Nabokov and Joyce [Archive] - Literature Network Forums

JBI

08-15-2009, 04:10 PM

But any published author has been found worth reading by someone, if only his editor. One person can only read a fraction of everything that has been written. So we need critics like Bloom, Fadiman, and Dr Johnson to give us some idea where the best literature is to be found. Otherwise we might end up reading an endless stream of Stephen King like authors, never knowing that there are better authors elsewhere. Anyway, you have just valued Faulkner over everyone else so you are contradicting yourself.

No we don't, not really. Generally critics will thin things, and then individual readers will pursue things important to them, and of interest to them - the Contemporary Canon is not so important - generally one can tell what good literature is for oneself.

Take it easy - it isn't hard to judge literature - usually it can be done within the cover poem, or first 25 pages. Nobody needs Bloom's list, or Johnson's dated criticism, or Fadiman's ethnocentric meh list (which essentially has the most cliché works from Bloom's list). If you read Johnson's lists, for instance, you will realize that a good 3/4 of the poets covered in The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets have faded or are known for one or two poems.

Lets be honest - If I stuck to Bloom's list, I wouldn't know anything about literature. If I stuck to Fedeman's (which I have mostly cleared anyway, as it is shorter), I wouldn't know much either. Johnson's lists are impossible to really get a hold of, as most of those poets are only available online. Where does that leave one?

Well, generally, the way one reads around, and finds out what to read is a mix of many things, or at least should be - you take one text you like, and you read around it, getting a general feel for the literature of its time, or type. So you take an author like Faulkner, and you say, who did Faulkner think of as good amongst his contemporaries - you go to Joyce, you go to Hemingway, you go to Wolfe, and then you go to Woolf, and then Lawrence, and then pick up some poets, so you go Pound, Eliot, Auden, Hardy, Lawrence, then you pick up some contemporaries from the continent, so you grab Proust, and France, and Hamsen, and Mann, and others, and then you go to other traditions, and you start looking at Crepuscular and Hermetic Italian poets, and Acmeist works out of Russia, Akhmatova, and others, and then you may wish to branch out further - so you look into, if your interests go that far, major players in different regions of the world - so you look at the major literary figures around the May Fourth Movement in China, and cross them with the varrying changes occuring outside of that part of the world, and how they relate - so you examine Lu Xun, Mao Dun, and Bing Xin. Then from there, you either go to other parts of the world - so you read Bialik or, early 20th century Arabic literature, or whatever, or, you can do another thing - you can look how the next generations of these writers reacted and formed themselves, by examining new players, or you can go back, and see how these guys formed out of their predecessors, or you can even pick a different focus, and again branch out.

Finding what to read isn't the hard part - there are thousands of fantastic works of literature, and nobody is expected to read them all in one lifetime. What one can do though, is try and decide what they like for themselves, and read in such a way that they understand what they are reading - which is why criticism, conversation, and forums like these help. It isn't a critics job to say what to read, but to comment on how to read things, or to research peculiar interest points of works.

In that sense, Bloom has done very little of that, and isn't even a real critic or theorist anymore - he's a washed up old beaten down sell out who refuses to say anything interesting on anything. He's published only a few real texts, and, since the Western Canon, I don't think even one really substantial text of Literary Criticism or Theory - he is too preoccupied with his lamentation of the "western Canon" to spit out anything of value. Of course, he is respected, because he has read a lot, but his inability to realize that not everyone feels they should only read from a Western Canon, or that not everyone is "Western" is a real falling. I don't consider myself part of the so called "West". I think it would be an insult to myself, and the people around me - why then should I only read books from a Western Perspective that only takes into account a few countries, and only the most cliché works of other countries and traditions?

meh!

08-15-2009, 07:06 PM

I like wodehouse a lot because he seems to come across exactly like wooster.

Going and broadcasting with the nazis and then, when accused of working with the nazis, just going 'buh?'.

classic.

Emil Miller

08-15-2009, 08:34 PM

I like wodehouse a lot because he seems to come across exactly like wooster.

Going and broadcasting with the nazis and then, when accused of working with the nazis, just going 'buh?'.

classic.

There goes that righteous indignation ( how I loathe it it) again. Wodehouse was interned after his home in France had been overrun by German forces. He was asked, after being released from internment, to state by radio that he hadn't been ill treated, which he hadn't and that he was adequately cared for, which he was. If telling the truth about his situation upset the self- righteous among his fellow countrymen, then that is another plus to being one of the funniest writers that ever lived.

meh!

08-15-2009, 10:49 PM

There goes that righteous indignation ( how I loathe it it) again. Wodehouse was interned after his home in France had been overrun by German forces. He was asked, after being released from internment, to state by radio that he hadn't been ill treated, which he hadn't and that he was adequately cared for, which he was. If telling the truth about his situation upset the self- righteous among his fellow countrymen, then that is another plus to being one of the funniest writers that ever lived.

Righteous indignation?

It's just quite a funny anecdote. Was I wrong in thinking that he made broadcasts for the Germans (I think he thought he was making them for the Americans?). It's simply quite funny that he was unaware of this combined with the obvious reaction that it would be seen as collaboration when it wasn't at all: he was just being unwitting. Very much like the kind of thing Wooster would do...

There's no more to it than that... i'm not sure what you're angry about, haha. As I say, I agree, definitely one of the funniest writers ever. I was reading The Inimitable Jeeves only two weeks ago!

mal4mac

08-16-2009, 07:13 AM

It is worth noting that Waugh and Wodehouse are quintessentially English and very idiomatic writers who would be likely to appeal to their compatriots more readily than foreigners.

They are quintessentially English public school types, which is very far from being quintessentially English.

Neither Wodehouse nor Waugh were experimental writers, as were Joyce and Nobokov in their use of language, their prose, however, is crystal clear and their writing is probably the most amusing that any country produced during the 20th century.

Wodehouse might be funny in parts, but he's awfully shallow and boring old chap...

mal4mac

08-16-2009, 08:00 AM

If you read Johnson's lists, for instance, you will realize that a good 3/4 of the poets covered in The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets have faded or are known for one or two poems.

This is a useful point to make, which is why I find it useful to read critics like yourself :-) I don't have a BA in literature, and so would never have known this fact before I read about it in some work of criticism. ... actually initially in one of Bloom's works. Bloom also indicated why Johnson made this error - a combination of editors demands and all of us finding it diffiuclt know who are the best authors of our era.

Lets be honest - If I stuck to Bloom's list, I wouldn't know anything about literature.

Depends on your definition of literature, I suppose. I only know that Bloom has led me to some great books and will be eternally grateful to him for that!

Well, generally, the way one reads around, and finds out what to read is a mix of many things, or at least should be - you take one text you like, and you read around it, getting a general feel for the literature of its time, or type.

You are then in danger of remaining stuck in a very shallow pool. I used to like reading sf, reading around in the random way you indicate.Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, E.E. Doc Smith, Moorcock, and on through dozens of other similar writers, Fortunately I read Macbeth at school and read 1984 in my random walk through sf. I might have plumped for Merry Wives of Windsor or any other Orwell novel next, and been put off real literature for life! Fortunately good critics like Bloom steered me on the right course.

So, yes, read around, but make good critics part of your reading around!

So you take an author like Faulkner, and you say, who did Faulkner think of as good amongst his contemporaries - you go to Joyce, you go to Hemingway,

I didn't like Hemingway much. Bloom was useful support in this dislike. He's also the main reason Faulkner is on my must read soon list.

In that sense, Bloom has done very little of that, and isn't even a real critic or theorist anymore - he's a washed up old beaten down sell out who refuses to say anything interesting on anything.

On Bloom by other critics:

"Everything he says, however extravagant, is worth reading, " Frank Kermode

"Irresistable..." Michale Dirda

"Bloom's canon is in many ways mine" A.S. Byatt

He's published only a few real texts, and, since the Western Canon, I don't think even one really substantial text of Literary Criticism or Theory

That's just wrong, I've read, am reading, or will read:

"Shakespeare; The invention of the human"
"How to Read a Book"
"Genius"
"Novels and Novelists"

... and several others ("Hamlet" "Best poems..."...). But I've read the above and they're all up to the standard of the Western Canon IMHO, and they get good reviews

- he is too preoccupied with his lamentation of the "western Canon" to spit out anything of value.

He doesn't do that much lamenting, and Frank Kermode, amongst many others, disagrees with you.

Of course, he is respected, because he has read a lot, but his inability to realize that not everyone feels they should only read from a Western Canon, or that not everyone is "Western" is a real falling. I don't consider myself part of the so called "West". I think it would be an insult to myself, and the people around me - why then should I only read books from a Western Perspective that only takes into account a few countries, and only the most cliché works of other countries and traditions?

He doesn't say you should only read the Western Canon. He stresses that his books concentrate on the Western literary canon and stresses he only has the knowledge to write books on this area. I'm a scientist and was looking carefully for any comments Bloom had on scientific literature. In fact, he never makes a comment! He stresses that he is only talking about the literary canon and totally ignores the scientific canon (no Darwin, Newton, Einstein, etc). As a scientist I did not react, "what a bounder! How can he not mention the scientists!" I realised, through reading him carefully, that he did not do so because that is not his area. Exactly the same goes for books outside the Western Canon. He doesn't "diss" the Eastern Canon, he simply doesn't talk about it!

JCamilo

08-16-2009, 10:53 AM

The Western Canon is hardly a great piece of criticism, JBI is right. It is, simple the list in the end, a good reference guide. But as JBI pointed, you would find it reading anyways.
But Bloom list is flawed like hell. As a Brazilian I notted he included Carlos Drummond de Andrade but not Guimaraes Rosa? It is akim to include Wallace Stevens and ignore Faulkner. In the end his south american list is about the little he knew about Borges. Hence not even Machado de Assis or Horacio Quiroga, a reasoanable list of latin americans in the XIX century and no Juan Rulfo or Felisberto Hernandes or Mario de Andrade or Jorge Amado in the XX century. And we are supposed to be western...

Adding, his need to validated the freudian approach and the notion of the Oedipus conflict with Shakespeare also made his essays a bit dull. He ignored Voltaire (when talking about a genealogy since Pascal of french writers he do not mention the guy), a nitpick, ok... But funny as hell when Voltaire is such critic of Shakespeare. He ignored Poe (nobody is more central for the short stories than him) mostly due the american vision of Poe, his texts about Borges and Kafka are bad, because both are anti-freudians. I can almost see Bloom desire to remove Borges, but how to remove a great elitist than him, someone who defended the aesthetical approach, the canon, the anxiety of influence in his texts? Dostoievisky was behind Tolstoy (such nabokovian choice) but it is impossible to think about both appart. But Dostoievisky predates Freud, so...
Personally I do not mind. His texts about Proust, Dickinson, Dante are good reading. Have seen better because there is better writers than Bloom and the guy know his stuff, but there was hardly anything new there (and how could, those are the classics)...

mal4mac

08-16-2009, 02:06 PM

... Hence not even Machado de Assis ...

He makes it into the "top 100 of all time" list in Bloom's "Genius". Quite a long article on him, that makes me want to read him. He suggests that he has not been well served by translators until recently (Rabassa, Gledson...)

Poe and Voltaire are not inthe 100 :-) They look like Bloomian blind spots. Fadiman & the "Top Ten" bunch (Zane) certainly rate Voltaire & Poe. I read a lot of Poe in my yoof, many decades ago, and have a good feeling about him, but I had a good feeling about Arthiur C. Clarke that did not survive a recent re-reading!

Note Bloom admits that he dislikes Philip Larkin, my favourite modern poet, admits that most other critics like him, but admits he might be wrong!

So, all in all, I trust Bloom, but not completely...

JCamilo

08-16-2009, 02:51 PM

I know Bloom likes Machado, which makes his canon list more, like JBI says, a commercial work rather that academic.
Voltaire is always controversial. His supreme elitism certainly makes him sound outdated, but It is hard to find a place where his presence is not like a ghost. His prose is precise, fast and economic but even Voltaire misjudged its importance. In other hand, his plays are just technical and his poems are sometimes representative of french literature, but it was better done for as example La Fointaine. His philosophy is strange, since he avoid metaphysics and is anti-democratic. But the strange thing is how perfect he would be for the anxiety of influence, since Voltaire was very dominat in the freench when alive, the entire romantic writers after him have quite strange reactions against him (and pro-rousseau). The best is Baudelaire. Except Baudelaire is an elitist as well, full of sarcasm and very critical and there is very funny texts where he finds himself quoting Voltaire, "gasps" and say something bad about Voltaire. I can not imagine Flaubert, Borges, Machado, Oscar Wilde, Gogol and the other users of Irony without a pinch of Voltaire. He is more a model than Swift because he did not went mad. I many ways, loathe Voltaire but admire him was much of the spirit of XIX century.
As Poe, I would say there is a lot of possible reasons. The downgrounding of Poe in America, his cult that misplace Poe works, his big criticism of the Lake School and in Bloom case, Poe is already a psychological writer even before Freud. He may not be the best short writer ever (altough he is a strong name, at least, one with more relevant short stories) but he was certainly the one that sat down and organized the rules of a moderm story inside an aesthetical principle. Hence why every short story writer will mention a poe tale as a model of good story (and usually they do not agree upon one), hence why he can be influential to writers that seek more realistic approach and to symbolists, even with the flawed poetry, he can pull out The Raven, his criticism was very relevant, there is Eureka and the guy manages to be translated just by Machado de Assis, Fernando Pessoa, Cortazar, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Borges... He is not a small fish on the pound, either americans or Bloom try to imply otherwise.
As rule of the thumb, I would start to seek out what many have to say, mostly the writers. The texts of Virginia Woolf, Borges, Italo Calvino, Baudelaire, Cortazar, Paul Valery are all interesting because they are very good writers. If they have the misjudgement or another, you at least know it is the artist talking. Since Bloom is not an artist, this misjudgements or glaring absence are often strange...

JBI

08-16-2009, 03:34 PM

"Everything he says, however extravagant, is worth reading, " Frank Kermode

"Irresistable..." Michale Dirda

"Bloom's canon is in many ways mine" A.S. Byatt

Fitting - the Washington Post critic, the 90 year old British, institutional critic, and the snobbish English novelist - lets be honest - I don't think Italians need Bloom's thumbs up to read Tasso - not to mention all the other poets he left out, Cavalcanti included, who is ingrained not only into the tradition, but also the high school curriculum. Likewise, I don't think a Spanish person needs the Bloom thumbs up to read Lorca - hell, Lorca had cemented himself on the Spanish, French, and American traditions long before Bloom wrote his book - in truth, the only really controversial ones on the list, are those that Bloom put on to support his own theories - essentially all the end of the American list, deliberately not putting on Beloved, but sticking in Song of Solomon, putting in Zora Neale Hurston, but not Alice Walker, etc. - the rest is just cliché, or, "he could be important" English writers.

But the whole irony is, Bloom himself tries to shun his list, and abandon it - that's the real joke - the man himself hates the list, and tries to deny penning it.

But have fun with that - it is easy to criticize a niche created by only reading one genre, but the real question is, is that so bad? Bloom like thinkers create this idea of the super well-read reader, who knows all the classics - but lets be honest, even if one conquers the whole Bloom canon, their knowledge of literature will be minimal - they will know nothing of contemporary literature, or anything outside of English and American (mainstream) literature. They will probably know little about the books they have read, and less about the contexts they have read in - the Italian works will make little sense, and the Yiddish and Hebrew even less - in truth, to read half the books there, you're going to need a decent range of supplementary reading to get a good understanding - for Chaucer I would say you probably should get a professor to lecture to you on it as well, but that perhaps isn't necessary - the list is a) too long, b) too American (obviously, and c) too exclusive. The only thing he really does well is the English poets before the 20th century. But even so, where's the real value in that list - anyone who reads poetry in that sort of vein, that is, tries to grasp the whole tradition, would run into all those poets anyway, and, by virtue of not sticking to the list, would be better off, having only to read the few short lyrics that matter by said dead old 17th century poet, than the whole slew of poems, which, outside of specialist circles, are as good as dead anyway.

Either way though, Bloom still hasn't read outside of the West, even given his speed - the whole concept of a Western canon though, is in truth, completely false. Lorca for instance, is best remembered for his Gypsy Ballads, his volume that, if anything, is influenced by non-Western sourcework - ex-centric traditions and rhythms. Eliot himself was very influenced by Indic texts, having studied them for his Ph. D. (which he never defended), and you can feel their trace on many of the major works, most notably, the Waste Land, and Four Quartets (especially The Dry Salvages). Pound without Li Bai, even if he did translate everything wrong.

If the goal is to read only good texts, it is kind of silly to narrow one's scope to only a Western Tradition (that is, a European (English, Spanish, Portuguese Italian, French, German) tradition up until Walt Whitman essentially, and then an American list past 1950.

But there is a joke - you push forward a list because it tells you what to read, and what you have read is supposedly good, and therefore the list is good, but since you haven't read enough outside the list, the actual fact that you follow the list cannot be verified to provide the best texts, because, by necessity, you are sticking to the list - so in all, you get lots of near-forgotten English novelists and poets, and very little still revered non-Western, or contemporary writers - you justify yourself by appealing to an elite opinion, but you cannot justify the elite opinion, unless you break with it.

I had a professor (the best I have ever had) teaching a course called "Reading Poetry" who was a great fan of poetry, and the poetic tradition - yet even she realized that just sticking to classics is kind of silly, and provides one without anything substantial - the whole point is not to value works, and saying this one is worth more than that one, therefore we should burn these, but rather, to find something enjoyable, sit down with it, and figure out how it has the affect on you that it does, and what it makes you think of. That's generally the right kind of idea, so the last third or so of the course was on contemporary Canadian work, and how it fits in with a post-Western conception of literature - the general consensus was, the so called Western Canon, and the Bible as a source for a "Great Code" (to use Frye's term) no longer applies, and that the borders between traditions, countries, forms and metaphors have, essentially, been lost - it is not possible now, it was argued, to approach poetry only knowing about one aspect of it, the Frye side, when, quite simply, since, I would argue, Pound's Cathay, the divisions between traditions have been melting - how then is someone like me, who lives in a city which is essentially formed of immigrants, who comes from a half ex-centric, half non-western background, who tries to understand literature, and the traditions around me, to stick to a Western canon, or a western set of ideas - it's preposterous.

It is no longer possible to call oneself well read, or knowledgeable in the field of literature, while maintaining a holding with a notion of a Western Canon, which, ironically, doesn't include all of the so called "Occident", much less actually exist, as the founding authors weren't "Western", and weren't only influential in one area.

It makes no difference though, like I said, the way people read would eventually lead them to the same names in a sort of way anyway - so a person reads a text by Leopardi, looks on the dust-jacket, and finds "Other books in the series" leading one to other 19th century Italian writers, and then they go and check them out, and branch out from there, or whatever - the actual way people find books isn't rocket science, especially if it is classic books - it is a combination of what exists versus what is advertised. A better definer of a Canon in the English language (translation or original) would probably be the cross between Oxford and Penguin classics, because, quite simply, they feature the greatest mainstream classics publications, and therefore are responsible for the distribution of classics, and, by necessity, define what a classic is in the first place.

Emil Miller

08-16-2009, 04:01 PM

Righteous indignation?

It's just quite a funny anecdote. Was I wrong in thinking that he made broadcasts for the Germans (I think he thought he was making them for the Americans?). It's simply quite funny that he was unaware of this combined with the obvious reaction that it would be seen as collaboration when it wasn't at all: he was just being unwitting. Very much like the kind of thing Wooster would do...

There's no more to it than that... i'm not sure what you're angry about, haha. As I say, I agree, definitely one of the funniest writers ever. I was reading The Inimitable Jeeves only two weeks ago!

