How to Read and Why

Rating:
Summary: Violence and the Angry White Male....
Review: 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:
Summary: A Passionate Explication of "Blood Meridian"
Review: The most interesting thing about Bloom's new book is his passionate advocacy of Cormac McCarthy's novel, "Blood Meridian." He considers it the most important novel of the late 20th century: *the* book that explains America. Now, I've have made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to read "Blood Meridian" but have been put off by the horrendous violence (there's a massacre on practically every page.) It's a book I want to like, but haven't. But Bloom's fascinating explication of the book's approach to the history of the Southwest and its themes (especially his portrait of the monstrous Judge Holden) have given me the inspiration to have another go at this maddening book. Thank you, Bloom.

Rating:
Summary: Well-meaning, but often too vague to be useful
Review: At this point in his career, none of us would begrudge Harold Bloom a somewhat chatty, nostalgic book, and that is what he has written. Instead of his usual precise and insightful prose, this book feels like an extended impromptu lecture, with epigrammatic insights that can intriguing, but won't have a lot of impact on your reading habits.

I had hoped for something more literary and specific, with more of the book devoted to specific works. Instead, this is a feel-good discussion of why Bloom likes to read. Much of the book discusses his preferences, both in specific authors and in reading habits (e.g. read aloud), but without enough detail to convince us. It is engaging, and occasionally inspiring, but not especially memorable.

Rating:
Summary: Developing one's approach to reading
Review: It's difficult to imagine that there would be a universal answers to the queries "How to Read and Why?" as different people have different approaches to books, and the approach taken by one may not appeal to other. Still, if one reads and becomes a little better for it, the activity has been worthwhile. By giving examples of novels, short stories and plays and his own approach to them, Bloom is attempting to stimulate others to delve into the worldwide reading. One might not agree in every case with his approach to the various literary pieces he discusses, but his overall attempt is laudable. If people get into the reading mode after going through this book, he has an achievement under his belt. Some might mimic his mode of reading and reflecting at first, but as the habit is formed, it is inevitable that they build their own unique approach.

Rating:
Summary: A Profound Engagement
Review: Professor Harold Bloom say that we can never know enough people intimately to experience an adequate knowledge of what is humanity. Friendships are vulnerable, they diminish and disappear.

Reading is the answer, and is the most healing of pleasures. Here Bloom teaches how to attain a profound engagement in reading great plays such as Hamlet, and short stories such as those by Chekhov and de Maupassant, Robert Browning's poetry, Dickens'Great Expectations, and novels by Melville, Faulkner and Toni Morrison.

His insights into about sixty books, add to our joy in visiting these classics, or in re-visiting them, a practice he finds invigorating. We listen, he observes, more intently to a book than a person.

After reading his analysis on a familiar work, it becomes difficult not to return to the original for another journey through it.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Welch is clearly misguided
Review: Mr. Welch's review is a bit off, as is clear to any attentive reader perusing his unfortunate review of Mr. Bloom's unambitious and perhaps pedestrian book. How to Read and Why will never rank with Mr. Bloom's best work, though I would be surprized if the writer himself would argue with such an evaluation. The intended audience strikes me as the high-schoolers, and as such it is appropriate for such education. Mature readers will find the literary samples too broad to be cohesive, and the criticism too short to be of any real use.

Mr. Welch's utter love for Mr. Bloom is forgivable, as Mr. Bloom is a lovable writer, but let the reader be not misinformed - How to Read and Why is a coffee-table book that will disinterest the common reader.

Rating:
Summary: Why I Read and How
Review: I read it piecemeal, a section at a time here and there: the authors I'd like, the sections which had to be brilliant, the surprising sections ("Wow! Bloom is writing on him or her."). I am disappointed by the reading of Browning, mostly because its in the shadow the reading of the same poem in MAP OF MISREADING (there Bloom writes the sort of reading-to-poem match that rarely happens). Also, the section on Shelley leaves something to be desired though its immediate effect was that I spent a day reading the poet, and hope to spend many more. Also, apparently, Don Quixote NEEDS to be read because its joie de vivre cannot be wholly explained. Bloom is surprisingly persuasive on Hemingway whose disciples (particularly Naipaul) I have focused on to the exclusion of the master. I have vowed to read his short stories, which I was never able to do with pleasure. Every letter on Shakespeare and Milton illuminates.

