How To Read and Why

Rating:
Summary: Why read??? Why look at a painting?
Review: Because these things exist and continue existing in our minds, what other justification do you want? They lift up our imaginations and the imaginations of the artists. Bloom presumes anyone still cares about imagination.

There was a newspaper article published here just recently that said adults don't read as much as we think. Of course they don't, they don't have time, they don't want to, they don't see the need to. They're too busy making money, going out and drinking, getting divorced, playing golf, etc etc etc. Keep this in mind, and this book becomes more a lament on where inquisitive minds have gone.

Rating:
Summary: Why read??? Why look at a painting?
Review: Because these things exist and continue existing in our minds, what other justification do you want? They lift up our imaginations and the imaginations of the artists. Bloom presumes anyone still cares about imagination.

There was a newspaper article published here just recently that said adults don't read as much as we think. Of course they don't, they don't have time, they don't want to, they don't see the need to. They're too busy making money, going out and drinking, getting divorced, playing golf, etc etc etc. Keep this in mind, and this book becomes more a lament on where inquisitive minds have gone.

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: Sincere Analysis From Harold Bloom
Review: How to Read and Why is a fascinating introduction to the world of adult literature (no, not the erotica but the serious, more mature side of reading). The author, Yale professor Harold Bloom, wrote a book that is revealing and easy to comprehend- a good reference especially for those, like me, without any formal qualification to discuss literature.

His guide to Faulkner is thought-provoking, and his admiration for Melville intriguing. Here he even argued that the author of Moby Dick influenced, in some ways, Toni Morisson's art of writing.

Of course, one should never forget that Bloom is a passionate advocate of Shakespeare, and his article on this god-like English writer is not something one could ignore. For Bloom, Shakespeare is the only possible rival to the bible, in literary power at least.

This is a sincere analysis on how to read and why. A brilliant and outrageous compilation.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Be Put Off by Harold Bloom's Style
Review: I can't help but compare Harold Bloom with the late Clifton Fadiman-another prolific reader and reviewer of great literature. I have used Clifton Fadiman's "The Lifetime Reading Plan" as a reference book for years and thoroughly enjoy his insight and crisp writing style. In my humble opinion, Mr. Fadiman was at least as well read and erudite as Mr. Bloom. The difference between the two is that Mr. Fadiman 's writing is all about the literature (not about Mr. Fadiman) while Mr. Bloom keeps getting in his own way-he can't seem get over himself.

My husband gave up reading "How to Read and Why" in disgust after the first five pages. That's really a shame because, despite his self-absorption, Mr. Bloom has a lot to say, and his pompous pedantry does calm down quite a bit after the prologue. I was fascinated with Mr. Bloom's thought process and his love for his subject matter is absolutely contagious. I was even enthralled by the chapter on poetry. I had never given any thought as to why (for me) poetry is so difficult to absorb and therefore, to appreciate. His advice to read, reread and memorize came to me as a revelation (despite my grade-school exercises memorizing poems).

The chapter on short stories was enlightening-I never understood the difference between a short story and a novel, aside from the length. I'm still not sure I have a perfect grasp of the difference, but I know it's more than just the length of the work... It'll be fun to start reading short stories looking for short story attributes. Mr. Bloom's analysis of Hamlet was also enlightening (a gross understatement). It reminded me of a college lecture-an enjoyable college lecture-and made me hungry for more.

My advice is, don't be put off by Mr. Bloom's style. He has much to offer. You may not agree with everything he has to say (or how he says it), but he'll sure make you think and probably learn something about yourself, and that's one of the best reasons to read!

Rating:
Summary: How to Reread a Book
Review: I love book talk. This is an interesting title for a book. We know Bloom has read a lot of books because he has written so many. Furthermore, we know he is a book fan, sort of like the customer reviewer except that he has more credentials. The question is would this book make a person excited about reading. Using the word praxis is off-putting, but then Professor Bloom probably does spend most of his time in an academic environment.

The experience of reading Turgenev and Chekhov, masters of the short story, is considered. Bloom holds, appropriately, that Chekhov was the main influence on all short story writers coming after him. Chekhov has the great writer's wisdom. His "The Lady with the Dog" is worldly laconic in its universalism according to Bloom.

Hemingway's short stories surpass his novels. I agree with Bloom that Hemingway achieves tragedy in "The Hills of Kilimanjaro." Short stories may be divided into fantasy and not fantasy. Short story writers refrain from moral judgment.

The portion of the book on reading poetry presents ideas on poetry very clearly. A reader might start with William Savage Landor or A.E. Housman and move through others such as Browning, Tennyson, Wordsworth, (we have all read Wordsworth even if we haven't read him since his influence was so immense), Coleridge, Eliot, Stevens, Lawrence, Hardy. Emily Dickinson, as Shakespeare, seems to be impossible to categorize. Comparing Emily Dickinson to Emily Bronte is apt, it is very revealing of the oddness of each writer.

Milton was a sect of one. He believed that the soul and body died together. PARADISE LOST identifies energy as equal to spirit. Even the presence of others cannot transform reading from a solitary to a social act.