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your post regarding Wodehouse. I thought you were implying that he was being deliberately provocative by broadcasting for the Germans. It is known that in England he was subjected to a campaign of vilification that was completely unjustified. Below is an extract from an American publication concerning the broadcasts:

In England, however, the fact of his having made the broadcasts aroused a storm of indignation, much of it whipped up artificially by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the newspapers. In the B.B.C.'s defense, it must be said that its directors at first objected, but were ordered by the Government to undertake the slander-campaign against Wodehouse.[4] The British public was in a state of rage against Germany because of the pounding England had been taking from the air, and were all too ready to have a scapegoat on whom to vent their anger. As Jasen says:

Comparatively few people actually heard the talks, but the mere knowledge that they had been given on the German radio was enough to whip the British press into a frenzy of hate and vituperation. Without checking the facts and without giving the astonished public a hint of what Plum [i.e. Wodehouse] had said in his broadcasts, the papers reviled him and accused him - placing him on a par with the arch-traitor known as Lord Haw-Haw.[5]

After the saturation-bombing of Berlin began in 1943, Wodehouse and his wife were permitted to move to Paris, where they remained until 1947. Two British officers, Major Malcolm Muggeridge and Major E.J P. Cussen, were sent to interview Wodehouse. Although both reported that there was no evidence that he had intentionally given any aid to the enemy, nevertheless, Wodehouse and his wife were subjected to a certain amount of harassment by both the British and the French authorities. Some of his English enemies (such as a certain Quintin Hogg, later Lord Hailsham) demanded that he be brought back to England and tried for treason.[

JCamilo

08-16-2009, 04:16 PM

Yeah, I would take for example the Latim American tradition. There is two languages here, spanish and Portuguese. Obviously, thanks to Borges and the superior place that spanish have in reggards to portuguese even in europe, there is a domain for the Spain. So, it is easy to remember Ruben Dário but nobody will remember Gonçalves Dias. Of course, Ruben Dário is the link between Withman and Borges and Neruda, so he is quite relevant (not to mention a good poet). In Brazil, the french was closer to us, and most poets of XIX french from romantic period lost space to the likes of Rimbaurd, Verlaine,etc. But that is how Poe arrived here, we looked with the lens of continental europe while in spanish america, they are more british, meaning even the mistery tradition that was present on Borges.
But the story of Magic Realism is hardly just mentioning Borges and Marquez, it is pointing that Horacio Quiroga was writing Poe like short stories already in the XIX century. And In Brazil it is pointing that Machado de Assis and Jose de Alencar are writing Poe like stories here, Jose a bit wiht the urban burgoise romance that was commun in french, because magic realism own a lot to them.
Then we have the movements for identidy, that in Brazil is the mix of african and native culture with portugal and in latin america the native and gauchesque poetry. Borges did not happened in a desert island out of nowhere, he was a progressive mix of europe (English and germanic version) with the local colors that he fought hard to deny.
The free verse of Whitman helped to find a identidy since it was silly to fought for a place on the sun alongside the tradition, because there would be no space with English and french poets. For both sides but the modernism here was aware of russian poetry and emily dickinson as well. And Faulkner romances gave a new blood. Juan Rulfo is the link between him and Marquez for example.
In the Cannon book you see nothing of that, the minor relevant writers (Bioy Casares is not there, but he is very relevant as the shadow of Borges, more than many english or american names) away...

Barbarous

08-16-2009, 04:19 PM

Each time a Joyce related thread turns up on this site, I chuckle and grimace due to the fact that somebody(s) always want to bash him or declare him the master of the 20th century. With that said, he is my favorite author but not the best I've ever read. All I have to due to remind me of this is thumb through Finnegans Wake, which I'm currently rereading, it's a blast.
Nabokov is great though a totally different writer than Joyce, at times (Pale Fire, Look at the Harlequins!) he's a bit like a failed Joyce, but I will always categorize him with more traditional writing.

Emil Miller

08-16-2009, 07:01 PM

They are quintessentially English public school types, which is very far from being quintessentially English.

Well, it would be difficult to find something more quintessentially English than the public school system that dates back to the middle-ages.

Wodehouse might be funny in parts, but he's awfully shallow and boring old chap...

QUOTE=mal4mac;763386]They are quintessentially English public school types, which is very far from being quintessentially English.

Well, it would be difficult to find something more quintessentially English than the public school system that dates back to the middle-ages.

Wodehouse might be funny in parts, but he's awfully shallow and boring old chap...[/QUOTE]

Don't mention it old crumpet. He was, after all, a satirist on the British upper classes and, as such, he woud probably have suggested that those in search of depth, should stick with Proust and other such desperately long-winded attempts to mesmerise us with the seriousness of their writing.

mal4mac

08-17-2009, 11:14 AM

As rule of the thumb, I would start to seek out what many have to say, mostly the writers. The texts of Virginia Woolf, Borges, Italo Calvino, Baudelaire, Cortazar, Paul Valery are all interesting because they are very good writers. If they have the misjudgement or another, you at least know it is the artist talking. Since Bloom is not an artist, this misjudgements or glaring absence are often strange...

I agree that you should read different "writers on writers" to try and triangulate opinions on a particular writer. I've tried to triangulate opinion of "critics on critics" to see if a particular current critic might become canonical.

Surely no one fits that bill better than Bloom?

I don't think you can say Bloom is not an artist. He may, like Johnson, be an artist whose particular bent is criticism. Comments by top critics like Dirda, Kermode, and Ricks, and from a top writer like Byatt would indicate he has a strong claim to be this age's "critic as artist".

I find more literary merit in Bloom's writing, compared to say Woods, Nuttall, Fadiman, Adler, Bauer, Denby... just to name some modern universal critics I've read in reasonable depth recently, and have found to have some literary merit (in the order given, Woods with most merit, to stir further argumet :-)

Who is your favourite "universal critic of the modern age"?

mal4mac

08-17-2009, 11:33 AM

I don't think Italians need Bloom's thumbs up to read Tasso

No, but I need help in finding the best things to read in the Western Canon. So I need someone to point out Tasso & Lorca and relate them to other Western writers as I know next to nothing about the literature of these cultures.

JCamilo

08-17-2009, 01:40 PM

Just need to read Borges when he is writing essays to see Bloom is pala comparassion. Eco is usually a better writer too. Italo Calvino as well.

kelby_lake

08-17-2009, 01:49 PM

I agree, the TV series was excellent! Jeremy Irons as the narrator and Anthony Andrews as Sebastian were inspired choices. IMDB has it as "Perhaps the Finest Miniseries Ever Made":

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083390/

The script was by John Mortimer, surely the best adaptor ever?

I probably haven't read more Waugh because of his reputation as a "vile, heartless, sadistic little snob and truly awful human being". But, heck, it's difficult to find a good modern novel so I guess I'll hold my nose and plunge in...

Yeah, i got put off Hemingway when I found out he was married 6 times and so mean to Fitzgerald. Poor Fitzy :(

JBI

08-17-2009, 02:22 PM

No, but I need help in finding the best things to read in the Western Canon. So I need someone to point out Tasso & Lorca and relate them to other Western writers as I know next to nothing about the literature of these cultures.

Had you known anything about Italian literature, you would know, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and Ariosto right in the beginning - it wouldn't have taken long to find either of them, knowing one of them. General hunch, if you can find Bloom's book on a shelf, generally you can find a book suitable to your reading tastes without him.

For instance, I know very little about Japan, or Japanese culture/language/literature. I still manage to find classical texts, without having to work too hard, simply because I know what I am looking for - namely famous poetry works. I don't know anyone else who is reading such works (besides a very select few here), and I do not really know anyone who is reading in the same light as me (namely, trying to assemble a structural code in my head of Japanese conventions) yet I still find what I want.

The whole pleasure of the bookstore is not knowing what you want to buy, until it is in the shopping cart - Bloom robs one of that simple joy in life - as does the whole Internet Book Buying phenomenon. You could even find what you want, simply by going through certain stacks in the library - for instance, I found a great deal of Canadian drama through walking through that isle in a medium sized public library - it may not be "Bloom worthy" (I guess Canada for the most part isn't "Bloom worthy"), but it is what I wanted, and I haven't been disappointed.

As Woolf put it, the joy of literature is increased when you know someone who has similar tastes (my wording, not hers). The big list denies the connection between people, and the actual living quality of the literature. So do value systems - if someone likes Joyce or Nabokov, they shouldn't need to look to Bloom for approval. Let them measure the greatness of authors themselves - MortalTerror, for instance, will not agree with me on Joyce, but it doesn't really matter in the long run, because he and I both know our opinions are idiosyncratic, and matter very little in the scheme of things.

But, then again, these Bloom-fan types pop up all over the place - it must be a generational thing - people thinking they have some elite taste because they read off an old senile man's two-decade old vision of good literature. The joke is, if they don't read outside of that, they cannot possibly know if the books are good or not. It carries a certain "romantic" flavor I guess to support such a dramatic character as Bloom is, in his "fight against the school of resentment", a mostly made up concept by Bloom (though there are many thinkers like that in the States particularly, I hardly see them as a threat to any form of Canon at all). As anyone can point out though, the list only gets interesting after 1900 - the rest is merely cliché generally accepted academic work (one sided academic work, in the sense that it doesn't take into account even the whole Occident), that had been singled out already by time - the real meat of the list is the last bit, which, although featuring many good works, is hardly representative of any sort of canon. But I guess everyone should only read American works, as the Italians, Spanish, British, Irish, etc. etc. are only worthy of a few cliché mentions.

I will give you credit though, you generally are someone who just wishes to read good books - you aren't one of those types who thinks because Bloom said it, it makes you a better person for agreeing (there is one on the Persuasion Book club thread like that, who completely hijacked the thread, to the point where I won't reply for fear of being banned).

Essentially, Bloom is a sell out (something which in the past was attributed to him needing money to support a permanently ill child) and has gone from being a promising, interesting critic into a mass-market bust. A staple that people who think they understand literature hide behind and use as a sort of bullying tool for silencing people who like different books.

JBI

08-17-2009, 02:29 PM

Just need to read Borges when he is writing essays to see Bloom is pala comparassion. Eco is usually a better writer too. Italo Calvino as well.

I think the reason why On the Classics by Calvino works better than any of Bloom's post-Canon books is essentially because a) it is written in a much better style, and doesn't come out to say what is good and what is bad, and how people are stupid for disagreeing - it is far more personal and meditative, far more interesting.

As for Eco, he is the most Borgesian writer after Borges (well, I think maybe St.Lukes gets the award, even over Eco - he seems more Borgesian than Borges himself) but his general attitude is nothing like Bloom's - he isn't obsessed with canonical standards, and remarked that he doesn't respect readers who only read classics. The general wit though, as apposed to the feigned melancholic aggrandizement of Bloom makes for far better reading.

But even so, neither of these authors wrote down a list of "good books" like Bloom did - they generally name books like they liked, but the act of writing down a "These are good books, the rest are crap" list is something which takes a great deal of audacity.

bluosean

08-17-2009, 03:42 PM

JBI is right. The idea of that list is stupid. I looked at the list on line. It is a great reference, but even as a reference it is not complete. The encyclopedias in the library have great refrences under English Literature (or English Poetry, or Russian Literature etc.). I cant understand why The Deerslayer is the only book under James Fenimore Cooper. If I read that book and I loved it, it only makes sense to read The Last of the Mohicans sometime. but that book is not on his list. The list is too restrictive which is funny because it is also too big. It would be bad if yall scratched your head and said "er how bout reading The Beggars Opera", and liked it, and scratched it off the list, and went straight to the next thing. When yall come to the end, and then there is nothing else to read, yall would start at the beginning again. Thats cool because a lot of good books can be read a lot. But I bet yall would start to feel like Sisyphus rolling up the list and then seeing it roll down. Its a hopeless task when there is an end to reading. there is no point. yall read stuff to learn right? but it has to be fun too. the list is too systematic. Any way JBI said it already. I am just trying to agree.

bluosean

08-17-2009, 04:22 PM

I read what Bloom said about Harry Potter--I never even heard about Bloom but yall talk about him so much that I wanted to know what it was yall was talking about. Harry Potter isnt bad. Harry Potter is for the children.

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 12:17 AM

I think the reason why On the Classics by Calvino works better than any of Bloom's post-Canon books is essentially because a) it is written in a much better style, and doesn't come out to say what is good and what is bad, and how people are stupid for disagreeing - it is far more personal and meditative, far more interesting.

No doubt, he is a much better writer. In the end they will have more influence than Bloom's lists because their text are more appealing. Calvino belongs to a tradition of essaists that almost could use a version of Baudelaire (another one from this tradition) "make poetry, even in essays"...
They may be blatantly wrong, they may even lie, give a damn about reality... but they do manage to find insights that no theorist can match. Much of Anxiety of influence was suggested by Borges. And in the end, Like Bloom himself predicts those texts with higher aesthetical vallues will survive. Not his own texts. (he even failts to admit that much of the critics that he despite because their "marxist" approach are also better writer than him. Barthez or Derrida have more chances in the long run than him.

As for Eco, he is the most Borgesian writer after Borges (well, I think maybe St.Lukes gets the award, even over Eco - he seems more Borgesian than Borges himself) but his general attitude is nothing like Bloom's - he isn't obsessed with canonical standards, and remarked that he doesn't respect readers who only read classics. The general wit though, as apposed to the feigned melancholic aggrandizement of Bloom makes for far better reading.

That is obviously an Borges obssession. To think he is also responsable for the raising of certain names such Stevenson to a higher position exactly for his own ideas. But I must say that knowing Borges an Eco... Eco is not borgesian at all. Of course, he is a big fan and lots of ideas of Borges are there, but Eco is too much obssessed with the higher structure of the text and symbol, the romance... Borges despised both, his approach was more on language and a certain desire to be a poet. No real borgesian would be so excessive like Eco is. Eco excess of descriptions move him away, Calvino flow of narrative is closer to Borges. And Eco is not the higher elists that Borges is. Eco admits the attempts to write to several levels of writers, Borges demands a specialized level.

But even so, neither of these authors wrote down a list of "good books" like Bloom did - they generally name books like they liked, but the act of writing down a "These are good books, the rest are crap" list is something which takes a great deal of audacity.

Yes, lists are a form of dumbing down. The canon needs no defense or listing,it exists naturally. If I go to a library and find a book the is regulary published for 400 years, then it is classic. Yippe. That is all.

JBI

08-18-2009, 01:26 AM

blazeofglory

08-18-2009, 02:44 AM

Joyce is too tough, and while I admire his styles of writing and he wrote devotedly and dedicatedly to put the accent on the importance of art I find his kind of writing too much exasperating. While I can unstoppably engage in reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce fatigues me in a short while. But it does not mean that I have an aversion to him. He has wielded his style too grand and majestic for any mortals to learn and enjoy.

While he spent tot much ink on mastering language, and as he had to other things to do but engage in learning, honing his styles, enlarging vocabulary we are occupied with too many things in life and it is not possible to completely and exclusively reading such things.

That is why I choose writers of lesser genres, not the likes of Joyce. Art entices me too, but life fascinates more.

stlukesguild

08-18-2009, 03:05 AM

I must say that I believe that Bloom has his merits. I will always value him if only because of the fact that it was through his writing that I was introduced to Machado de Assis, Tomasso Landolfi, Fernando Pessoa, and any number of other intriguing writers. I certainly agree that his tirades against multiculturalism and imagined opponents of the "canon" grow tiresome... but then, as even JBI admits, these were responses against certain excesses that may (or may not) be unique to certain extreme left-wing factions of American academia. JBI suggests that Bloom is not taken seriously in academia and is more of a populist critic... this (as strange as it may sound coming from an avowed "elitist") may actually be in his favor. Outside of academia itself (or the world of academics in training...JBI?) I doubt that anyone reads "serious" literary criticism... for the very reason that (ironically?) it is generally so badly written. Not that I would suggest Bloom is a great writer on the level of a critic like Johnson or Ruskin. I certainly agree that Borges, Paz, Baudelaire, Poe, Woolf, Eco, Calvino... even Kafka (in his journals and notebooks) can prove more insightful. I remember that one of the quotes on the Western Canon proclaimed that reading Bloom was akin to reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning. The closest to such an experience that I have had in reading any literary criticism must surely come from reading the work of writers such as Borges, who has the uncanny ability of looking at even the writers who we believe we are the most familiar with and challenging us to see them in a whole new light... to recognize their "strangeness" (to use one of Bloom's proclaimed attributes of the truly great work of art.) Who but Borges could connect Kafka with Robert Browning, Kierkegaard, and Zeno's paradoxes against movement as recorded by Aristotle (although the poet/translator Stephen Mitchell made an equally marvelous case for establishing Job as a precursor to The Trial while William Blake's Job can challenge everything we assumed we knew of that ancient text)???

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 10:25 AM

Yes, but Foucault's Pendulum is even more obsessed with Borges than The Name of the Rose - the whole concept is written out of a Borgesian labyrinth. I think it is part of the joke - in a sense, it is an anti-Borgesian text, yet at the same time, the way the novel functions is rooted in Borgesian structures - it affirms the flaw of the labyrinthine concept, yet, as an open work, functions in a Borgesian way.

I never heard this one JBI, and I read a lot of scholars asking what this novel was *about* and settled on one who basicly argued that is was against the art of literary interpretation, but the Borges element would have necessarily escaped me, because knowing Borges techniques and actually reading his work are two different things.

This doesn't excuse Eco for being sloppy. FP is a poorly written novel, mocking every form of characterization. I've read it three times, mostly baffled as to why Eco took the trouble.

mal4mac

08-18-2009, 10:29 AM

Yeah, i got put off Hemingway when I found out he was married 6 times and so mean to Fitzgerald. Poor Fitzy :(

I got put off because he isn't a very good novelist...

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 10:44 AM

Bloom have his merits and certainly mentionig Pessoa like he did in the Neruda & Borges chapter certainly turned a few heads into his direction. For me it was just a curiosity because Pessoa is a natural reading. But I really find strange that someone that decides to read every bit of Western Canon will be surprise to find "Uh, there is a dude named Wordsworth! What a queer name, maybe it is a artist nickname, how cleaver."... in other hand, Calvino seems to be much more pleasing and easier to engage...

Anyways, FP by Eco is a case of excess of tricks. He is certainly obssessed with Borges and Joyce. Those two are masters of using tricks to their own amusement without destroying the structure and theme of their works. And of course, time? But I would suggested another source (borgesian in a way), it is Adolfo Bioy Casares, Morel Island.

mal4mac

08-18-2009, 11:11 AM

Had you known anything about Italian literature, you would know, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and Ariosto right in the beginning
[Heavy irony on] Here's how I got steeped in Italian literary culture before Bloom:

Well I knew of Dante, Machiavelli, da Vinci, and.. er.. that's it for the "Aristocratic age", unless you count Bruno - every good scientist knows Bruno - but I didn't know he was Italian. And I read Dante's inferno, but was left knowing nothing about any other Italian author! I read two chapters of the Prince, and gave up. Hamlet it isn't. So that's it - Italian 'Aristocratic' culture done [Heavy irony off] ... until I encountered Bloom...

Since reading Bloom I was left knowing about Boccachio + Petrarch and wanting to read them.

As Woolf put it, the joy of literature is increased when you know someone who has similar tastes

From my experience I have similat tastes to Bloom...

The big list denies the connection between people, and the actual living quality of the literature.

The Bloom list is a few pages in an appendix, an afterthought. The real meat is his connecting the works of 26 canonical authors, and many others, in a lively, humane, and human style in the body of the book. And even some Canadians get in there :-) Northrop Fry for one...

... if someone likes Joyce or Nabokov, they shouldn't need to look to Bloom for approval. Let them measure the greatness of authors themselves...

