I don't know. When he's writing about things he loves I find him most enjoyable but when he's just bitching to bitch he's unbearable.
When you have an incredible passion for Shakespeare as Bloom does, it must be more than a little disappointing to see the masses continually pass over the work of the bard in favor of writers such as Stephen King of JK Rowling. I can undertand that. You're passionate about something, you want others to share in it, develop that same passion. But criticism of this nature, one of cutting down and dismissing altogether is itself more dreadful than even the worst "penny dreadfuls."
Were I Harold Bloom, looking around at the 21st century and all the diversions it has to offer not named reading, I might spend more time trying to engage people in a more positive way. His negativity can do nothing but make people want to distance themselves from the type of intellectual pursiuts he would like them to take. Bloom is stuck in some fantasy world that never existed. One where the majority of American readers had tastes that matched his own and all new forms of literary expressions were advancements in art that were in his view worthy.
One need look no furter than Bloom's critique of the "poetry slam" for a strong example of just what I am talking about: "It is the death of art."
Death of art? Come on Bloomy, as if art can die. As if art isn't something that adapts to us and our ever-changing world just as we must adapt to it and its changing styles and mediums.
And lets face it, for a literary critic of his esteem, Bloom is taking aim at some awfully easy targets in Rowling and King. It's weak.
"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight." - Robertson Davies
"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good." - Dr. Samuel Johnson
"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries." - Rene Descartes
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad." - George Bernard Shaw
"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." - Dr. Seuss
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." - Ray Bradbury
2 comments:
Why is Bloom so angry?
I don't know. When he's writing about things he loves I find him most enjoyable but when he's just bitching to bitch he's unbearable.
When you have an incredible passion for Shakespeare as Bloom does, it must be more than a little disappointing to see the masses continually pass over the work of the bard in favor of writers such as Stephen King of JK Rowling. I can undertand that. You're passionate about something, you want others to share in it, develop that same passion. But criticism of this nature, one of cutting down and dismissing altogether is itself more dreadful than even the worst "penny dreadfuls."
Were I Harold Bloom, looking around at the 21st century and all the diversions it has to offer not named reading, I might spend more time trying to engage people in a more positive way. His negativity can do nothing but make people want to distance themselves from the type of intellectual pursiuts he would like them to take. Bloom is stuck in some fantasy world that never existed. One where the majority of American readers had tastes that matched his own and all new forms of literary expressions were advancements in art that were in his view worthy.
One need look no furter than Bloom's critique of the "poetry slam" for a strong example of just what I am talking about: "It is the death of art."
Death of art? Come on Bloomy, as if art can die. As if art isn't something that adapts to us and our ever-changing world just as we must adapt to it and its changing styles and mediums.
And lets face it, for a literary critic of his esteem, Bloom is taking aim at some awfully easy targets in Rowling and King. It's weak.
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