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN calls to mind German high culture. HAMLET is about theatricality, not revenge. In HEDDA GABLER there is the horror of losing social respectibility. Bloom notes that in the case of an enlightened and fervent young reader, the first experience of love is toward a literary character.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book, but doesn't deliver what it promises.
Review: I picked up How to Read and Why from the library and read it in two days; it was a very fun book and made me want to read more. Its biggest problem is that it simply doesn't tell you how to read. It tells you what to read.

You'd be better served simply doing a Google search for the various short stories it covers in chapter 2. They're all good and you can find most of them online. I copied and pasted 5 of them (they're public domain) and printed them out. They're all worth reading.

Basically, How to Read and Why is a fun book, but you might as well just buy the books that are listed in the index. Bloom doesn't add too much to them.

Rating:
Summary: "It is not necessary for you to complete the work "
Review: In the epilogue of this book Harold Bloom talks about Rabbi Tarphon's statement in ' Pirke Avot '(The Ethics of the Fathers) " It is not necessary for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from undertaking it". Harold Bloom has not desisted in reading and rereading the great works of Western Literature, and in so doing advocating to his readers that they too live in the 'enhanced consciousness' which great Literature gives. Here too Bloom reads and rereads some of the great works of the Tradition and provides whole new networks of insights and connections, inspirations and ideas for us to think about and make our own rereadings with. None of us Bloom laments will be able to read all the great and good books which have been written- and none of us will be able to reread as we could the great works already read by us, works which in some sense demand endless rereading- but each of us can be free to undertake the work and so far as possible know the joy and the difficulty , the pleasure and the insight , the sense of enhanced life, the love of meeting others and better knowing ourselves, which reading Literature gives.
Thank you Harold Bloom for enhancing our world with your exalted love of literature. May you go on reading and rereading for many years to come.

Rating:
Summary: For the individual in us
Review: In this poignant and beautiful book, Harold Bloom tries to drive home the lesson that we must read to become individuals. And since the "individual" is a Western invention (and since Harold Bloom is unabashedly in love with Western literature) this book is meant to be a kind of beginner's guide to the truly great books in the Western tradition. This, of course, is a very individualistic guide. Missing from it, for example is one of my favorite English authors, George Orwell whose "Homage to Catalonia" if not "Animal Farm" surely deserved at least a few lines; missing too are the great poets Pushkin, Lermontov, and Byron. Virginia Woolf's name is mentioned a few times; her books, however are not. I could extend this list ad nauseum. But that, of course, is not the point. This is Harold Bloom's list, not mine; and it contains his breath-taking commentaries that follow one another in a kind of unbroken chain that seems to sing or tremble; not mine.

The fast-moving commentaries are almost too much. I could not read this book in one sitting. Reading about another's perception's of Nabokov and Hemingway and Cervantes and Shakespeare and Milton and Faulkner and Ellison and Morrison (to name only a few of the authors mentioned in these 283 pages) in one sitting is, for me, impossible. I had to come up for air rather frequently. I had to think about what I had read; I had to let the words I had heard sink in-for, as Bloom points out, we must listen when we read. But in the end, I found the book well worth the effort.

For this book teaches the patient and attentive reader something few books on literature will: that we should read not out of any ideology, not to better the world but to better ourselves. Or, as Rabbi Tarphon whose Pirke Abot saying Bloom quotes in his conclusion tells us tells us, "It is not necessary for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

Being an individual-thinking for yourself--is hard work. But while we draw breath it is our ethical responsibility to do just that.

Rating:
Summary: For the individual in us
Review: In this poignant and beautiful book, Harold Bloom tries to drive home the lesson that we must read to become individuals. And since the "individual" is a Western invention (and since Harold Bloom is unabashedly in love with Western literature) this book is meant to be a kind of beginner's guide to the truly great books in the Western tradition. This, of course, is a very individualistic guide. Missing from it, for example is one of my favorite English authors, George Orwell whose "Homage to Catalonia" if not "Animal Farm" surely deserved at least a few lines; missing too are the great poets Pushkin, Lermontov, and Byron. Virginia Woolf's name is mentioned a few times; her books, however are not. I could extend this list ad nauseum. But that, of course, is not the point. This is Harold Bloom's list, not mine; and it contains his breath-taking commentaries that follow one another in a kind of unbroken chain that seems to sing or tremble; not mine.

The fast-moving commentaries are almost too much. I could not read this book in one sitting. Reading about another's perception's of Nabokov and Hemingway and Cervantes and Shakespeare and Milton and Faulkner and Ellison and Morrison (to name only a few of the authors mentioned in these 283 pages) in one sitting is, for me, impossible. I had to come up for air rather frequently. I had to think about what I had read; I had to let the words I had heard sink in-for, as Bloom points out, we must listen when we read. But in the end, I found the book well worth the effort.

For this book teaches the patient and attentive reader something few books on literature will: that we should read not out of any ideology, not to better the world but to better ourselves. Or, as Rabbi Tarphon whose Pirke Abot saying Bloom quotes in his conclusion tells us tells us, "It is not necessary for you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

Being an individual-thinking for yourself--is hard work. But while we draw breath it is our ethical responsibility to do just that.