I didn't have sufficient intellectual background to make many such judgements with confidence. I tried to read Cervantes some time ago and gave up after a hundred pages. After reading Bloom I thought I must try again, he even recommended a great translation (Grossman). I finished reading it recently -- one of the greatest experiences of my life. A combination of intellectual development, a good translation, and gentle prompting from Bloom, got me over the hurdle (with Rosinante at a gallop :-)

That's just one example where Bloom has worked for me, and that's why I like him. I don't think Bloom is the only arbiter of taste though. I read Will Self on the novel Junkie by Burroughs recently which led me to read the novel. It was an interesting, worthwhile read. Bloom doesn't mention Burroughs. (Another blind spot...)

mal4mac

08-18-2009, 11:18 AM

Bloom really rates re-reading, indeed he suggests re-readability as a test of the canonical. He says he reads "Tale of a tub" three times a year, and Pickwick Papers once a year. I read that A.N. Wilson reads King Lear once a month, and Andrew Marr has read War and Peace 15 times...

mal4mac

08-18-2009, 11:21 AM

Joyce is too tough, and while I admire his styles of writing and he wrote devotedly and dedicatedly to put the accent on the importance of art I find his kind of writing too much exasperating.

Have you tried "Dubliners"? That's very easy going. No harder than Chekhov or Tolstoy short stories and just about as good. I gave up on Ulysses when I tried it several years ago and am building up courage for another assault...

wessexgirl

08-18-2009, 12:27 PM

I got put off because he isn't a very good novelist...

Me too :D

I loved Dubliners too, but won't even attempt Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. Life's too short.

stlukesguild

08-18-2009, 01:39 PM

JBI- Had you known anything about Italian literature, you would know, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and Ariosto right in the beginning

[Heavy irony on] Here's how I got steeped in Italian literary culture before Bloom:

Well I knew of Dante, Machiavelli, da Vinci, and.. er.. that's it for the "Aristocratic age", unless you count Bruno - every good scientist knows Bruno - but I didn't know he was Italian. And I read Dante's inferno, but was left knowing nothing about any other Italian author! I read two chapters of the Prince, and gave up. Hamlet it isn't. So that's it - Italian 'Aristocratic' culture done [Heavy irony off] ... until I encountered Bloom...

Certainly JBI may exaggerate the ease of the novice in discovering an unknown country, as it were. Even Virginia Woolf speaks of the need to listen to more experienced guides while always making up one's own mind. Bloom's Western Canon is but a single such guide. If I were to speak of my own experience with Italian literature I'd say that I began with Dante... a name that everyone threw about... and Petrarch. Dante led me to Cavalcanti and Boccaccio. Cervantes led me to Ariosto. Trusting William Arrowsmith's taste after having read some of his translations from the Greek, I was led to Montale. The notes in Montale led me to other Modern Italian poets as well as Leopardi. If I remember right I picked up Tasso, Goldini, and Calvino on a whim... based on a quick glance over the notes and text.

The reality is that the means of discovering great authors... or authors that just really speak to you... is often very complex. It is also something of a skill that we develop through experience. JBI speaks of exploring Japanese literature and that it wasn't that difficult to discover who were the major players even though the literature as a whole was quite foreign to him. Certainly, my experience was much the same. But then both JBI and I have more than a little experience with a wide range of literature and with researching the same. Certainly if I had set myself the goal of exploring Portuguese literature some 15+ years ago I would have discovered Pessoa along with Camões and Saramago quite early on. But then I had no driving purpose to do so until I became aware of Pessoa and was struck by the fact that his manner of working was right up my alley.

Such lists are but a starting point, but Bloom's, it must be admitted, is better than many. There are countless inane lists of the "100 Greatest Novels" or "1000 Books to Read Before You Die" that exclude almost anything not written in English... in the form of the novel... and often written within the last 200 years. There is a site here that lists (and offers links to) a number of various suggested reading lists:

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html

I really have no use for such lists anymore because I am either aware of the majority of writers on such lists and own (or will eventually own) the work... or I am not interested in reading this or that specific writer. Most of what I do purchase at this point in time are new translations of important works, newer literature (mostly poetry), or more obscure works related to major works and major writers of whom I am quite fond. As an avowed Borgesian, for example, I certainly have Bioy Casares, Macahdo de Assis, Julio Cortazar, Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Augusto Monterroso... as well as Tomasso Landolfi, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake, H.P. Lovecraft, John Barth, Donald Barthleme and numerous others whom I came upon in connection with Borges.

JBI ... if someone likes Joyce or Nabokov, they shouldn't need to look to Bloom for approval. Let them measure the greatness of authors themselves...

I didn't have sufficient intellectual background to make many such judgements with confidence. I tried to read Cervantes some time ago and gave up after a hundred pages. After reading Bloom I thought I must try again, he even recommended a great translation (Grossman). I finished reading it recently -- one of the greatest experiences of my life. A combination of intellectual development, a good translation, and gentle prompting from Bloom, got me over the hurdle (with Rosinante at a gallop :-)

Yet what if they love Harry Potter, JBI? Having someone with more experience give some guidance in the right direction in no way assures us that we will love each and everything they point out. There are time when we will not be ready for a certain author of real merit. There will be instances in which we will never like another writer of real merit. We might also do well to recognize that our personal opinion is not always the deciding factor on what does or does not have real artistic merit. If we find Mozart or Shakespeare "boring" that is our opinion and we are entitled to it... but such is not proof that Mozart or Shakespeare are poor artists.

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 01:46 PM

It is not like Bloom list will not show something, JBI forgets that he is a kind of reader and there is others. Some may ignore Bloom list because it is a list of classics, some may find interesting... It is like the Nobel, certainly one or another editor may consider to translate Machado de Assis more often because Bloom said so since the natural way to discover books also include the specialists opinion. I did not discovered Kawabata because the nobel, but rather because I knee down and mumble around books in the library. But some may.
It is fighting for the canon like a maniac that may be damaging not listing it (which may be fun drinking game) just like Dawkins fight for evolution may cause more repulse than sympathy for those who are not already pro-evolution...

mortalterror

08-18-2009, 01:52 PM

If I were to speak of my own experience with Italian literature I'd say that I began with Dante... a name that everyone threw about... and Petrarch. Dante led me to Cavalcanti and Boccaccio. Cervantes led me to Ariosto. Trusting William Arrowsmith's taste after having read some of his translations from the Greek, I was led to Montale. The notes in Montale led me to other Modern Italian poets as well as Leopardi. If I remember right I picked up Tasso, Goldini, and Calvino on a whim... based on a quick glance over the notes and text.
That's almost exactly how I read those authors. Curious.

Drkshadow03

08-18-2009, 02:03 PM

I cant understand why The Deerslayer is the only book under James Fenimore Cooper. If I read that book and I loved it, it only makes sense to read The Last of the Mohicans sometime. but that book is not on his list.

Funny, that stood out to me too when I originally read the list. The Deerslayer, but not The Last of the Mohicans, what the hell?! And for Toni Morrison, the Song of Solomon, but not Beloved?

There is also the noticeable absence of any of the major Native American writers.

Drkshadow03

08-18-2009, 02:52 PM

It is no longer possible to call oneself well read, or knowledgeable in the field of literature, while maintaining a holding with a notion of a Western Canon, which, ironically, doesn't include all of the so called "Occident", much less actually exist, as the founding authors weren't "Western", and weren't only influential in one area.

Uhm, yes one can be knowledgeable about literature, without having read Chinese or Japanese poets or Canadian authors. I think you're failing to distinguish between the general well-read reader from the literature scholar, otherwise there are a lot of grad students and professors teaching literature today who are not very knowledgeable about it. Of course, they are knowledgeable, but mostly in their particular area of study. The reason for scholars rather than general readers literature is a niche field like any other field, which consists of scholars working in esoteric cloisters of study. If I study American Literature and focus on American colonial literature in particular and that is what I teach to students, there is no major reason for me to read Chinese poetry, and besides I need to spend my time reading all the secondary work that comes out in a year. If I need to read any outside literature it would be the metaphysical poets of England who influenced Edward Taylor, the Greek works and English poetic tradition that influenced Phyllis Wheatley.

I think it would be a mistake to say that the American literature professor isn't knowledgeable about literature; they are knowledgeable about their particular area of literature. A scholar extremely knowledgeable about 19th century American literature might know very little about medieval literature.

The irony is that Bloom's student, Camille Paglia, argues people should be reading more broadly, not less. They should be reading as much of the "Western Canon" as possible, and I am willing to bet both Bloom and Paglia would be more than glad for readers and scholars to read the major works of Chinese literature. They blame "the school of resentment" for this insular approach to academic studies, and narrowly reading "mediocre" works and theory. His attacks on to so-called "school of resentment" is not only an attack on what people are reading, but HOW they are reading. I think it is important to acknowledge these parts of the argument because it creates a more sophisticated picture. Bloom probably doesn't seem himself as limiting anyone, but opening up people's readings from their little cloistered ghettos. The irony, of course, is that you see him doing the opposite.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 04:22 PM

Paglia is a crock Drk. She sets herself up as the anti-scholar scholar but has remarkably little insight to offer those of us who have gone beyond traditional undergraduate studies.

This forum is always about Bloom Bloom Bloom. I am beginning to wonder if it is because his name is easier to spell. He was old hat by the 80's, and I've long dealt with much more complex critics and theorists.

Janine posted somewhere that places like this network brings people back to literature. Maybe. Maybe those without track records, or those who cannot construct a thesis, but for me as often as not it is as shrouded as a mummy's tomb. There is very little that is dynamic and contemporary in this community.

JBI

08-18-2009, 04:36 PM

In the last 25-30 years, there has been a giant swarm of translation from the Orient - but take this board for example - generally people here are interested in literature - they make up a class of "common readers", essentially people interested in great books. But the two major threads we had on a general non-Western perspective to literature, namely, "The Other Canon" thread, and on the poetry board, The Classical Chinese Poetry thread. Where did they end up - with a couple exceptions, it was the same posters posting on both threads, and they both, for lack of interest, were pushed to the bottom of the list by more "interesting" threads like Harry Potter, and Ballads of the Sea (not to rip on any of those threads). The point is they died.

It is not possible to say one is well read, without reading outside of one's culture, and understanding literature in a broader sense. That means different genres, different languages, and different cultures - not to mention different time frames. There is only so much time of course, so generally people stick to the most cliché names, and hope for the best. OK, some aren't comparative literature specialists, so they don't need to really cross examine cultural dramatic traditions, but in essence, if one only knows American authors, one knows very little, and if one only knows novelists from Jane Austen to D. H. Lawrence, one also knows very little.

Yet what if they love Harry Potter, JBI? Having someone with more experience give some guidance in the right direction in no way assures us that we will love each and everything they point out. There are time when we will not be ready for a certain author of real merit. There will be instances in which we will never like another writer of real merit. We might also do well to recognize that our personal opinion is not always the deciding factor on what does or does not have real artistic merit. If we find Mozart or Shakespeare "boring" that is our opinion and we are entitled to it... but such is not proof that Mozart or Shakespeare are poor artists.

If they think Harry Potter is god, and came to that on their own, then so be it - the bulk of Potter fans, I suspect, came to the book through word of mouth, praising it, and from mass billboard advertisements, and extensive news coverage. The same sort of thing as Bloom, only, one places the value of the recommendation based on their own judgment of the text. Personally, I don't care - no great loss to the world, really, one day those texts will make good pulp - but what's the difference - keep in mind, one needs to arrive at Bloom before one can be recommended by Bloom - what if they pick up Eagleton instead? Or Elaine Showalter, or even Gilbert and Guber (who, ironically, even site Bloom in their acknowledgments, being good colleagues)?

If someone is bound to find out what makes good books good on their own, they will no doubt have the ability to see why Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown - if these books are truly that much better, which I personally believe, then the works themselves, and not Bloom's suggestions will be the deciding factor in the end of the text's greatness. Bloom is merely making things more convenient - he took all the names from the Norton Anthology of Literature (minus the female ones), took all the major poets from the Norton Anthology of Poetry (minus the female ones), grabbed some cliché and generally well known Western-European writers (how hard is it to really assemble that list of Italian poets, the Italians already did it for him) and stuck them in a list.

Like I said, my first language isn't English (well, technically I was raised bilingual), I come from a country that isn't even considered being a part of this Western tradition, and the people I am friends with, and am around, are most likely immigrants, or from immigrant families, over half of them, I suspect, from countries not considered in the scheme of the "west" either.

The only thing the so called Western Canon has going for it, is the simple fact that it contains all the English works before 1800 really, and is better translated (or perhaps was better translated) than other traditions until very recently. Of course, right now, if one really digs, they can find translations from everywhere - I am finding, that though my bookstore doesn't have much from outside of English speaking countries (mostly American books, almost exclusively from the US and England) one, if they look hard, can find in the library almost anything.

But what does Bloom do? He popularizes thinking one is a better reader than everyone else, and also advertises certain books, meanwhile ignoring others. The result is, we get a bigger focus (well, not me, since I'm not an American) put on these Western texts, which, anyone with half a brain could have assembled together, and less exposure for other things - you get the occasional text on non-Western literature popping up, but it always seems so mediocre, or, on the flip side, heavily academic (Yale puts out some fantastic texts on China, and is probably the best institution in that regard in North America). He isn't promoting reading, he is promoting a certain kind of reading, and that brand of reading is destructive of the actual process of reading.

For instance - you go to the text to decide what is good, as apposed to a) going shopping and searching the book shelves, b) going to the library, and searching the book shelves, or c) going to people whose taste you trust, and asking them for recommendations. The actual amount of literature one can read off of a canon, ultimately is restricted by what is in the library and the bookstore. So Penguin, if anyone, is the real decider of the Canon, since they decide which classics are commercial entities. But to go to the Bloom list, and only the Bloom list, one removes the human aspect of reading - one becomes essentially, a sort of robot, digesting information deemed fit for consumption. It isn't normal.

It's one thing to get suggestions from an author - I came across Mavis Gallant through an essay on her by Frank Davey - but a concrete list of Good and Bad - that is just too much - it takes away from the act of reading for one's own discovery.

Besides which, there is a sort of joy at coming across a poet for oneself, and falling in love with the work, which is somehow lost when someone else tells you they are good - it's a mysterious thing, but it is a simple joy, and it is lost when such texts are given too much credit. It's a decent list and all, but the trick with lists, is to not give them any credit, otherwise one runs the risk of putting their judgment over one's own, which is always a bad idea.

JBI

08-18-2009, 04:57 PM

[Heavy irony on] Here's how I got steeped in Italian literary culture before Bloom:

Well I knew of Dante, Machiavelli, da Vinci, and.. er.. that's it for the "Aristocratic age", unless you count Bruno - every good scientist knows Bruno - but I didn't know he was Italian. And I read Dante's inferno, but was left knowing nothing about any other Italian author! I read two chapters of the Prince, and gave up. Hamlet it isn't. So that's it - Italian 'Aristocratic' culture done [Heavy irony off] ... until I encountered Bloom...

Since reading Bloom I was left knowing about Boccachio + Petrarch and wanting to read them.

From my experience I have similat tastes to Bloom...

The Bloom list is a few pages in an appendix, an afterthought. The real meat is his connecting the works of 26 canonical authors, and many others, in a lively, humane, and human style in the body of the book. And even some Canadians get in there :-) Northrop Fry for one...

I didn't have sufficient intellectual background to make many such judgements with confidence. I tried to read Cervantes some time ago and gave up after a hundred pages. After reading Bloom I thought I must try again, he even recommended a great translation (Grossman). I finished reading it recently -- one of the greatest experiences of my life. A combination of intellectual development, a good translation, and gentle prompting from Bloom, got me over the hurdle (with Rosinante at a gallop :-)

That's just one example where Bloom has worked for me, and that's why I like him. I don't think Bloom is the only arbiter of taste though. I read Will Self on the novel Junkie by Burroughs recently which led me to read the novel. It was an interesting, worthwhile read. Bloom doesn't mention Burroughs. (Another blind spot...)

You do not have the same taste as Bloom, you have the same taste as Bloom's list, that is the difference - you may think you are connecting with Bloom, but are you actually speaking back to him? Is he listening to you as well? Where is the human quality in that, if it is only one directional?

I personally think, when it comes to judging literature, my word is just as valuable as Old Bloom's.

But really though, one aught to browse for oneself, on perhaps a few recommendations from friends, for texts, rather than rely on a list, the actual value of the list is very minimal, and it is just convenient in the frame of digitalized shopping for books, as apposed to real shopping, with wallet and bag through the shelves.

as for this bit:

The Bloom list is a few pages in an appendix, an afterthought. The real meat is his connecting the works of 26 canonical authors, and many others, in a lively, humane, and human style in the body of the book. And even some Canadians get in there :-) Northrop Fry for one...

No Canadian scholar, given 10 books, or even 5 books would have come to those conclusions, much less would have chosen such a random selection - Surfacing, for instance, is part of a specific genre, and cannot be read properly without reading Susana Moody, as Atwood in general is a creature out of Moody's imagination (the book fits the same genre as the works Elle by Douglas Glover, and Bear by Marian Engel, and is easier to read with those books as context, and with Survival, Atwood's theory book and Frye's The Bush Garden as a context). Lowry wasn't even Canadian, so I guess he can or cannot count, and MacPherson and Hine, I suspect, were chosen because of their connection to Frye, and his mytheopoeic vision, and not for their adherence to a sort of tradition - P. K. Page, Earle Birney, Fred Wah, and others would have been much better choices for more central poets - Page in particular is a personal favorite, and I would rank her above a great many of those American poets tagged on to the end of his Canon. That isn't a Canadian list - it doesn't even have Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau on it, yet it somehow has Anne Hebert, who, without her older cousin, doesn't really make sense, much less Neligan and Aquin, the two most central Quebecois authors (or Tremblay, the most central playwright).

It isn't a Canadian list, it is essentially decent books Bloom has heard of from Canada - but then again, Canadian literature critics don't follow the same methodology at all as Bloom, so it would be a rather strange task - Canadian literature is, for instance, very political, and very apart from the American tradition, as well as built on genres not mainstream in American literature, such as the short story, and the post-modern novel (post-modern here dealing with Hutcheon's idea of Canadian post-modernism, not Pynchon's). The tradition doesn't hold with his great Code, and as a result, is too "oriental" (I use that term rather cheekily, and mean no offense) for his aesthetic judgments.

mortalterror

08-18-2009, 05:47 PM

It isn't a Canadian list, it is essentially decent books Bloom has heard of from Canada - but then again, Canadian literature critics don't follow the same methodology at all as Bloom, so it would be a rather strange task - Canadian literature is, for instance, very political, and very apart from the American tradition, as well as built on genres not mainstream in American literature, such as the short story, and the post-modern novel (post-modern here dealing with Hutcheon's idea of Canadian post-modernism, not Pynchon's). The tradition doesn't hold with his great Code, and as a result, is too "oriental" (I use that term rather cheekily, and mean no offense) for his aesthetic judgments.
So, if I may summarize your points briefly:You think that Bloom is too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPc_sZTZUs and if you were to write your own list it would look more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ . Did I leave anything out?

bluosean

08-18-2009, 05:50 PM

To JBI and Joz: Most people here just don't have the depth in reading that you and for instance Stluke have. The threads that intrest you wont be as interisting to other people. I have to talk about Treasure Island. Its not that I don't want to read and talk about Chinese Poetry I just havent got there yet.

To Stluke: I think that you would have found the great authors that you found without Bloom.

I have to agree with JBI again. I don't think that the list is very remarkable. I haven't read many books on that list but I still believe that I could have wrote a list as good and in not much time either. I would have started by writing down all of the names from my Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1950. The list wouldnt be great in the end but that is just my point. Like I said the exclusion of The Last of the Mohicans makes no sense. Its the same with the exclusion of David Walkers Appeal which is very good.

the list is a great refrence work but it also contains a drop of poison. Most people here just dont have the depth of reading that a few of you do. I like to read but I havent read that much yet. The list is dangerous for someone like me. I know because "my sight has been whetted by experence" that these things "are more easily acquired than gotten rid of", and that there is some danger of being "a slave of you own opionions". I should read a list like this with a very light heart. That way, if I think that I have made a mistake, its easier to laugh at myself and admit that I am wrong.

Drkshadow03

08-18-2009, 05:59 PM

So, if I may summarize your points briefly:You think that Bloom is too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPc_sZTZUs and if you were to write your own list it would look more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ . Did I leave anything out?

