this insecure about your own inadequacies that you hurry to declare everyone who's smarter and more talented than you is a fraud
kek
>>7836438
It's just an unusual boast, because according to Bloom's claims, he is the processing equivalent of 500 men. If James Randi tested him, somehow I doubt Bloom's claims would hold water.
>>7836438
>being such a cuck you take all baseless claims as fact
>>7836513
ay brother. i dont read any literature without a copy of Bloom's Critical interpretations on the ready. but 500 pages an hour... wew lad
>>7833949
Those were put together by a production line of grad students, Bloom just did the intros.
>>7836526
brah thats a page every 7.2 seconds. impossible. sometimes pages stick together and it takes me like 25 seconds to turn a fucking page
>>7836560
Really? None of them are credited. I'm pretty sure Bloom himself selects all of the criticism to include.
