mrt wrote:
"Harold Bloom has had a bad influence on this great book business."
My affection for Bloom's ideas is well-documented here so I won't belabor
the point further. Suffice it to say that I would have given up completely
on the notion of ever publishing a single work of my own had I not happened
to read his little book HOW TO READ, AND WHY.
It reawakened within me a love for language: really changed my perspective
on this very matter. I became better able to do the very things mrt exhorts
us to do: read a little (of good books) and think alot about them.
And I owe that to Harold Bloom.
Yes, he's a snob, and yes, he's opinionated.
He's also a vastly talented literary critic whose work truly "provokes" in
all the delightful connotations of the word.
Who cares if he doesn't think Stephen King deserves the National Book Award,
or that he further thinks that Toni Morrison (someone with whom he concedes
he disagrees with on damned near every subject literary) does?
And his ideas on Shakespeare, particularly HAMLET, as expressed in
SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN and HAMLET: POEM UNLIMITED are truly
revolutionary.
In short, I'm grateful for him.
All the Best-
Brian
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