Oh man! That was great!

the list is a great refrence work but it also contains a drop of poison. Most people here just dont have the depth of reading that a few of you do. I like to read but I havent read that much yet. The list is dangerous for someone like me. I know because "my sight has been whetted by experence" that these things "are more easily acquired than gotten rid of", and that there is some danger of being "a slave of you own opionions". I should read a list like this with a very light heart. That way, if I think that I have made a mistake, its easier to laugh at myself and admit that I am wrong.

The list is fine, especially as a starting point, and if you're looking to delve into earlier literature than the contemporary era. Just realize there are a few exclusions, even in the mostly fine lists of the older eras. Realize there is contention on the contemporary part of the list, realize the Western Canon doesn't include Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian literature, and you should be fine.

The problem isn't even the list; it's when people use Bloom as defense from on high ("but Harold Bloom says,").

Paglia is a crock Drk. She sets herself up as the anti-scholar scholar but has remarkably little insight to offer those of us who have gone beyond traditional undergraduate studies.

This forum is always about Bloom Bloom Bloom. I am beginning to wonder if it is because his name is easier to spell. He was old hat by the 80's, and I've long dealt with much more complex critics and theorists.

Janine posted somewhere that places like this network brings people back to literature. Maybe. Maybe those without track records, or those who cannot construct a thesis, but for me as often as not it is as shrouded as a mummy's tomb. There is very little that is dynamic and contemporary in this community.

I think Paglia has some interesting things to say; I like her theory about literature, art, and culture. I don't see her as so much anti-scholars, but rather against a certain type of scholar and interested in seeing scholarship aimed more towards the general audiences instead of the small esoteric cloisters of scholars in one's field with no real relevancy to anyone but other scholars studying that same minute issue.

Since that's what Bloom often does you shouldn't be so surprised the masses rely heavily on Bloom. The so-called superior scholars have nobody but themselves to blame that the average book reader isn't interested in reading their work because they're not writing it for them, but for other scholars.

Calling someone's theories Old Hat is silly; in fact, I hate that phrase because, well, I don't believe ideas ever really get old, and even if they fall temporarily out of favor, they can fall back in favor. Most people with common sense don't call Plato old hat or Aristotle or Kant. Other scholars are still borrowing and referencing Bloom's idea in Anxiety of Influence as late as an article published in 2008, so how old hat can his ideas be?

JBI

08-18-2009, 06:04 PM

So, if I may summarize your points briefly:You think that Bloom is too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPc_sZTZUs and if you were to write your own list it would look more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ . Did I leave anything out?

Perhaps not to that extent, and I certainly am no Bowie, I'm more of a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YOo1XqKBJg , but not actually.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 06:16 PM

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 06:33 PM

The list is fine, especially as a starting point, and if you're looking to delve into earlier literature than the contemporary era. Just realize there are a few exclusions, even in the mostly fine lists of the older eras. Realize there is contention on the contemporary part of the list, realize the Western Canon doesn't include Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian literature, and you should be fine.

But is really? First is too extense. How can be a starting point? It is so big that the only starting point is Homer. Otherwise what it would start? If you have no idea who are the writers, how could you find the list the writers specialized in satyre ? Maybe it is for writers of a given era or nation, but seriously, who starts reading already worried with the best irish writer of XX century?
The list maybe a quick reference guide to anyone who already have a notion about the books (even because Bloom is not exactly a nice fellow, he is not sympathic) so, it is not a good starting. But that is all. I may wake up one day thinking "I must read all obscure classical greeks I have not yet" and look to see if I missed someone in Bloom list, but that is not very impressive at all and certainly not for beginers.

bluosean

08-18-2009, 06:55 PM

JCamilo that is it exactly! The list has poison in it for impressionable (especially young and starting into literature) readers. As i said before, at the library, in the Encyclopedias, under...say...English Literature, there is the same great place to start. It would be sad if a young and impressionable reader, on Blooms advice, was put off good books because they were slicing their fingers on the edges of a razor sharp and sparkling edition of Chaucers poetry. If someone, on the other hand, already knows enough about literature to judge for themselves, than they dont need Blooms list.

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 07:03 PM

I would not say it is poison. Of course, one would need to be cleaver to notice the faults of bloom lists or at least know a bit. But seriously, who would care about a teacher that can recite entire chapters of Search of Lost time from memory if isn't someone that is meant to be cleaver or know a bit. Others may end focused in what bloom considers good, but it is a easy trap to solve.
Bloom may be a sell out, as JBI point, trying to make an academic stuff to sell as popular, but he still can pinpoint the aesthetic vallues or the works he analyse. Does not matter if he is biased (we are all) or not writting for the academics anymore. Of course, one could point he is giving ammunition to the same dumbing down effect he combats, but the list is just a list. I would focus more in the texts and what is absent there, such as the anti-poe, the excessive freudian, the lack of latin-american knowledge, etc.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 07:17 PM

But is really?

For a student in the humanities yes. I covered most of it, and JBI's pc tirade usually develops with maturity. It is not wise to start a freshman off with Nabokov at the height of his powers, or Joyce in his later stages. Like I posted in the post I lost, you folks need a chill pill.

JBI

08-18-2009, 07:29 PM

JBI: One does not have to be multi-cultural to be well read, sorry. You are confusing your terms. Multi-culturalism may provide one with an education about how to help diplomats deal with the latest warlord, but I really don't need to know the story of child rape in Afghanistan to be considered literate and well versed in literature, and those who use critics to guide them don't have enough confidence in their own discernment.

I can't agree with that - I think the levels of intertextuality are too great - of course, one could read American poetry without reading Russian poetry - but somewhere along the lines, the discussion will have overlapped - the lines connecting works are, especially in the last 100 or so years (I like to think of Pound's work as marking a serious shift), are so vast, that one cannot really read without looking outside - how can you read Wilbur without examining French poetry, how can you really read Philip Roth without having some sort of idea of a context (rooted in earlier traditions) of American Yiddish culture of the first half of the 20th century?

The links are too wide - you have poets like P. K. Page who are constructed out of Sufi and Early Spanish traditions - you have Gary Snyder in the States rooted in Chinese and Japanese traditions - you have novelists from all corners of the world writing in English - there is no way someone can read well, and be well read without at least a foundational knowledge in traditions, and many traditions, outside their own.

Drkshadow03

08-18-2009, 07:44 PM

But is really? First is too extense. How can be a starting point? It is so big that the only starting point is Homer. Otherwise what it would start? If you have no idea who are the writers, how could you find the list the writers specialized in satyre ? Maybe it is for writers of a given era or nation, but seriously, who starts reading already worried with the best irish writer of XX century?
The list maybe a quick reference guide to anyone who already have a notion about the books (even because Bloom is not exactly a nice fellow, he is not sympathic) so, it is not a good starting. But that is all. I may wake up one day thinking "I must read all obscure classical greeks I have not yet" and look to see if I missed someone in Bloom list, but that is not very impressive at all and certainly not for beginers.

Well, it's a good starting point once you've hit on the more obvious names, the Hemingways, Faulkner, Shakespeares, and Homers. I'm assuming we are talking about someone who has developed the basic skills of reading literature and has cut their teeth already on some classics, if it we are talking about some 15 year old, then no this is probably not a very good list. If we are talking about the average undergrad finishing with their English degree who probably at least knows a general outline of periods, knows how to read literature, and has some working knowledge of who the big names are, the list is good at expanding their horizons and a good starting point for delving deeper.

how can you really read Philip Roth without having some sort of idea of a context (rooted in earlier traditions) of American Yiddish culture of the first half of the 20th century?

Looking at just Goodbye, Columbus, you can relate to the failed love story about the temporality of adolescent love and the failure of love to be sustained when based on lust, mystery, and social climbing (versus genuine feeling). You can view at a story that explores the mystery of love and how easily it fizzles (how you can one day feel it, and the next not feel it). You can look at the class divisions between Brenda and Neil inherent in the narrative, and ask if the story is raising a conflict between class and ethnic/religious identity (is class more important than ethnic identity?). You can look at what the story says about the futility of dreams when you lack money (a story that questions the practicality of idealistic dreams). You can look at it from a historical perspective and see it as a story documenting the rise of American Jewry from rags to riches, moving away from Newark to the suburbs. You can look at the subtext about the infighting prevalent in Jewish cultures around different denominations.

Now I suppose this is tricky because I am a member of that cultural group and so some of its context is second-hand to me. However, I think you can look directly at the text and see many of these things without necessarily having knowledge of earlier Yiddish literature. My non-Jewish class members were able to understand it just find and develop valid interpretations.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 07:57 PM

I can't agree with that - I think the levels of intertextuality are too great - of course, one could read American poetry without reading Russian poetry - but somewhere along the lines, the discussion will have overlapped - the lines connecting works are, especially in the last 100 or so years (I like to think of Pound's work as marking a serious shift), are so vast, that one cannot really read without looking outside - how can you read Wilbur without examining French poetry, how can you really read Philip Roth without having some sort of idea of a context (rooted in earlier traditions) of American Yiddish culture of the first half of the 20th century?

The links are too wide - you have poets like P. K. Page who are constructed out of Sufi and Early Spanish traditions - you have Gary Snyder in the States rooted in Chinese and Japanese traditions - you have novelists from all corners of the world writing in English - there is no way someone can read well, and be well read without at least a foundational knowledge in traditions, and many traditions, outside their own.

The anxiety of needing to know everything can be just as narrowing as the Potter fantasy clique which only wants adventure tales. I'm not as well read as you JBI, but I am probably a better critic on the topics I care about. That you raise such havoc over a 70 year old teacher's list guide for those who want it speaks for itself, and as I posted earlier, I respond better to Chinese and Japanese filmography. I mistrust translators here, as eastern languages are just too disimilar to English.

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 08:01 PM

So, a bit more a continuity point :D
Anyways, I do not disagree with that, but the list (not bloom) seems to be short lived, once you get there, you wont need it anymore and became just some short fetiche. That is why most of debates ends in a controversy between those who like the classics or those who dislike Bloom elitism and those who see it as pointless... and never the books in the list which is apparently Bloom objective.

Jozanny:
Bloom is hardly topic for a freshman either. To those unware they may just see a mad grump jew. But yeah, you are in a class and someone asks which are the classics, you instead of writing them down may go and say "get bloom list" and voillá. But it says very little. Without previous knowledge of Joyce you do not even understand those divisions. And I doubt a university student of humanities starts with the list. They are already in.

stlukesguild

08-18-2009, 09:22 PM

So, if I may summarize your points briefly:You think that Bloom is too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPc_sZTZUs and if you were to write your own list it would look more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKNd22GGaQ . Did I leave anything out?

:lol::lol::lol:

I think Paglia has some interesting things to say; I like her theory about literature, art, and culture. I don't see her as so much anti-scholars, but rather against a certain type of scholar and interested in seeing scholarship aimed more towards the general audiences instead of the small esoteric cloisters of scholars in one's field with no real relevancy to anyone but other scholars studying that same minute issue.

Since that's what Bloom often does you shouldn't be so surprised the masses rely heavily on Bloom. The so-called superior scholars have nobody but themselves to blame that the average book reader isn't interested in reading their work because they're not writing it for them, but for other scholars.

:thumbs_up:thumbs_up:thumbs_up Exactly!

I may wake up one day thinking "I must read all obscure classical greeks I have not yet" and look to see if I missed someone in Bloom list, but that is not very impressive at all and certainly not for beginers.

And actually... from what I recall... Bloom doesn't go into great depth on Greek and Roman writers.

I can't agree with that - I think the levels of intertextuality are too great - of course, one could read American poetry without reading Russian poetry - but somewhere along the lines, the discussion will have overlapped - the lines connecting works are, especially in the last 100 or so years (I like to think of Pound's work as marking a serious shift), are so vast, that one cannot really read without looking outside - how can you read Wilbur without examining French poetry, how can you really read Philip Roth without having some sort of idea of a context (rooted in earlier traditions) of American Yiddish culture of the first half of the 20th century?

The links are too wide - you have poets like P. K. Page who are constructed out of Sufi and Early Spanish traditions - you have Gary Snyder in the States rooted in Chinese and Japanese traditions - you have novelists from all corners of the world writing in English - there is no way someone can read well, and be well read without at least a foundational knowledge in traditions, and many traditions, outside their own

JBI... what are you imagining here? A reader who is more than well versed in just about every national body of literature? And those who are not cannot be thought of as knowledgeable of literature. Come on... that's an impossibility for the average common reader... for you... for me... even for J.L Borges (well... maybe not Borges:lol:). What do you know of Catalan literature? Of Hungarian poetry? Of Danish theater? Of the history of the essay in Guatemala? The best we can do is to focus upon a few national bodies of literature... and perhaps a few of the finest examples of what exists outside of those. I would propose that Dante and Petrarch were more knowledgeable about literature than you and I will ever be... in spite of never having read a single Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Persian, or probably English text. I would never think to suggest that Michelangelo or Beethoven were ignorant of art or music in spite of the fact that they had almost no knowledge of the achievements of the Spanish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc... Unless you master Chinese you will never become seriously knowledgeable in Chinese literature because you will be limited to what is available in translation... what others have deigned worthy of the effort. In other words... you will have but a superficial knowledge of Chinese literature. You... not unlike myself... are attracted to art and literature from a broad array of cultures... but this makes your mastery of literature no more inherently profound than that of someone whose focus is upon a single culture/language/tradition but taken to an extreme depth. Does the fact that I have read Machado de Assis, Wang Wei, Holderlin, and Paul Valery make me inherently more knowledgeable of literature than someone whose reading is limited to a deep reading the work of the Romans? Somehow, I think not.

But let us return to the notion of the necessity of having read from a broad array of cultures and traditions. Again... it is obvious that none of us can master every tradition... so which to choose becomes the question. I would assume that most make such decisions based upon which cultures they feel will bring the greatest rewards. Given the choice of a mastery of another language who among us would chose Danish, Catalan, or Yiddish? French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian... maybe Chinese, Japanese, or even Arabic would undoubtedly be among the most popular choices because mastery of one of these languages provides access to a major culture... a culture that has made profound contributions to the arts and literature. You continually harp on about the lack of representation of Canadian literature in the canon and in discussion. Perhaps... just perhaps... it is because Canada has never been recognized as one of these major players... politically or culturally. But seriously... how much German literature is discussed here beyond Goethe, Grass, Hess, Mann, and Kafka? How many Polish writers have been discussed? Besides Borges, Garcia-Marquez, and Neruda how many Latin-American writers show up on threads... in spite of the profound contributions they have made to literature? The literature discussed here or by Bloom or even in American universities will be inherently Anglophile and will include the great examples of British literature for the obvious reasons that we share a language and share certain historical aspects.

JCamilo

08-18-2009, 10:11 PM

Maybe not, but there is Safo and Pindar there, not exactly like saying : Hey, have you read The odissey today? Anyone who is searching for such names is able enough to produce his own list or relly on other critics or even Bloom, but his critical texts, not the list. We can get drunk one day and have fun arguing which book deserved to be there and not. It works, but really, a list does not inform much.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]

JBI... what are you imagining here? A reader who is more than well versed in just about every national body of literature? And those who are not cannot be thought of as knowledgeable of literature. Come on... that's an impossibility for the average common reader... for you... for me... even for J.L Borges (well... maybe not Borges:lol:). .

For a man that knew so much about books, there was surprisingly few in his house... I do not recall if that was from Borges himself or someone about borges... or maybe not...

Anyways, apart the exagerations about the super reader, there is a point about the list. It ceases to be useful as soon it is used for the first time. Because you may go there to find ancient greek writers besides the most famous... And you find a few and you discover soon that there is more specialized ways to find them and those paths are more useful than the list, which appeal is for market and in market there is a section with classics where you can find those books anyways. Soon, others sources of information became more reliable...
Of course, picking on Bloom because he is biased is forgetting that we are all biased. One only need a latim american critic to fill the gaps on bloom list, one chinese critic, etc. Since you better trust in more than one source, Bloom bias will be only damaging to those with bias like him.
The list is a fetiche, all the list are. Flawed but all the lists are.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 10:48 PM

On the issue of Paglia, Dr Torgovnick (also Italian-American, like Paglia and moi) deflated CP's appeal for me, and when I turned to Paglia as a source unto herself, I wonder if she is angling for a job at SNL, seriously. She exaggerates American cultural myths to the point of sounding ridiculous, plugging in her own chips.

But the gal makes a living, which is more than I can say for myself right now. I am mad. I wanted to work today and somehow I did not and no I am not blaming the forum. But, finally, I am getting my eval for my new power chair, and maybe by next spring I will be more secure, if not penniless!

It seems to be widely believed that these two were the greatest prose writers of the 20th century (in English). Why is that? Is it that they wrote the most beautiful prose or that they were the most original/ innovative and experimental in their use of language? I mean, people like Evelyn Waugh and P G Wodehouse wrote exquisitely beautiful prose but they are never compared to the giants Joyce and Nabokov. Is it really about being wonderful writers or about being unusual and experimental?

Has anyone got any examples/ favourite quotes?

I went back to this OP to see what started the debate... and I'd be more cautious with my superlatives, I think. Joyce was a great modernist; Nabokov was a great Anglophile, but I am not sure these two men stand solely as the best prose writers in English in the 20th century alone unto themselves. What of Faulkner? Eudora Welty? Henry James? How am I supposed to define *great prose*? Or single out the best?

mortalterror

08-18-2009, 11:30 PM

Does the fact that I have read Machado de Assis, Wang Wei, Holderlin, and Paul Valery make me inherently more knowledgeable of literature than someone whose reading is limited to a deep reading the work of the Romans?
Unfortunately, the more I learn about the ancients the more I come to feel like literature is something of a zero sum game. True innovations are so rare and uncommon that when something novel actually does occur to us it's usually something thought long before but now forgotten. I am convinced that Aristotle and Plato philosophized as well as anyone ever has, and that Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles wrote plays as well as they could be written. The continued relevance of the past almost makes the present less relevant, if that makes any sense.

I do not feel superior to these men because although I have read texts they never had the opportunity to read, I will never read all of the books they themselves read. The human mind abhors a vacuum and will fill it with whatever substance it has on hand. It has it's own ways of charging symbols with meaning, and in the absence of true meaning projects that meaning upon objects. Therefore, if there is no loss of humanity, there can be no loss of canon. Seen in this light, the canon is a philosophical aesthetic viewpoint on the world, and each work of art fills a particular niche in the psyche. How many niches there are or how easily they can be filled I do not profess to know. But I have a hunch that we exist in a world of many overlapping universals, with many tools ever ready to hand.

It is not necessary to be conversant in numerous cultures any more than it is necessary to know more than the ancients, or indeed of your own contemporaries. All that is required is to properly understand what you read. Dante most assuredly read very few books but had read them well. As far as him not knowing the Middle Eastern classics of his day, there is evidence within the Comedy that he did.

All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.
There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
Who nearer him before the others stand;

Democritus, who puts the world on chance,
Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,
Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;

Of qualities I saw the good collector,
Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,
Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,

Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,
Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,
Averroes, who the great Comment made.
-Inferno, Canto IV, Longfellow tr.

Avicenna and Averroes were both Islamic philosophers. However, I'm not sure if Dante read them himself or if he merely heard about them second hand from Aquinas.

stlukesguild

08-18-2009, 11:52 PM

I would not be surprised if Dante had read a number of Islamic writers... if only in translation. The Islamic-Iberian poets developed a mode of lyrical poetry that eventually spread through the south of France (Provence) and on to Italy forming a great part of the foundation of European lyrical poetry. The Spanish contemporary, Juan Goytisolo in his novel, Quarantine, informs the reader that the Spanish Arabist, Asin Palacios has described how the Islamic tradition of ascension of the soul of the deceased influenced Dante's composition of the Comedia as a result of The Book of Mohomet"s Ladder, a text by Ibn Arabi, translated into Latin from a Castillian translation of the Arabic original.