The book is pleasing in the manner in which the Western Canon was pleasing, only on a smaller scale and with fewer explicit designs. Every reading in the earlier book seemed overtly a Shakespearean reading, but this one examines works from more academically neutral vantage points. It informs us of authors we might enjoy, and hints at insighful possible readings. I imagine that in the coming years reading curriculums in the nation, particularly those of advanced high school and introductory college courses, will reflect the influence of How to Read and Why. If this happens, then it may mean that of all of Bloom's books this is the most important in his cause of revivifying readership. A generation of readers may be molded on the recommendations of this book. How wonderful! Perhaps after How to Read and Why, appetites for reading will better coincide with education requiring deep reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Thoughtful Critique Of Contemporary America!
Review: Simply said, this is a wonderful and important book. I am not generally a fan of Bloom or his curmudgeonly notions, but in this case I heartily agree with both his diagnosis of our current intellectual dilemma and his proposed course of palliative intervention; introduce the younger generation to the depth, breadth and scope of an introspective world open only to those who love to read. That run-on sentence out of the way, I musty add that his approach to enticing the reader into initiating the habit of regular meaningful reading is a joy to behold.

Anyone honest enough to admit our puzzling and debilitating national obsession with the superficial and intellectually vapid electronic media should also appreciate what Bloom has to say about the qualities of mind at risk in a culture so singularly devoted to the superficial, flashy and insubstantial products emanating from every social orifice; television, movies, radio, video games. He argues quite persuasively that such devotion to the superficial products of a shallow and diversion-oriented public is precisely what is dumbing-down our society.

The obvious cure, for Bloom, is to institute a cultural program of reading, which he feels leads to a great deal more introspection and independent thought. Of course, those of us who are peripatetic readers understand how profoundly the qualities of one's individual consciousness are affected by the kinds of quiet and personal attention one pays to what is going on in the printed pages we are so drawn to. Yet we also understand how difficult it is to explain to non-readers just how much exposure to the panorama of intellectual, literary, and cultural ideas and conventions affects the way a reader perceives, interprets, and interacts with the world outside his or her doors.

For Bloom, reading represents the single best hope we have to wrest the culture away from the intellectually deadening world of ignorance, blind conformity and indifferent willingness to accept facile and anti-democratic ideas that equate citizenship with nominal participation through voting, or success with material acquisition, or social & cultural contribution with personal career progress. This is a thoughtful, sometimes wry, & consistently surprising book, one that each of us can benefit from reading. I recommend it to anyone as concerned as I am with the all too apparent "dumbing-down" of America.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoying a summer Bloom.
Review: After reading two unfavorable reviews of this book in the New York Times, I decided to read it myself to see what it has to offer. Bloom prefaces his book with a quotation worth remembering from poet Wallace Stevens, and this book only continues to get better. Bottom line: it is a truly excellent book.

Bloom observes that books have the ability to "enlarge life." Poetry has the power to transcend the dark and mundane. Bloom encourages us to memorize poetry. Soonafter beginning this book, however, we discover that this is not so much a book about how to read and why, but a scholarly review of the short stories, poetry, novels, and plays which Bloom believes are worth reading. (Its deceptive title is my only real criticism of the book.)

Serious readers who enjoy the pleasures of transcedent reading should not miss this book.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: How to Read and Why
Review: Please do not waste your money on this book. Each section is devoted ostensibly to a "critique" of a work that Mr. Bloom recommends to his unwashed readers. The sections are actually synopses posing as critiques. Furthermore, any critical comments Mr. Bloom does offer are sufficiently esoteric to be useful only to those already tutored in the study of literature. A better title for this book would have been How Best to Earn Money While Resting on Your Laurels.