Jozanny

08-18-2009, 11:59 PM

JCamilo

08-19-2009, 12:37 AM

He mentions more islamic scholars in Il Convivio, his levels of textual meanings seems very alike cabalistic hermeneutics (altough in this case it seems a drifting knowledge, so it maybe second hand)...

mal4mac

08-19-2009, 07:41 AM

I am willing to bet both Bloom and Paglia would be more than glad for readers and scholars to read the major works of Chinese literature.

Bloom says in the Western Canon that "ancient Chinese literature is mostly a sphere apart from Western literary tradition and is rarely conveyed adequately in the translations available to us".

Fadiman actually roped in a co-author for his latest list who is an expert in Oriental studies and mentions several translations as worth reading -- an indirect attack on Bloom?

Drkshadow03

08-19-2009, 09:04 AM

Bloom says in the Western Canon that "ancient Chinese literature is mostly a sphere apart from Western literary tradition and is rarely conveyed adequately in the translations available to us".

Fadiman actually roped in a co-author for his latest list who is an expert in Oriental studies and mentions several translations as worth reading -- an indirect attack on Bloom?

But Bloom doesn't say one should avoid Chinese literature altogether. It sounds more like he is explaining why he is not including it in the Western Canon (because it mostly exists on its own and didn't influence most of the titles he is including as part of the Canon, with a few exceptions). He also notes the problem of translations, a problem JBI has mentioned before. I can't imagine that means his position = "don't read Chinese Literature." It means "I am not including it on this list because I don't think it fit and those who do pursue it because it is a worthwhile literature need to be careful about translations as I am not happy with any of the translations I've seen."

stlukesguild

08-19-2009, 01:11 PM

Personally I find criticism of Bloom's Western Canon for not including Chinese or Indian texts as ridiculous as criticism of a list of key works of French literature that did not include Goethe or Shakespeare. China, India, Japan, etc... are not part of the West. Bloom admits that they are an entire other world unto themselves... in no way inferior to the West. Asian art only began to trickle into Western civilization during the period of trade with the Dutch East Indies Co. At that time the interest was largely upon Chinese ceramics and furnishings. It wouldn't be until the mid-19th century that Islamic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian art began to be seriously looked at by artists in the West. Around that time we get the few serious attempts at translation by Lafcadio Hearne and others. When I first began to seek out works of literature from an array of cultures (which was not to long ago) there was a dearth of good translations by Chinese, Japanese, Indian, persian, Arabic, etc... authors. Until just a few years ago there was no translation available of the Shanameh, THE greatest epic of Persian literature... a book that might rival Homer and Dante. The situation has only just begun to change... and largely, one would suspect, as a result of political and economic realities. Considering the economic growth of India, Japan, and China and the political tensions of the Middle East it has become increasingly obvious that the West cannon remain blind to Eastern language or culture.

meh!

08-19-2009, 01:32 PM

Persian art's being getting a lot of expo here recently, but mostly down in London so I can't actually afford to go and see any of it, haha.

JCamilo

08-19-2009, 01:53 PM

Ok, as much I think critics to a list is a pointless as praising it, because all lists are flawed and they follow their own rules since it is ridiculous to build a world map with the size of the world, it is bloom who asks it, he is not very careful in his own list.
Not because the absence of eastern and african texts (the term western canon is a critery and a few modern yidish,africans and arabian writers) but even so he included 1001 nights, the bible, Indian epics, Gilgamesh, Book of dead, Koran who are not western at all, so he give room for "Why not Confucio?". At least he should have posted "King James Bible", Antoine Galland 1001 Nights, etc. Those translantion are indeed part of western tradition and more remote to the eastern (altough for example, there is a register that traditional storytellers in Marroco and egypt included european versions or additions of 1001 nights because they wanted to please the tourists to the point it seemed to be always part of the tradition and how the persian-greek exchange is quite big)...
But it is in the western that he is more flawed. His South American List is ridiculous, since South America is part of western tradition, it is not about china or japan. And I find worst how he can place Pascal, Heraclito, Saint Agustine, Machiavelli The Prince, Walter Benjamin, Le Rouchefoulcauld and exclude Adorno, Derrida, Foucault, Wittengenstein (I can not remember if Schopenhauer, Kant, Kierkergard, etc are in) and others philosophic-oriented writers which influence on literature was a bit too big and unlike Darwin, good writers too. This affected even Montesquieu. It is not like being childish and saying: No Xenophon! No Lautreamont! No William Beckford! Oh, hell!

stlukesguild

08-19-2009, 10:22 PM

And I find worst how he can place Pascal, Heraclito, Saint Agustine, Machiavelli The Prince, Walter Benjamin, Le Rouchefoulcauld and exclude Adorno, Derrida, Foucault, Wittengenstein (I can not remember if Schopenhauer, Kant, Kierkergard, etc are in) and others philosophic-oriented writers which influence on literature was a bit too big and unlike Darwin, good writers too. This affected even Montesquieu. It is not like being childish and saying: No Xenophon! No Lautreamont! No William Beckford! Oh, hell!

I believe his argument was that he left out Kant and Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard as well as Derrida and Foucault and a great many Greek and Roman philosophers because his focus was purely upon literary aesthetics. Admittedly Foucault is just bad writing. But again every "canon" will be flawed because each will be colored by personal opinion. I would personally downplay Joyce in favor of Kafka, Proust, Calvino, and Borges.:nod:

Quark

08-19-2009, 11:15 PM

Oh, I so have to respond to this post:

Janine posted somewhere that places like this network brings people back to literature. Maybe. Maybe those without track records, or those who cannot construct a thesis,

I think Janine knows what she's talking about on this one. After all, she does lead the Lawrence discussion which has filled a thread with thousands of posts--by far the most prolific discussion of an author or a work on the site. Really, if one takes the time it isn't overly difficult to get a discussion going on literature, and it does bring people back. I'm back, and I know several more who will come back for another Lawrence story, or a Shakespeare play, or a Chekhov story. When the forum bookclub has done a book I'm interested in I usually don't have any problem getting the discussion going. The two I've been in have each gone longer than a hundred posts, and I think the To The Lighthouse thread went over three hundred.

I'm not entirely sure if track records or theses have anything to do with this, but I think it's pretty apparent that there's good literary discussion available on this site if one takes the time to look for it or start it themselves.

for me as often as not it is as shrouded as a mummy's tomb. There is very little that is dynamic and contemporary in this community.

Ouch, Jozanny. I wish I had something dynamic and cutting-edge to say right here.

mal4mac

08-20-2009, 09:35 AM

MTA

08-20-2009, 10:05 AM

I think JBI is making a critical mistake. He is assuming that by taking Bloom's recommendations and reading what he believes to be part of the Western Canon, that the reader him/herself is accepting it as is.

This is not the case. As stated already in this exasperated discussion, Bloom is a wonderful starting point for those individuals looking to expand their literary tastes. To many he is the gateway into literature.

For everybody that gateway can be different. I've had several teachers (I am still in high school) reference Bloom as their entry point into what they'd deem as "good" lit. There is nothing wrong with that.

Personally, Pynchon was my gateway. From Pynchon I went to Nabokov, from Nabokov to Joyce, and so forth. While I am certainly ignorant in non-Western lit, my tastes are expanding rapidly, and as soon as I enter college next year even more portals of discovery will open.

So just because an individual uses Bloom as a stepping stone into the wonderful depths of literature does not mean they are less qualified than somebody who didn't.

JCamilo

08-20-2009, 10:36 AM

Read Bloom's "Wisdom" book to see why he left out so many philosophers, and for explicit attacks on some (Foucault!). I've read enough about, and enough out-takes of, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault never to want to read them. I've tried reading Wittgenstein - the Tractatus, what's that all about? I've tried reading Kant, forced myself through his entire first critique, and wished myself dead many times...

It is not the Western Canon but the Wisdom book that justify JBI claims about Bloom senility. Those guys are going to endure more than Bloom simple for the reason they are better writers. Maybe not Foucault, with excessive sartreanism style, but Derrida? The problem is that Bloom include several philosophers and skip those who are as good - writing wise Witty boy is one of the good guys that had nothing to own to Le Rouchefaulcald. But it is safe to place Le Rouchefaucald because the political ideology of Rouchefaulcald is not a problem anymore. But Witty boy? Adorno then (and the rest of Frankfurt school, he only placed the black lamb Benjamin)... There is also no representant of the psychology schools and some of them are good writers, of course that would blow up Freud and hurt his theories a bit...

Bloom includes some Kierkegaard , so I might read him, and the best of Nietzsche, which I have read and it was worth reading. He includes Plato's complete dialogues, which I found worth reading and a minimum of Aristotle (having tried more than the minimum, I want the minimum!)

It would be suicide to not include Plato and Aristotle in any short of canon, specially Plato which dialogues and alegories are rich in aesthetical aspects. As Mortal (in a exagerated way, but simple) those old guys have gone futher than anyone. We can always read everything today as "Homer did it - Ovid did it - Plato did it - Lucan did it - Aesop did it - Euripedes did it" because they did. We are just changing things out of place, new combinations. Bloom is a platonist of shorts, so welcome Nieztche but there is world with Nietzche without Schopenhauer, Bloom knew it.

Notice that Bloom is concerned with "cognitive power" not just "literary aesthetic pleasure". In "Novels" he explicitly states that you have no need to read Schopenhauer because Tolstoy says all you need to know about Schopenhauer's ideas. I've read most of Schopenahuer's published works and although he is a far better writer than the others Bloom left off the list, he isn't great. Too much repetition (and his metaphysics is zany...)

That is someone getting daft. Everyone have said everything about Plato, so I do not need to read him anymore? If we truly apply this kind of thinking, we are going to read only Borges, because he resumed almost everything about everyone before him. And Tolstoy did not said everything about Schopenhauer, just no critic of Tolstoy ever said everything about him.

Maybe the main reason I like Bloom is that he gave me an excuse to stop trying to read unreadable philosophers.

That is when Borges make Bloom looks like a dwarf. What said the blind guy? "I doubt the immortality of Shakespeare and Voltaire, but I do not doubt the immortality of the philosophers for the metaphysical systems are the greatest creations of humankind."... Ok, not those words, but the guy doubted his own immortality, why remembered his exactly words?

stlukesguild

08-20-2009, 01:11 PM

As someone deeply intrigued with the concept of immortality I can understand Borges' doubting the survival of art over such expanses of time. Of course he echoes the thought of many philosophers who imagine (naturally) that philosophy (not art) is the greatest achievement of humanity. I suspect that Platos' recognition that he could not aesthetically trump Homer is what led to his challenging of Homer on moral terms (not unlike Tolstoy on Shakespeare). The reality is that regardless of the survival of the philosophies of ancient Egypt, India, even Catholicism... it is the art that still speaks to us across the centuries:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2506/3840444640_7121c6c577_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2674/3840444726_933fff9cb7_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2429/3839655551_3973230929_o.jpg

JCamilo

08-20-2009, 02:22 PM

I am being ironic, because it is after all ridiculous to propose that one can live without the other or suggested that reading Tolstoy we would have the experience that reading Schopenhauer would give us. Quite otherwise, I read Schopenhauer when I was researching for my Borges Monography, I already knew the interpretation of Borges, I needed to know what lead him to that. So, in a way, we do not read Tolstoy to understand Schopenhauer, but also Schopenhauer to understand tolstoy.
The whole, We make our own precussors thing. Reading Borges does not eliminated kafka...
and as survival... well, it is not like when you see the imagens, you do not see also the metaphysical systems...

Edit: Maybe I am being harsh with Bloom, altough I do not see why he can not receive critics for his own internal incoherences, because obviously it is not his suggestion that we must abandon philosophic texts, but rather mal4mac interpretation.

Jozanny

08-20-2009, 02:24 PM

Oh, I so have to respond to this post:

I think Janine knows what she's talking about on this one. After all, she does lead the Lawrence discussion which has filled a thread with thousands of posts--by far the most prolific discussion of an author or a work on the site. Really, if one takes the time it isn't overly difficult to get a discussion going on literature, and it does bring people back. I'm back, and I know several more who will come back for another Lawrence story, or a Shakespeare play, or a Chekhov story.

I am not always interested in the classics, nor these idiotic debates busy shredding an old man long past his prime. I am interested in current literary theory and criticism, which is hard to get for free, and my health prohibits more graduate work.

I do get some of what I am starving for on an old Henry James list serv, because it is occupied by scholars.

I apologize if I sound terse. I realize what this forum is, and it isn't all bad and there are, on occasion, some sharp debates, but like the wishful thinking for the theory of everything, I am a spoiled tyrant and want something that meets my needs in one window. Imposscble, as the French say.

JBI

08-20-2009, 05:59 PM

Read Bloom's "Wisdom" book to see why he left out so many philosophers, and for explicit attacks on some (Foucault!). I've read enough about, and enough out-takes of, Adorno, Derrida, Foucault never to want to read them. I've tried reading Wittgenstein - the Tractatus, what's that all about? I've tried reading Kant, forced myself through his entire first critique, and wished myself dead many times...

Bloom includes some Kierkegaard , so I might read him, and the best of Nietzsche, which I have read and it was worth reading. He includes Plato's complete dialogues, which I found worth reading and a minimum of Aristotle (having tried more than the minimum, I want the minimum!)

Notice that Bloom is concerned with "cognitive power" not just "literary aesthetic pleasure". In "Novels" he explicitly states that you have no need to read Schopenhauer because Tolstoy says all you need to know about Schopenhauer's ideas. I've read most of Schopenahuer's published works and although he is a far better writer than the others Bloom left off the list, he isn't great. Too much repetition (and his metaphysics is zany...)

Maybe the main reason I like Bloom is that he gave me an excuse to stop trying to read unreadable philosophers.

Well, since you've never read them, how can you know if Bloom is right? Seriously, how can you tell if it isn't just Bloom struggling from the anxiety of Derrida's influence (as I suspect, he being a deconstructionist in the 70s, and an anti-deconstructionist in the 90s).

Either way, the term Cognitive Powers means generally nothing, as does the term Literary Aesthetic Pleasure. It's a fancy way of saying, I liked it therefore it must be good.

Bloom says in the Western Canon that "ancient Chinese literature is mostly a sphere apart from Western literary tradition and is rarely conveyed adequately in the translations available to us".

Fadiman actually roped in a co-author for his latest list who is an expert in Oriental studies and mentions several translations as worth reading -- an indirect attack on Bloom?

Who can say, Bloom, from what I know, cannot read Chinese, so how can he know, how can he be sure? seems like a pretty broad sweeping statement, especially since he stuck an Orientalist sinologist colleague on his canon, writing about China and Chinese history - I can't see why he couldn't put LaoZi on there (a pretty cliché choice), or even Li Bo/Bai (same name, Wade Gilles Li Po) who already has been absorbed into the Western imagination.

Quark

08-20-2009, 06:16 PM

I am a spoiled tyrant and want something that meets my needs in one window. Imposscble, as the French say.

That's okay. I was just surprised you took such an aggressive swing at the site.

In any case, did you ever read The Woman in White? How did that go?

Jozanny

08-20-2009, 06:40 PM

That's okay. I was just surprised you took such an aggressive swing at the site.

In any case, did you ever read The Woman in White? How did that go?

I think I am too familiar with the site, and the attractions don't always balance the demerits. As to Collins, I started a new WIW thread, I am still in the first chapter, and the formula may be old leather, but I still can't recall this particular pair of gloves.

If it helps, I haven't sold a manuscript since last year; I am being throttled by red tape, and optimism doesn't come easy.

In a larger context though Quark, I care more about the thesis than I do about being overwhelmed by those who need to constantly illustrate how many facts they can throw at me, and I get the thesis stuff from the Jamesians.

In some cases, constant displays of erudition is a kind of blind self-satisfaction, sacrificing the larger idea.

I will continue the WIW thread going at the pace I am able to.

Quark

08-20-2009, 07:06 PM

I think I am too familiar with the site, and the attractions don't always balance the demerits.

Maybe if you stand way back and look at the site as one giant community, but really it isn't. People move in different directions and form groups around certain topics. One discussion isn't necessarily like another. I don't know if you can add up all the aggravations and pleasures of LitNet and say that that defines the site since it's easy to avoid the aggravations if you want to. I may find a lot of the threads tedious, but I usually just avoid those conversations.

As to Collins, I started a new WIW thread, I am still in the first chapter, and the formula may be old leather, but I still can't recall this particular pair of gloves.

Yeah, I can't recall much of the beginning either. I remember finding the first descriptions of the characters hilarious, though. The one for Mrs. Vesey was particularly good.

In a larger context though Quark, I care more about the thesis than I do about being overwhelmed by those who need to constantly illustrate how many facts they can throw at me, and I get the thesis stuff from the Jamesians.

Oh, I see what you mean now. At first I was a little confused about the thesis comment in your first post.

I will continue the WIW thread going at the pace I am able to.

link?

stlukesguild

08-20-2009, 10:03 PM

I am interested in current literary theory and criticism, which is hard to get for free, and my health prohibits more graduate work.

I care more about the thesis than I do about being overwhelmed by those who need to constantly illustrate how many facts they can throw at me, and I get the thesis stuff from the Jamesians.

In some cases, constant displays of erudition is a kind of blind self-satisfaction, sacrificing the larger idea.

Of course JoZ the General literature forums are rarely the place for deep discussions upon a given text... or exploration of contemporary literary theory/criticism. One is more likely to find these under discussions of individual witers or in places such as the poetry group. I, personally, have little of no use for literary theory (contemporary or otherwise). I am but one of Virginia Woolf's "common readers". I read for pleasure and I am open to discussing works in depth, but I have no use for analysis based upon this or that theorist. As a writer, as opposed to an academic, JoZ, I am somewhat intrigued with your interest in theory. Perhaps I agree with the notion that "God does not engage in theology"... even if I am a creator on a far smaller scale. Certainly, I did my time in reading inane art theorists (most of whom are pathetic followers of literary theory) but looking at art never leads me to wonder about how the contemporary theorists would interpret this or that work. I largely recognize that such academic are completely irrelevant outside of the world of academia and the world of academia has little to do with the world of artistic creation. Returning to LitNet... I'll admit I have been waiting for the discussion of Chaucer to take form as well as the proposed dialog on William Blake... but both seem to have petered out.

Drkshadow03

08-20-2009, 10:26 PM

I, personally, have little of no use for literary theory (contemporary or otherwise). I am but one of Virginia Woolf's "common readers". I read for pleasure and I am open to discussing works in depth, but I have no use for analysis based upon this or that theorist.

Yeah, I am not big on the literary theory myself. It's useful to know; I see it as the equivalent of reading and understanding Freud or Descartes or any philosopher who you may not agree with and basically think is wrong, but you read and (sort of) respect them because their ideas are at least interesting and dynamic, and other people who you engage with intellectually value them so you want to at least understand what the hell they are talking about when they reference these thinkers.

Returning to LitNet... I'll admit I have been waiting for the discussion of Chaucer to take form as well as the proposed dialog on William Blake... but both seem to have petered out.

I've been reading Chaucer actually. I just finished the Miller's Tale today. So I would be up for a discussion of Chaucer! Where is this discussion happening?

JCamilo

08-20-2009, 10:56 PM

Hehehe, common reader and I am canadian... :D

stlukesguild

08-21-2009, 01:30 AM

OK... a not-so-common "common reader"... in the sense outlined by Virginia Woolf.

And please... no more Canadians.:lol:

mal4mac

08-21-2009, 06:47 AM

That is when Borges make Bloom looks like a dwarf. What said the blind guy? "I doubt the immortality of Shakespeare and Voltaire, but I do not doubt the immortality of the philosophers for the metaphysical systems are the greatest creations of humankind."... Ok, not those words, but the guy doubted his own immortality, why remembered his exactly words?

Did Borges really say anything like that? Does anyone have an exact quote, and its context? By the way, there are many metaphysical systems and many have been forgotten! Even though Kant may not be forgotten, why should we read him? How many physics strudents have read Newton, they are certainly not expected to read the Princiopia, it is not part of the"physics canon". Newton was also a terrible writer, in fact, he made his writing hard so that only his initiates could understand it! So why are poor philosophy students forced to read Kant? It has no aesthetic merit and the cognitive content could, surely, be knocked into amuch easier form by Kant experts (they probably want to keep it hard to keep their "mystique" intact - physicists don't need to be so defensive). Kant should not be forgiven for writing so badly. Nietzsche reckoned he drank too much coffee :-)

... I read Schopenhauer when I was researching for my Borges Monography, I already knew the interpretation of Borges, I needed to know what lead him to that. So, in a way, we do not read Tolstoy to understand Schopenhauer, but also Schopenhauer to understand tolstoy.
The whole, We make our own precussors thing. Reading Borges does not eliminated kafka...
and as survival... well, it is not like when you see the imagens, you do not see also the metaphysical systems...

Edit: Maybe I am being harsh with Bloom, altough I do not see why he can not receive critics for his own internal incoherences, because obviously it is not his suggestion that we must abandon philosophic texts, but rather mal4mac interpretation.

I'm not suggesting we should "abandon all philosophic texts", obviously the ideas that thinkers have extracted with much effort (from Kant, Schopenhauer and Aristotle etc.) are important, and such experts should be funded to continue with this task. But such works lack aesthetic merit, and have very great cognitive demands, and therefore I can see why Bloom keeps them out of the canon. He can do this, partly, because writers like Nietzsche, Freud, Mann, Tolstoy (and Shakespeare!) have absorbed these philosophers and given us their ideas in an aesthetic format.

MTA

08-21-2009, 09:53 AM

mal4mac

08-21-2009, 10:50 AM

How do you guys define a "serious" reader then?

I'm going to be a Physics major, but when I read I analyze and do more with a text than a casual reader. I'd put myself above that level.

You don't have to be an English major to truly be a serious reader, do you?

I would call anyone who goes as far as, say, reading Harold Bloom to guide his reading might be called "serious". That is, someone who looks for advice from serious critics rather than just grabbing the latest Harry Potter from the airport stand...

I don't see how any reader can read the simplest book without analysing it, in some sense.

In reading Tolstoy's short works recently I've never been so serious. But all i did was sit down and read them. I didn't "take notes" or try to "analyse themes". In fact, such activities, I feel, detract from the experience of reading. Some critics, like Bloom, seem to at least imply that this is the best way to read, with his praise of the "common reader". Also, surely,Tolstoy wasn't aiming for readers who would drag out heavy analysis tools, his books were made for reading, simply reading! That's, surely, the highest level.

JCamilo

08-21-2009, 10:53 AM

I'm not suggesting we should "abandon all philosophic texts", obviously the ideas that thinkers have extracted with much effort (from Kant, Schopenhauer and Aristotle etc.) are important, and such experts should be funded to continue with this task. But such works lack aesthetic merit, and have very great cognitive demands, and therefore I can see why Bloom keeps them out of the canon. He can do this, partly, because writers like Nietzsche, Freud, Mann, Tolstoy (and Shakespeare!) have absorbed these philosophers and given us their ideas in an aesthetic format.

Kant did not wrote badly at all. The reason that Bloom keeps Kant out is quite simple: from Kant two basic schools of philosophy were spanwed, one that lead to marxism lead by Hegel and one by Schopenhauer (who did not write badly at all either). So, Bloom do a witty effort to only give vallue to those who followed Schopenhauer and ignored the others, thus he is safe from Mentioning Marx, which political style was rather cleaver (not talking about The Capital). Not that Marx was a great writer or not, but even bloom cannt stop suffering anxiety, after all, viewing the literature as a world where each generation struggles to be free from influence of the old generation and in such way, produce their own uniqueness is a rather marxist form of thinking.
(By the way, Freud is a great writer either. It just an old dated thinker that only the cult of personality keep him alive. A form of mysticism and Bloom is very mystical in his thinking, hence the place of the prophet Freud. Hence why his view about Kafka and Borges were so flawed. They are anti-freudians and did it on purpose).

Jozanny

08-21-2009, 11:09 PM

Appropos of nothing, I've been crabby of late and maybe came off a little too harsh in my tone, as I do not, after all, post towards creating a formal theory with the intent of publication, and I've read scholars on Borges without having, as yet, some decent translations of Borges on hand, so, I still have gaps of ignorance to transverse.

Now I've eaten my humble pie, I'll trot off. I am almost finished a science fiction piece which seems to actually be moving along. Later folks.

JCamilo

08-21-2009, 11:59 PM

well, the funny thing is that Borges himself worked in a few translations alomgside Norman Thomas Giovanni, since he learnt english as second idiom since he was a kid...

Jozanny

08-22-2009, 03:14 PM

Oh, I see what you mean now. At first I was a little confused about the thesis comment in your first post.

link?

The man likes to make me work (http://174.133.97.227/forums/showthread.php?p=759378#post759378) :) Part of the reason I am going so slowly is I probably need new eyeglasses, and my Penguin edition of Wilkie is a little yellowed and crinkled. Pesca is interesting; maybe he is somewhat overblown as an Italian expatriate.

I might be back later to defend theory, but I do not have an annotated bibliography to do so, so I want to tread cautiously. But one question I do have is, if you are going to undermine Bloom, to what end? Don't we all need to start at some point with a pedagogy, which by its very nature is often conservative?

I am not saying that I agree or disagree with Bloom, but we all study with a curriculum if we advance in our studies at all. JBI wants us all to respect his, which has a Canadian slant, but a course of study still starts with making selections.

JBI

08-22-2009, 03:56 PM

I would call anyone who goes as far as, say, reading Harold Bloom to guide his reading might be called "serious". That is, someone who looks for advice from serious critics rather than just grabbing the latest Harry Potter from the airport stand...

I don't see how any reader can read the simplest book without analysing it, in some sense.

In reading Tolstoy's short works recently I've never been so serious. But all i did was sit down and read them. I didn't "take notes" or try to "analyse themes". In fact, such activities, I feel, detract from the experience of reading. Some critics, like Bloom, seem to at least imply that this is the best way to read, with his praise of the "common reader". Also, surely,Tolstoy wasn't aiming for readers who would drag out heavy analysis tools, his books were made for reading, simply reading! That's, surely, the highest level.

That is pure snobbery. I don't go to Harold Bloom for recommendations, yet I am serious reader. I mostly read contemporary and 20th century poetry, and don't bother flipping back to read Fielding or Scott, or any other essentially dead trivial early novelist, does that make me not a serious reader?

Seriously, anyone who goes to Bloom only, and can't help but mention Bloom every time they post is either one of two things; 1) someone who is inexperienced in literature, and wishes to try and sound like they read only great works, by dropping a list of books which some people nearly 20 years ago thought was a decent list, or b) lacks the creative capacity, and self-esteem to make one's mind up for himself.

Don't get me wrong, I read just as seriously as the next person, and take notes in the margins of almost everything I read, but to drop a name of a book-list seems to be to be a bit of a cheap way out of the question, as Umberto Eco put it, a much better scholar and writer, you cannot trust people who only read classics - quite simply, the seriousness has been traded off for a sense of comfort in knowing that your taste has been preapproved by a series of academics - really, it kind of defeats the purpose of literature as a whole, by making the actual process of selection rather dead and stale.

I cannot see how someone looking through bookshelves in a good library or store is any less serious than the person who picks up Bloom's canon, and orders things online. In truth, it is probably more respectful to browse not knowing what you want, as it gives room for one to find some unknown, or little known wonders.

stlukesguild

08-22-2009, 06:09 PM

JBI... the reality (which may not have dawned upon you at your age) is that we all have a limited time in which to spend reading (something you may discover when you actually need to work for a living). As a result, most educated or experienced readers of any sort develop a means of one sort or another for weeding out the probable schlock and looking for those works that have the greatest probability of offering a return of the manner in which they seek. If the goal of reading is pleasure, then one might not necessarily wish to spend a great deal of time reading less-than-satisfactory books. Luckily for me the work of visual art can be experienced and judged (at least to a certain degree) far more rapidly than a work of literature (or music, for that matter) because it exists outside of time. Even so... I spend far more time with certain works and artists who might be termed "classics" and far less exploring the latest trends (although, admittedly I am still quite aware of what is happening in the visual arts).

Believe it or not, not every "critical" reader is interested in making a career for themselves as a literary critic and as such they probably don't need or wish to spend a great deal of time reading crap in order to better appreciate the better works or to prove their ability in discerning good from bad. That is not their purpose for reading. I wouldn't recommend following Harold Bloom's or anyone's list religiously or exclusively. None of us will find that our taste is mirrored 100% by any critic. Bloom, for example, champions John Ashberry, who has never really done much for me. Camille Paglia greatly overestimates the Pre-Rapahelites (who I find to be attractive but minor figures in the history of art) and underestimates Chaucer. Even Samuel Johnson grossly undervalues Lawrence Sterne. On the other hand, most of us will learn to trust a critic on literature or art or music or film if we find that over a period of time that we have largely agreed with his or her opinions. I would be far more likely to check out an artist recommended by Robert Hughes than one championed by Arthur C. Danto (whom I continually find to be either completely blind or an idiot). Unless we make our literary choices based solely upon whim, we all consider someone's opinions at some time: I have been lead to some real discoveries by reading another author, by the introductions or commentaries to books, by teachers and textbooks, by reading critical comments, and by simply browsing at the bookstore, library, or even on-line. Your own increasingly PC oriented approach to reading owes much, undoubtedly, to your experiences in school, with theorists, teachers, and writers pointing you in that direction.

JBI

08-22-2009, 06:23 PM

Still, think about it - if you go to a good, serious book store that really carries good books, the bulk of books there will be at least at a decent level - from there, you merely need to go through the shelves, and browse. I go through the poetry shelves, for instance, read a couple of poems quickly by some poets who catch my attention, and decide what I want, or, I can go through other genres, and flip through the books and run into things that I want, or, merely go to the Penguin section, and browse the covers there, as all those books essentially make up Bloom's canon already anyway. The truth is, the actual difficulty in finding books, assuming you are in a decent bookstore which caters to serious readers (in Toronto, I like to go to The Bob Miller Book Room, where, even if I can't find what I want, the staff there will take care of me, and order something if it isn't in stock) or, even second hand stores, where one runs into all sorts of good books, since, ultimately, if it is a good sale, the pulp fiction has already been put in another bin. You make finding good books out to be such a challenge - I probably have just as much reading time in my day as you do, but it isn't difficult for me to find what I want - I merely go with gut feelings, and get things from the library if I can, and then, if it isn't going well, put it down. If I was buying everything, perhaps I would have a problem, but I generally only buy books that are a) cheap/used, or b) I NEED. The sort of randomness in finding things in books is a great joy, like stumbling on Whylah Falls in a thrift shop, and falling in love with the poetry - you can't get the same feeling from a list, of just browsing, reading a lyric, and finding something which speaks to you.

It is important to read canonical works - I read my fair share - but it is also important to find books for yourself, albeit, placed in convenient locations. IF I hadn't stumbled upon P. K. Page, for instance, and only read her in classes a year or two later, my perception would be completely different, but, having found her first, and personalized her works, I was able to have a much better connection, even after formally studying her. Likewise, my reading of Chinese literature has been pretty hit and miss (more hit than miss, luckily), but it doesn't take much effort to find what one is looking for - they merely need to read a poem or two that touches them, and investigate to find more of what they want. Even reading the Contemporary Poetry Thread in the poetry section can be like that - glancing over a Wilbur poem or something, and finding he is saying something which clicks.

Really, you don't give the "common reader" enough credit in finding good books - you laugh at my academic perspectives, yet at the same time, refuse to acknowledge an approach to literature outside of this academic selection of texts.

stlukesguild

08-22-2009, 10:06 PM

Even the good bookstores... which are becoming ever more an exception outside of major urban areas near universities or colleges... can surely be intimidating and confusing to the reader with little experience. Undoubtedly I have found more than a fair share of my books in just such a manner... but this followed upon the heels of having gained a certain degree of experience with the classics in any number of genres. I understand what you mean when speaking of personal discoveries... those books that you may find surprisingly great in spite of their having never been pointed out to you. There is always something special about such a discovery which makes it seem more "personal". I came upon Holderlin, Paul Valery, Paul Celan, Yves Bonnefoy, Eugenio Montale, Augusto Monterroso, and surely dozens (if not hundred) of others in such a manner. There are artists that I came upon in a similar manner. On the other hand... the fact that I was lead to Shakespeare, Dante, Whitman, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, etc... by teachers... or Fernando Pessoa and Tomasso Landolfi via Harold Bloom... in no way lessens my experience of their work.

Indeed... I usually find that upon returning to such writers I discover much that is there that I did not recognize upon my earlier exposures led by another. As much as I love Borges, for example, and thrill at certain enlightening points he makes about this or that writer, I realize that no great work of literature can ever be fully digested... to the point where we "get" everything... where there is nothing more to be discovered. The fact that Bloom or Borges pointed out a certain writer and drew my attention to certain points (or that a gen teacher or art historian drew my attention to a given painter and certain key aspects of his or her work) in no way keeps me from discovering something just as fresh and unexpected when I return to these figures again on my own.

I will point out that a great many people lack access to the sort of book stores of libraries of which you speak. Just 10 or 15 years ago I remember browsing any number of small used bookstores where I might discover all sorts of gems. It wasn't rare for me to come upon an Italian, Polish, or Spanish poet of whom I had never read anything... and perhaps never even heard of. With the passing of time these small bookstores have been devoured by the large chains which have the advantages (much like WalMart) of undercutting any competition as a result of the volume in which they deal. Initially, I didn't mind this; Borders and Barnes and Noble were marvelous in their collections of poetry and good literature. With time, however, Amazon.com and the internet as a whole have eaten into their profit margin so that on a recent visit to the poetry section of Borders I let empty-handed (about 20 volumes each of Maya Angelou, and Bukowski... one or two volumes each of the major figures of English literature, a few foreign names here and there (Neruda, Rilke, Baudelaire, etc...) and absolutely nothing unexpected or unknown). I left with the feeling that I probably wouldn't be returning soon.

The internet is magnificent in providing access to almost anything in (or out of) print. I have been able to find works by those poets who have long been on my "most wanted" list... but whom I could never find. On the other hand... such an approach to browsing is far removed from skimming through a number of old volumes in a used book store. I was finally able to get the works of Hugo von Hoffmansthal... but I needed to know his name... to already be seeking him out. Perhaps with time Amazon or others will offer a feature that allows you to browse a given domain such as "German 19th century poetry" or "classical Persian literature" in a manner closer to that offered up by Google... and not based solely upon popularity. Perhaps with time they will also allow for browsing of the texts. Even so... I doubt such will be the same as sitting on the floor in the poetry section of an old used book store and discovering Paul Claudel or San Juan de la Cruz in a musty old volume.

Jozanny

08-23-2009, 01:42 AM

I will point out that a great many people lack access to the sort of book stores of libraries of which you speak. Just 10 or 15 years ago I remember browsing any number of small used bookstores where I might discover all sorts of gems. It wasn't rare for me to come upon an Italian, Polish, or Spanish poet of whom I had never read anything... and perhaps never even heard of. With the passing of time these small bookstores have been devoured by the large chains which have the advantages (much like WalMart) of undercutting any competition as a result of the volume in which they deal.

Such independents as survive in Philadelphia I lack access to because they do not have to comply with the ADA, like Robin's, where I read my work before the editor of American Writing died of breast cancer; I had to be carried up two flights of stairs in my old manual chair. Browsing was out of the question, and buying online, while great for me, just doesn't allow for handling and a stroll through the spines.

Still, my question hangs: JBI, if using a list, which is a pedagogic approach even for non-specialist readers, is a source of discontent for you, luke makes a valid point about the lack of knowledge; it remains lack of knowledge.

My mother was curious about minority culture, and it was through her I started to read black literature, and discovered Morrison when I was 14. I hardly had the capacity then to *get* the implications and the perversions of Milkman back then, and I had to return to Morrison as an adult to really appreciate her motifs, until Beloved, at which point I rebelled at the weight and sensationalism she demanded of me as a reader. Had I not gone through my university regiment, Morrison's impact would have been lost on me. Bloom is off his game when he discredits her with writing "dime store novels" btw.

Guidance can be useful young man. It puzzles me why you are so much against it.

mal4mac

08-23-2009, 04:18 AM

... I don't go to Harold Bloom for recommendations, yet I am serious reader. I mostly read contemporary and 20th century poetry...

Just reading poetry makes you serious in my estimation :-)

I cannot see how someone looking through bookshelves in a good library or store is any less serious than the person who picks up Bloom's canon...

I agree with that.

Kafka's Crow

08-23-2009, 11:50 AM

Where should I start? This fascinating thread has kept me thinking for almost a week now, the mother of all threads, the 'Plurabelle' of litnet! It has strayed so far from its modest beginnings that the original absurdity of naming two entirely different writers in the same breath is evaporated.

Keeping in tune with the dominant tone of this thread, I will keep it autobiographical to add to its (already gigantic) supply of "egotistical sublime." I have always maintained, on this board as well as everywhere else, Bloom is an undergraduate's critic who gives a good old fashioned straightforward explanation of texts, guaranteed to get you good grades! On the other hand I despise his 'list.'

How I started reading: I had started making incursions in my father's bookshelf by the age of 9. I had read A Hero of Our Time, The Sorrows of Werther, Jane Eyer Taras Bulbaand some of the regular classics fit for my age: Wilkie Collins, R L Stevenson etc before my tenth birthday, had watched the epic BBC serialisation of War and Peace and a stage production of King Lear. My father's library! All books clad in neat grey cover with no markings on the spine but simple numbers. You could pull out anything from Ivonhoe to Women's Sexuality, it was such a mixed lot of poetry (mostly poetry), novels, erotica (mostly translated French modern classics which were dirty enough for my impressionable mind) and no literary criticism whatsoever. Maybe the last fact saved me from Bloom! It gave me the idea of reading 'books' not famous books, not 'listed books' but books, any sort of books. Once you have read enough, then books start leading to other books. You read history, which leads to literary history. That's when the 'doors of perception' are really opened and in come classics with literary criticism dragging itself in their train. You read good critics, classicists like T S Eliot or C S Lewis who open different worlds as Eliot led me to Metaphysical Poets, Lewis to the great Western Epics.
Having the good fortune of not acquiring English as my mother tongue opened the doors to many different established literary and classical traditions. I was brought up on Arabian Nights, Shahnameh, The Adventures of Amir Hamzah, I had heard the story-tellers tell the tales of Alexander the Great and his conquests in Iran and his slow death that began in the Sub-Continent by the age of 10, all these things make you eclectic. Eclecticism is the greatest strength. If I had followed Bloom, I would have never come across Cees Nooteboom or Angeles Mastretta or many other writers that I found in bookshops that I had never heard of before, nor ever since but they enriched my literary tastes. I heard of The Brothers Karamazov while studying Death of a Salesman in an American Lit class, read it right away which enabled me to move on to other books by the same author. Inspiration as well as information comes from diverse sources and diversity is always stronger than monolithic uniformity.

Another good example of diversity is Litnet. We have Canadian, Latin American, American, British, Irish, and Scandinavian members here along with people from countless other nationalities and countries. If not for this 'eclectic' group I would never have known about Supervielle or Kadare of Montale whose books fill my shelves and whose words continually shape my consciousness and understanding of literature and human situations. Nothing works like eclecticism and diversity of sources. Let it come to you, if you want it, it will come to you, keep your minds open to the diversity of humanity and its creation. Preconception is the enemy. Openness of mind and consciousness is the greatest gift one could hope for.

How can a list, any list, replace a life-time spent in search of good books? I am reading Ellmann's biography of Joyce these days. It kept on echoing things I had read before. I suspected that I had read this biogrpahy before, then I realised that quite a few details were in Ellman's edition of Giocomo Joyce that I read 15 years ago along with Umberto Eco's The Middle Ages of James Joyce one summer. Just ordered this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Brothers-Keeper-James-Joyces/dp/030681210X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251042385&sr=8-2
because Ellmann keeps on talking about it and I've been planning to read it for 15 years! That is one way of reading. Life leading to books, chance leading to books and, ultimately, books leading to books. I would go for this more exciting option than follow a 'list' like a disciple.

JCamilo

08-23-2009, 12:42 PM

I think there is a mix that does not allow any room for agreement. There is Bloom, an old, but otherwise respectablle critic who indeed know a lot about certain writers. There is the canon list, a fetiche with editorial vallue that he included in a book.
Bloom the critic is not stuff for beginers at all. His entire theory is a form of defense of Finnegans Wake. He goes quoting writers and their relations that no beginer or casual writer (meaning those who are not keen for study) will ever. Even in the Canon book, people focus more in the list than in his texts because of that.
The list... ok, the list is a list. Any can get it and search for the books there. Of course there is people who did it. I would never as a teacher suggest that list because it does not say anything to the student. If they are starting, it is a shot in the dark (and I really have no idea of a student which starts with Bloom, everyone have already a background) if not the list is not a big deal.
I remember first time a teacher (long time ago, when the Canon book was translated to portuguese) suggested the list in the classroom. There was two (me and a friend) who cared to check it. My first reaction was to notice what was missing because I was too familiar with most of it (considering the classics, and familiar as not having read it all, god forbidden), the second was finding the critery he used, which explanation was more interesting than the list itself (Stlukes is familar with Borges, who lied to build lists, who would appear random, but are actually well choosen, crafted and only logical inside the story. Lists can be fun, and the form of creating it also). The other person have 10000 books at her house. Now bloom is just one more. No need to say she did not need to check Bloom to find what to read. To the others - and that is the overall image of bloom : was a snob attempt to feed us classics. And then i considered why the list was applied by the teacher... it was just a easy way out; the focus of the course was orality and written texts influence. The list does not help it at all. Sure, there is the basic texts (Homer, Bible, 1001 Nights, etc) but it does not show anyone how to find them.
Of course, since I used my own experience, anyone is free to use his own on how the List helped them ot fullfil the reading experience. But it is anything to be praised? More, from one that was supposed to be a leading american critic and a champion of the aesthetical pleasure?

Jozanny

08-23-2009, 10:55 PM

JCamilo

08-23-2009, 11:10 PM

Jozanny

08-24-2009, 12:48 AM

Nabokov himself linked him with Joyce, specially Ulysses. While he is a more pragmatic writer, specially while we think about linguistic experiments and in a way an aristocratic, linking him with Borges, much of the structures of his novels have joycean traits.

Mmm. Neither author has ever been a major focus for me, so I will hang my verdict on that JCam, but I dunno. Is Joyce's density of texture really so similar to Nabokov's? Nabokov himself may have relished an association, but there is a Slavic undercurrent to Nabokov's exposition on the American society of his time that Joyce lacks, excusing that I do not know Nabokov's earlier European novels. (I have to restrain my urge here for a new book spree).

I am still more in sympathy with Kafka that they are more divergent than would be useful for a comparative approach, not that I am interested in such an approach.

billl

08-24-2009, 01:16 AM

I think they are both great and important, but really the biggest point of comparison seems to be that Nabokov was influenced by Joyce, like lots of other 20th Century writers. Nabokov can do dense text, but it isn't what he's really about (only half of it, at most, I'd say in this inexact science). His writing seems a lot more seductive than Joyce's. Finnegan's Wake is unbelievably beautiful, but the reader has to do a lot of work to appreciate it (at least that's my impression, I've only sample a bit here and there). But it is beautiful language (or, at least, beautiful sounds and spellings that suggest language). Nabokov seems to be more interested in helping the reader along--not by dumbing down, but by skillfully making the rhythms, meanings, symbols, and associations in his prose enjoyably available to reader. There's originality in the prose, but also a naturalness that the reader doesn't have to wrestle with--a tough combination, and for many lovers of books, the highest form of writing. You can dig to get more from Nabokov, but you don't have to dig just to turn the page.

ktm5124

08-24-2009, 01:44 AM

Kafka is very right about the oddity of Joyce and Nabokov linked together. Joyce is in many ways a transitional figure, as Dubliners is Flaubertan(!) realism in the vein didactic Irish fatalism and Ulysses becomes a revolutionary transition from that realism to the novel as technique. And Nabokov? Difficult for me to classify with what little I have of the oeuvre under my belt, but he is, to me, what Pynchon fails to become, the ultimate American allegorist.

I love using the comparative method when I am writing my literary essays, but it does help to use the same species in that process. Stop me now from going to Amazon for a used copy of The Defense because I really want to read Nabokov's chess novel.

How is Nabokov the "ultimate American allegorist"? He states in several places that he despises allegories! For instance, in the afterword to Lolita he writes,

Although everybody should know that I detest symbols and allegories (which is due partly to my old feud with Freudian voodooism and partly to my loathing of generalizations devised by literary mythists and sociologists), an otherwise intelligent reader who flipped through the first part described Lolita as 'Old Europe debauching young America,' while another flipper saw in it 'Young America debauching old Europe.'

And what do you mean by Thomas Pynchon failed to become (let me repeat your stuffy phrase) "the ultimate American allegorist"? I haven't read a Pynchon book, but I don't have to to see that you are making assumptions about Pynchon's intentions. (Did he ever want to write a cut-and-dried allegory?) Regardless, calling Nabokov an allegorist is way off the mark.

billl

08-24-2009, 02:14 AM

Whoa, I maybe shouldn't have mentioned symbols in my list of what Nabokov is serving up, especially in light of ktm's quote there. I was just reaching for words to point at what readers can find in the writing beyond the bare content of sentences in isolation, the extensions into shared experience, etc. something like that. I didn't mean anything like someone being Jesus, or continents debauching each other, definitely, and should've been more careful with my words, obviously.

That being said, Nabokov might've accidentally provided an allegory for those particular critics. I'm not sayin that I see it, but sometimes that stuff just happens. Some people might be coming at it from that angle. And in a book like The Defense, are we drawing a line between allegory and metaphor? The ideas of "Chess" and "Life" are obviously being danced around with. Anyhow, I'm with ktm, those are pretty lame suggestions of allegory, I'm pretty sure Lolita isn't about that! I never did think of Lolita as an allegory too much--all manner of conflicts and crimes concerning innocence and experience might be plug-in-able I guess, but that's not so surprising or integral, and would probably be of a case of art on the critic's part--its certainly not an allegory about continents. That book does not need any allegorical expansion to make it interesting.

Jozanny

08-24-2009, 06:53 AM

How is Nabokov the "ultimate American allegorist"? He states in several places that he despises allegories! For instance, in the afterword to Lolita he writes--

It is self-evident that Nabokov's best work stands for something, whether Nabokov or anyone else scoffs at the notion.

And what do you mean by Thomas Pynchon failed to become (let me repeat your stuffy phrase) "the ultimate American allegorist"? I haven't read a Pynchon book--

Then read Pynchon, as I have, and the critics who evaluate Pynchon, as I have, and decide for yourself; Pynchon was influenced by Nabokov, and pales in imitation; despite my lack of reverence for Lolita, it is a masterwork next to Pynchon's self-conscious depreciations which never quite break free of the self-consciousness to actually be great novel writing; Pynchon has his moments, and taught me a few things, but he is not the Melville of the 20th century.

stlukesguild

08-24-2009, 06:54 AM

Although everybody should know that I detest symbols and allegories (which is due partly to my old feud with Freudian voodooism and partly to my loathing of generalizations devised by literary mythists and sociologists), an otherwise intelligent reader who flipped through the first part described Lolita as 'Old Europe debauching young America,' while another flipper saw in it 'Young America debauching old Europe.'

Anybody who honestly believe that an artist is the last word upon his or her art... that he or she fully understands all the implications or that he or she is even always honest about these... surely doesn't understand a lot about art (as in "artifice") and what it involves.

Jozanny

08-24-2009, 07:25 AM

Anybody who honestly believe that an artist is the last word upon his or her art... that he or she fully understands all the implications or that he or she is even always honest about these... surely doesn't understand a lot about art (as in "artifice") and what it involves.

I will reconsider our divorce:cool:, although my plight is related more to financial stressors rather than community disenfranchisement. If I thought the print freelance market was in bad shape, the science fiction market is pittance enough for cliff jumping, mon painter...:eek:

(and it took me long enough to edit that avatar)

JCamilo

08-24-2009, 08:57 AM

The "allegory or not" debate is an old academic feud, Nabokov is just giving his position. He said once one of the intentions of Lolita is mock psychoanalyses, he really despised Freud. This just means that in his texts he would not use symbols to express a subconcious or vague meaning in the allegorical style. It is a matter of school, a classicist and all. If someone is analysing the interpretation, the author intentions, he do have some word to say about it...

As him and Joyce, in the linguistic level (or even the freud influence), they have no similiarities. Nabokov compared himself to the structure and the form Joyce manipulate time and space in his romance. Joyce influence (one of the reasons why Bloom so strongly advocates him) is more how his works are able to atract the various experiences with narrative, making him more or less universal, even if the product may seem as radical as Finnegans Wake. Eventually, it seems that all great romancist after him are either emuling joyce or avoiding him like a devil.

NickAdams

08-24-2009, 04:33 PM

ktm5124

08-24-2009, 04:53 PM

I agree that Lolita can be viewed as allegorical as something of an interesting side point, and that an artist does not have the last word on his or her art.

I just don't like statements that dismiss a story as a mere allegory, that tuck it away so neatly into a system of symbols, and have nothing more to say about it. I think it is terribly reductivist and that it takes all the color out of a work of art.

But that's not what you guys were doing, so I apologize for being belligerent :) (I am always apologizing haha -- someday I will learn.) I think it is indeed an interesting statement to say that one of the brushstrokes of Lolita is that it is Old Europe debauching Young America, or vice versa -- it's just that this is not the entire canvas or anything near it.

Personally I think the most important things to remember from a novel are the moments of feeling and excitement that you experience as a reader -- those moments of hilarity, drama, and "aesthetic bliss". I dislike generalizations like Nabokov because I feel that they eradicate these moments of experience. However, I like a nifty thesis like "Old Europe debauching Young America" when it is coupled and intertwined with the reading experience.

So there is definitely an allegorical brushstroke to Lolita, intended or not; and there are definitely symbols, intended or not; but a work as a whole is the sum of infinitely many theses and moments (and this work, in particular, exceeds this infinite sum) and cannot be neatly tucked away into any one cabinet drawer.

Sorry if this comes across as didactic. I think I forced myself into a corner ;-)

stlukesguild

08-24-2009, 05:54 PM

I just don't like statements that dismiss a story as a mere allegory, that tuck it away so neatly into a system of symbols, and have nothing more to say about it. I think it is terribly reductivist and that it takes all the color out of a work of art.

I fully agree. I don't think that one "definition" or reduction of Lolita (or any other work of art) to a simple "meaning" is inherently better or worse. I think that the work of art adds up to something more than the sum of such "definitions" or "interpretations" which is why we can keep returning to a work. If it was possible to reduce something to a simple "meaning" I doubt there would be much need or desire to keep coming back.

JCamilo

08-25-2009, 02:25 AM

but the possible interpretations are not exactly allegorial...
Once I meet a guy who told me that Candide message is worth os punk rock : ignorance is a bliss
I would trust more the author than infinity about this...

mal4mac

08-25-2009, 07:10 AM

I have always maintained, on this board as well as everywhere else, Bloom is an undergraduate's critic who gives a good old fashioned straightforward explanation of texts, guaranteed to get you good grades!

Then why do so many "gate keeper" critics and writers praise him so highly? Why should we listen to your estimation of Bloom?

My father's library! ...

We don't all have access to your father's library, which sounds like the creation of a good critic :-) A Bloom's list where the list is the actual books on the shelf! I just looked at the 'latest acquisitions' of my public library and what a pile of junk! People need some guides to steer them away from dross. Bloom may be one, your father another...

You read good critics, classicists like T S Eliot or C S Lewis who open different worlds as Eliot led me to Metaphysical Poets, Lewis to the great Western Epics.

Every critic is suspect in some ways. Personally, I wouldn't trust these two because of their 'establishment Christianity'. Bloom demolishes Eliot as a critic by showing how his being a "desperate implorer for grace" affected his criticism of "natural men" like Montaigne, leading him to (for instance) praise dogmatic writers like Pascal too highly.

Through reading Bloom, and other critics, I'm now convinced Eliot is a minor critic, so I don't have to waste time reading his criticism. They all agree he is a strong poet! So I'll (re-)read his poems. Good critics, like Bloom, can stop you wasting time.

mal4mac

08-25-2009, 08:05 AM

Bloom has repeatedly said he wished "the list" hadn't been included, for instance:

'James Harmon Clinton from Baton Rouge, LA: What additions would you make to THE WESTERN CANON if you were writing it today? HB: I wouldn't want to list any names or any works because there would be so many, but I now find the list highly inadequate. I think it was a mistake to make the list. I wish that it weren't there, and as I remarked to an interviewer the other day, "You don't need any lists, all you need is Shakespeare." '

There's also an excellent long interview where Bloom, amongst other things, "defends" his lack of modern Spanish authors in his list, and his decision to have a chapter on Tolstoy and not that obvious other Russian :-)

http://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/5391/1/RAEI_09_12.pdf

This is a marvellous interview which shows why he chose to write about the authors he did, in the Western canon. There's enough controversy to keep this thread going forever. Here is he on the list again:

JAG: Before the interview you told me that if you had a second edition, you
would take off the lists at the end. Has it been so controversial?
HB: ... I would omit the list, particularly the fourth part of that list, because I think these things are distractions ...

HB ... the reason why the list is in such a curious order, not chronological for instance, and so on, is because I thought the honest way to put it down was to rely upon memory... I just listed the authors whom I remembered. I didn't consult guide books or histories of literature. You know, this is a personal canon, this is what I remembered, but of course my memory, in at least a dozen cases, betrayed me. I can think of a dozen authors I would
have included if I realized that I was leaving them out. At first, it surprised me to find that they were not there, but, what can you do?
-------------
So maybe all conversation on the list should stop, and instead what he actually says in his books should be considered?

JCamilo

08-25-2009, 10:59 AM

sure, but remember, he have no anglo-saxon bias :D

Jozanny

08-25-2009, 03:06 PM

Most critics, like most writers, have an agenda, so holding them suspect takes more energy than I have time for, although finding their perspectives credible or not depends on my own conclusions--like Paglia's iconoclastism--I never bought it because I am a militant, and if luke can say here in a nice way that she is off, and she gets mocked at some online sites I read, then the lady is still in business because she actually values the academic pecking order.

But most of the intellectuals I read I not only like but value what they taught me. I simply don't get the list fuss business. I don't much care about Bloom and his Old Testament comfort zone, but he is a valuable humanist, and we all have to start somewhere once.

People need the capacity to ask questions and make comparisons, and then you take what you want from the Blooms and Eliots in the world of letters.

JBI

08-25-2009, 05:51 PM

NickAdams

08-25-2009, 08:01 PM

I've found only a few things of value in the works that I have read by Bloom and to follow his opinion so strictly seems to go against some of his points: the importance of revision in works read and that reading it a personal and solitary act.

Drkshadow03

08-25-2009, 11:18 PM

stlukesguild

08-26-2009, 12:17 AM

Well... as a result of his studies, JBI has repeatedly exhibited the very flaws that he accuses others of. While attacking anyone who may think that Bloom (who doesn't fit in with the notions of the popular academic critics that he has been taught are truly "serious") has something to offer, he falls for the prejudices and preferences of the critics he imagines as being of great merit... and to the same degree as he accuses any of the followers of Bloom of doing. Again, a good critic is fine for drawing your attention to certain elements of this or that writer... and perhaps for drawing your attention to a writer you might not have considered before... but with few exceptions (Ruskin, Johnson, Borges) little of their overwrought theory or proselytizing is of any real lasting value.

When JBI dismisses Cormack McCarthy or Philip Roth as washed-up has-beens... not fitting into the latest mode of critical thinking, he forgets that whatever critical thinking is championed by the universities today will be archaic tomorrow... and it will only be the best artists that will survive... many of whom are now ignored... or dismissed as washed-up has-beens... regardless of the hermetic ramblings of academia: the art that continues to speak to audiences... and especially to future generations of artists.

Of course that has long been a strategy of critics and academics: accuse your opponent of being outdated and outmoded... "reactionary" or "all washed up"... as if art were a sort of linear development where each subsequent generation surpasses all the thinking and all the artistic achievements that went before. All too often we find that what was old today is new tomorrow and what was new is old... and those who were laughed at as outdated end up looking like visionaries... while the self-assured critics end up looking like little more than idiots.

Jozanny

08-26-2009, 01:17 AM

wessexgirl

08-26-2009, 09:11 AM

Mal4mac,

Since when was Bloom that respected of a critic? His name almost never comes up in anything written after 1970, but of course, being someone who only reads Bloom, and uses Bloom as their only outlet to discourse, that may be unclear. Derrida comes up everywhere, Barthes often, Frye frequently, but, when it comes to reading actual texts, I have yet to find anyone really mentioning Bloom - when it comes to his so called pragmatic criticism, he is absent - he hasn't written anything really critical in a while - I think his last one was a text on Wallace Stevens that I am told is decent, but not great. Seriously, there is no need to keep perpetuating this Bloomidolatry. take him for what he is - a cataloger - and push your own ideas, instead of his.

How insulting. You are studying these critics/theories I assume, and like Luke says, what's current today will be old hat tomorrow. Aren't you just pushing your professors ideas? Whatever you think of him, Bloom is a respected name in the area, (I'll be sure to look out for your pearls of wisdom when you've made your name in the field :rolleyes: you should wish to become as well-known as Bloom). Your assumption that Mal4Mac only reads Bloom is very patronising. He may well do, but even if he does, so what? Bloom is his chosen academic to read, and your sneering dismissal of both is uncalled for.

I find all the twaddle about what he left off his list laughable. He made a list of The Western Canon, which although not to your taste, is very useful and interesting to others. I do wonder if your extreme dislike of him is because of his dismissal of Eliot and Modernism. Perhaps when literary fashions change again, he will be back in favour with you. To call him a mere cataloguer is wrong. I'm sure if he was merely that, he would not have got the positions in academia that he has. If he's merely a cataloguer, try it, and see how far in academia you can get.

JCamilo

08-26-2009, 10:14 AM

Bloom's recent book about the incompatibility of Yahweh with Jesus did make the usual round in the media circuit; again, this is not a topic I care much about, but I read about 3 or 4 mixed reviews of the book. To me it seems fairly obvious that secular Judaism would be uncomfortable with the issue of convergence between their theology and the one that Paul created for the Roman empire, but the man remains influential enough that his contentions are discussed and challenged.

That sounds like something outdated, that Swedenburg or Blake already did... But I remember a friend attacking bloom because his influence in the academic american thinking, something similar to what bloom attacks Eliot. Anyways, so far, the only thing is that Bloom do seems a second rate critic because he does not present anything new while respectable because some particular writers he is quite well knowledgable. I find his flawed when he tries to deny his bias. I think the first think a good critic must do is showing their bias to everyone, otherwise he will be misleading. Bloom denies his bias and they are quite obvious and that is why the latin-american or even the spanish literature is so alien to him.

mal4mac

08-26-2009, 10:51 AM

Since when was Bloom that respected of a critic? His name almost never comes up in anything written after 1970...

Of course his name comes up in things written after 1970! Maybe not in what you admire, but a simple search of Google books would show that you are wrong.

Who only reads Bloom? You don't know what I read. I'm constraining the discourse to Bloom, in this context, because it amuses me.

mal4mac

08-26-2009, 11:15 AM

I think the first think a good critic must do is showing their bias to everyone, otherwise he will be misleading. Bloom denies his bias and they are quite obvious and that is why the latin-american or even the spanish literature is so alien to him.

Where does Bloom deny his bias? Did you read the Spanish interview? He accepts he has a bias, that everyone must have a bias. For instance, he says that the reason there are as many Yiddish books as Spanish books on his list is that Yiddish was his first language.

Kafka's Crow

08-26-2009, 12:10 PM

I think there is no need for personal attack on a poster just because he disagrees on a very simple issue. If JBI does not like Bloom, this is his choice and if he has valid reasons and the ability to explain those reasons cogently then more power to him. To me, apart from The Anxiety of Influence, there is nothing of much merit in his humungous body of work. He helped me a lot during my undergraduate days, especially with the excellent (from an undergraduate student's perspective) Twentieth Century Interpretations and Modern Critical Views series, both of which he edited. I prefer Christopher Ricks for textual criticism. Another favorite of mine is Hugh Kenner. I also like Umberto Eco's criticism. I gave up on Bloom after wasting £20 on a nice, thick hard-bound copy of his Shakespeare book. Apparently he employed an army of twenty research assistants to write that book, I found it vile. That was ten years ago.

Bloom confirms our old-fashioned concepts about literature, so does his list. He is conservative through and through (I have heard that he still writes his books with a fountain pen and would not go near a computer/ word processor!). Sorry but the guy is only half a century older than me and what he says does not impress me much. It is OK to be a conformist but when conformists and their followers start expecting similar attitude from everybody else, that's when the trouble starts.

wessexgirl

08-26-2009, 12:19 PM

I think there is no need for personal attack on a poster just because he disagrees on a very simple issue. If JBI does not like Bloom, this is his choice and if he has valid reasons and the ability to explain those reasons cogently then more power to him.

No-one is saying that JBI cannot like Bloom, but he seems to be patronising to those who do. And what's with the comment about being a "mere cataloguer?" Even those who don't like him must see him as more than that.

JBI

08-26-2009, 12:32 PM

No-one is saying that JBI cannot like Bloom, but he seems to be patronising to those who do. And what's with the comment about being a "mere cataloguer?" Even those who don't like him must see him as more than that.

In the 70s, if I was around I would agree, but what hasn't been a cataloger since then - as I said, the last real book he wrote that I know of was his book on Stevens. The man writes catalogs for large audiences - the Western Canon as a text isn't really a great study in the so called Canons, it is merely cataloging their greatness. Likewise, his book Genius is probably a much better example of this, as, quite simply, it is a catalogue.

His Shakespeare also works as a catalog of the plays, offering minor intro-essays, and no real in depth meat on any of them. He himself said, I believe, that he lifted most of the info from Hazlitt and Johnson, as well as other sources, so where exactly is there anything but cataloging?

The reason I am angry, is because every time we move away from Bloom, some of us find it necessary to re-drop his name as if he is the authority on everything (my question is, by now, what exactly is he an authority on?). Beyond that too, his work with Trilling on Victorian Literature was a cataloging enterprise, his books of Childrens Lit, and English poems are catalogs, his scholarly anthologies are also catalogs, with about 3 paragraphs each of introduction in the beginning.

I'm sorry, perhaps I come off as a bit rude, but I think when one person pushes an opinion as the expert on everything, it is necessary to refute that with comments, and reason to the contrary, if such is my belief. Quite frankly, to me Bloom is a cataloger, who early in his career put out some decent enough books. There is no need to drop his name as Gospel at every turn, when one's own impression of texts is merely enough to suffice - especially when his name is dropped to justify the mediocrity of certain texts that the person who dropped his name has not read, and knows very little about.

Kafka's Crow

08-26-2009, 12:32 PM

No-one is saying that JBI cannot like Bloom, but he seems to be patronising to those who do. And what's with the comment about being a "mere cataloguer?" Even those who don't like him must see him as more than that.

I think making a list itself and thus defining the whole Western literary tradition is presumptuous and patronising. Bloom should not take upon himself the role of the ancient sage guiding lost multitudes. I read for the love of reading, not to tick titles on a list. I can not read everything, life is short and unfortunately comes to us only once, I would not waste it following anybody else's recommendations. I don't know about Bloom being 'a mere cataloguer' but I must say that he is a good editor and can get you good grades, specially at undergraduate level where basic appreciation of texts is expected and it is wiser to steer clear of all controversy. As far as JBI is concerned, go easy on him. He is only 70 years younger than Bloom (generation-gap and all that...).

MANICHAEAN

08-26-2009, 12:49 PM

"Prose". The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing / A prosaic style, quality or condition. A literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm.
The richness of material in existence alone, would mitigate against any consensus on what is "beautiful prose". It ranges from the terseness of Hemingway & Chandler to the flow of Oscar Wilde in his prime. The richness of everyday speech outside of the English language could also be appreciated in; Balzac, Tolstoy & Bulgakov.
Edward Gibbon wrote what is described as "soaring prose", though I doubt much if this was a mode of everyday speech.
As for Evelyn Waugh, his range was such (matched by his prose) that he could reach the heights of comical meridian splendour in novels such as "Scoop", and yet switch with disarming facility to works such as "The Sword of Honour Trilogy".

mal4mac

08-26-2009, 01:26 PM

I... The man writes catalogs for large audiences - the Western Canon as a text isn't really a great study in the so called Canons...

Well why do a host of well respected critics heap praise on him? Including Christopher Ricks! Just read the first two pages...

DanielBenoit

08-26-2009, 01:54 PM

Well why do a host of well respected critics heap praise on him? Including Christopher Ricks! Just read the first two pages...

Listen, just because a bunch of critics praise him, doesn't make him relevant or somehow innovative. You've got to judge for yourself.

By the way, somebody in this thread a while back mentioned that Bloom's Western Canon list didn't include Faulkner! What's up with that?

NickAdams

08-26-2009, 02:29 PM

Listen, just because a bunch of critics praise him, doesn't make him relevant or somehow innovative. You've got to judge for yourself.

By the way, somebody in this thread a while back mentioned that Bloom's Western Canon list didn't include Faulkner! What's up with that?

From the Chaotic Age:

William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying
Sanctuary
Light in August
Absalom, Absalom!
The Sound and the Fury
The Wild Palms
The Collected Stories
The Hamlet

Drkshadow03

08-26-2009, 02:29 PM

I would not waste it following anybody else's recommendations.

Of course you don't. You just picked up Shakespeare, Faulkner, Wordsworth, and Kafka because intuition told you to while browsing at a bookstore. Just like JBI has the magical powers to learn about Japanese literature through osmosis, and never did an ounce of research to figure out who the major players might be in that literary tradition.

People apparently just learn about literature and specific writers by consulting the vacuum of their own soul.

JCamilo

08-26-2009, 02:30 PM

Where does Bloom deny his bias? Did you read the Spanish interview? He accepts he has a bias, that everyone must have a bias. For instance, he says that the reason there are as many Yiddish books as Spanish books on his list is that Yiddish was his first language.

No, in the end Bloom is as much faulty of political correctness in that interview than the multiculturalism he attacks. He claims all the time to have not a anglo-saxon bias but everytime he turns why he picked X book or not, he goes back to some english.
For example, he can not explain why he picked Dickens (Saying Dickens is great is no explanation, all the alternatives are great writers), he just claim it could have been Flaubert, it could have been Dostoievisky (As it could have been Hugo or Goethe) but all he said "there is no room".
Hey, but he already talked about a huge representative of novel (Tolstoy) and as much Dickens is awesome, Dostoievisky, his legit "son" is a towering influence because the modern romance is basically psychological, following the russians who quite pretty much towered the other literatures in the XIX century. He tries to justify this with Pushkin, but the russians do not reggard Pushkin as the center (this religious idea of bloom) but the start.
He does not deny his bias, he give misinformation (like the rubbish about Pessoa and Borges writing in english. They did, a handful of small poems that are not relevant to their overall work) and poor excuses right there.
And he saying that he speak yiddish (his jewish bias is amazing also) justify that list is like me saying 100 brazilians writers should be considered equal in influence with minor big names because I am inherently biased towards brazil since it is my birthplace. I reckon it, then I am much more judgmental when comparing brazilians with french, spanish, english, etc.

stlukesguild

08-26-2009, 05:48 PM

Scheherazade

08-26-2009, 05:59 PM

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Posts containing such remarks will be deleted without any further notice.

Inderjit Sanghe

08-26-2009, 06:00 PM

To accuse Nabokov of being 'unprofound' is a bit ridiculous-N's novels have plenty of 'profoundity' to them, he just did not make it 'obvious'-he forced readers to read and to analyse, to fulfill what he saw as the readers 'proper' role-the main theme of Lolita (IMO) is that of cruelty, however many readers do not see that due to H.H being an unreliable narrarator. I have only ever really loved one novel written by Joyce-'Ulysses', however Nabokov wrote several masterpieces-Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, Speak, Memory, The Gift, Pnin and Glory.

However, this topic seems to have gone off on a completely different, any in my mind, uninteresting, tangent.

NickAdams

08-26-2009, 06:24 PM

To return to topic:

It may be because style, in their work, is as significant as the content with meaning being held in their use of language and not really the events the language signifies. I can be way off base, but at least it is a return to the thread.

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 08:25 AM

Of course you don't. You just picked up Shakespeare, Faulkner, Wordsworth, and Kafka because intuition told you to while browsing at a bookstore. Just like JBI has the magical powers to learn about Japanese literature through osmosis, and never did an ounce of research to figure out who the major players might be in that literary tradition.

People apparently just learn about literature and specific writers by consulting the vacuum of their own soul.

How can you say I did not look in the "vacuum of [my] own soul" to pick up the above writers? But by then there was no vaccum there because cultivation of taste and education had enabled me to make informed decisions. I did NOT need Harold Bloom to beckon me to literature calling from the other side of eternity.

A side-note:
A blind friend of mine (he was doing M Phil in literature at the time and I used to read to him and take dictation for his notes) used to call H Bloom, "Leopold Bloom". I kept on correcting him but he just would not "get it" (as Murakami's characters would say). One day he said that if Harold found out that he (my friend) always mixed him up with that cockold, he would be very upset. Little did we know that Harold had been trying to be something of an opposite of "that cuckold." Ask Naomi Wolf, and she would have a tale to tell you!

Drkshadow03

08-27-2009, 09:12 AM

How can you say I did not look in the "vacuum of [my] own soul" to pick up the above writers? But by then there was no vaccum there because cultivation of taste and education had enabled me to make informed decisions. I did NOT need Harold Bloom to beckon me to literature calling from the other side of eternity.

Exactly the point I was pretty much making. You don't live in a cultural vacuum. You learn these names through education, word-of-mouth, blogs, the internet, your professors, your high school teachers, your parents, your librarians, reviews/articles in magazines and newspapers, literary criticism (say comparative piece that deals with a book you do know and compares themes with a book you've never heard of), by recognizing publishers and the type of literature they produce, syllabuses, bibliographies, interviews of authors where they recommend books, letters of authors where they mention influences. In other words, you're almost always relying on some form of recommendation from some person.

I have too much of the librarian in me. The more tools people have for approaching literature and discovering new titles the better. Bloom's list is merely one tool of many; think of it as a giant syllabus. I do understand why JBI might get frustrated sometimes when forum members defend themselves by throwing down the name of Bloom from on high as the last word on anything.

As far as his alleged affair with Naomi Wolf, well, I'm not exactly sure why you're bringing that up, even as a side note. What does that have to do with anything?

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 09:39 AM

Exactly the point I was pretty much making. You don't live in a cultural vacuum. You learn these names through education, word-of-mouth, blogs, the internet, your professors, your high school teachers, your parents, your librarians, reviews/articles in magazines and newspapers, literary criticism (say comparative piece that deals with a book you do know and compares themes with a book you've never heard of), by recognizing publishers and the type of literature they produce, syllabuses, bibliographies, interviews of authors where they recommend books, letters of authors where they mention influences. In other words, you're almost always relying on some form of recommendation from some person.

I have too much of the librarian in me. The more tools people have for approaching literature and discovering new titles the better. Bloom's list is merely one tool of many; think of it as a giant syllabus. I do understand why JBI might get frustrated sometimes when forum members defend themselves by throwing down the name of Bloom from on high as the last word on anything.

As far as his alleged affair with Naomi Wolf, well, I'm not exactly sure why you're bringing that up, even as a side note. What does that have to do with anything?

That is where the main problem lies. Bloom is not the last word on anything. He is an enthusiast and good for some beginners who need his brand of enthusiasm for everything literary in order to get them on the right track, to get them going. In the same way Will Durant is a good historian of ideas because he has infectious enthusiasm. Apart from that he is old and dated like Bloom.

As for the side-note. The whole Naomi Wolf controversy uncovers the dynamics of 'popularity' and even so-called quality of things in this discussion. The conservative media-machine was behind their man in that affair. Naomi's feminist opponents also did not waste this chance and chose to side with the devil to bring her down. This is politics, this is infighting and b1tching of the highest order. They used every reason ranging from female hysteria to ageism to defend Bloom. Bloom is popular among the conservative circles. He is the John McCain of literary establishment: "OLD, not old old but don't-throw-your-ball-in-my-backyard-old" (Chris Rock on McCain). Same goes for the 'praise' of established critics. If your publisher asks you to write a blurb or something for a forth-coming publication, you don't have much choice. This is how publication industry works and if you are conservative on top of everything else (A S Byatt?) you would be inclined to back a conservative critic. Capitalism and politics (among some other things) will come to the fore-front if we 'deconstruct' this debate.

JCamilo

08-27-2009, 09:46 AM

Out of curiosity, when someone asks you, you just give them the list (if you do) or you guide them using the list?

mal4mac

08-27-2009, 09:48 AM

Bloom is as much faulty of political correctness in that interview than the multiculturalism he attacks.

He states that it is not the primary function of literature to inculcate democratic vales. So he is hardly politically correct! He attacks those multiculturalists who suggest that literature must bow down to left wing politics or be dismissed. You might call Bloom "aesthetically correct".

He claims all the time to have not a anglo-saxon bias but everytime he turns why he picked X book or not, he goes back to some english [person].
For example, he can not explain why he picked Dickens ...

He suggest he couldn't leave Dickens out because of his "fecundity and power". And he wanted to discuss a 19th century novel - he discussed only a novella in relation to Tolstoy.

Dostoevsky doesn't have Dickens' fecundity - he produced far fewer novels and far fewer memorable characters. Dickens generates far more 'external power', more 'stage energy' and forward plot momentum. Try reading Crime and Punishment and Nicholas Nickleby back to back to see this. I found it rather interesting to compare the two lead characters, both around the same age, both drop-out students, both in poverty and trying circumstances. Both with a closely attached sister and a mother.

(My desert island books would be Shakespeare & a complete Dickens. Then a complete Tolstoy. I'd happily lose the Bible... It would be too depressing to contemplate being left alone with Dostoevsky on an island...)

The modern psychological works are well covered by Freud, Proust, Kafka, thereby making it possible to leave out Dostoevsky.

I agree that Bloom was a bit provocative to bring up Pessoa and Borges writing in English. He likes a good argument :-)

The Jewish bias is really only in the list, which he says was a very personal list that he shouldn't have published! The body of the book does not stress any Yiddish writers.

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 10:15 AM

JCamilo

08-27-2009, 10:29 AM

He states that it is not the primary function of literature to inculcate democratic vales. So he is hardly politically correct! He attacks those multiculturalists who suggest that literature must bow down to left wing politics or be dismissed. You might call Bloom "aesthetically correct".

Stop buying Bloom lunatics. He is selling politics, academics, etc with literature. He is right we do not judge the aesthetics of a work by the social importance of those works, but any dude who list a handfull of Yidish works as canonical while several other countries have only 1 or 2 names is selling politics.
And he is politically correct, his excuses about not knowing spanish writers but yet trying to cover them or how the list have 1 Brazilian is political correctness all the time. "Hey, lets put one name, because someone from Brazil must be important!" Thank you, if he does not know about the subject, state it and do not try to be nice.
And anyone trying to simplify Derrida as just a left wing politics lost his case.

He suggest he couldn't leave Dickens out because of his "fecundity and power". And he wanted to discuss a 19th century novel - he discussed only a novella in relation to Tolstoy.

As I said, claiming that Dickens is a rich writer does not explain the choice of Dickens. Victor Hugo, Dostoievisky, Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Melville, etc are all great writers. But yet he choose Dickens. And why? Because Fecundity and power is one of those expressions that means nothing.

Dostoevsky doesn't have Dickens' fecundity - he produced far fewer novels and far fewer memorable characters.

That is ridiculous. Since when quantity measures quality? Joyce and Proust produced just a handful or works, should we eliminated them? (Not to mention, the number of romances of Dostoieviksy is not exactly much inferior to the number of romances of Dickens). And Fewer Memorable characters? According to whom? Even Bloom would not say such thing, since everyone knows Dostoievisky is a turning point in the history of novel when dealing with characters creation. Lets not be funny, the guy walked shoulder to shoulder with Tolstoy. He is not some light weighty you can thow away with "fecundity". That is why E.M.Foster was obligated to say that english language did not produced a single work as great as Brothers K or Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina or War and Peace in the early XX century. The two russians turned the cultural centers upside down.

Dickens generates far more 'external power', more 'stage energy' and forward plot momentum.

I will rework this: Dickens generates far more salt pepper, more cat-chup and cocking skills. Because those expressions are absolutely meaningless.

Try reading Crime and Punishment and Nicholas Nickleby back to back to see this. I found it rather interesting to compare the two lead characters, both around the same age, both drop-out students, both in poverty and trying circumstances. Both with a closely attached sister and a mother.

Comparing plot, that is it? I am sure we can find a hundred sydney sheldon novels with a leading character with the same age, drop-out students, poor a close sister and mother. Btw, Sydney Sheldon published more works than Dostoievisky and Dickens and probally Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce and Proust put together.

(My desert island books would be Shakespeare & a complete Dickens. Then a complete Tolstoy. I'd happily lose the Bible... It would be too depressing to contemplate being left alone with Dostoevsky on an island...)

That is nice. The "eternal power" of Dostoievisky is such that you may not even face him in a desert island...
Anyways, my desert island would have eletricy, net connection and a lap top because I can have all this to read.

The modern psychological works are well covered by Freud, Proust, Kafka, thereby making it possible to leave out Dostoevsky.

That is bloom saying. Since he knows that Dostoievisky makes Freud look an amateur. All the great literature that was under Freud ideas had aesthetical (funny how literature can not sell politics but can sell freud selfimposed messianic position) link to Dostoievisky. The whole inner monologue was possible because Dostoievisky was developing it, not Freud. It is Dostoievisky who write the works that symbolic link Cervantes to Kafka, not anyone else. (Kafka loathed Freud, that is why Bloom text about Kafka is poor. Using Freud there is picking the wrong eyeglasses). Funny how the entire theory of Bloom is showing the route of influence and he jump pass Dostoievisky and the only explanation is lack of space. Hey, hello, Woolf, Joyce and Proust are writing the same chapter of the history, they could live together!

I agree that Bloom was a bit provocative to bring up Pessoa and Borges writing in English. He likes a good argument :-)

This is not a good argument. A good argument produces evidence. If we seek the complete works of Borges there is 3 poems in english! He wasn't even his translator (only helped Norman Thomas Giovanni). Pessoa only wrote early poems in english and no one of those had even his "personalities". It is lame argument. If I was a teacher and a student came with those I would just thank him and ask to read again.

The Jewish bias is really only in the list, which he says was a very personal list that he shouldn't have published! The body of the book does not stress any Yiddish writers.

His jewish bias is everywhere. He replaces Yaveh with Shakespeare, read the history of literature as a religious cult, picks writers with jewish sympathy. Only the english anti-jewish (at least in fame) survived.

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 11:10 AM

Stop buying Bloom lunatics. He is selling politics, academics, etc with literature. He is right we do not judge the aesthetics of a work by the social importance of those works, but any dude who list a handfull of Yidish works as canonical while several other countries have only 1 or 2 names is selling politics.
And he is politically correct, his excuses about not knowing spanish writers but yet trying to cover them or how the list have 1 Brazilian is political correctness all the time. "Hey, lets put one name, because someone from Brazil must be important!" Thank you, if he does not know about the subject, state it and do not try to be nice.
And anyone trying to simplify Derrida as just a left wing politics lost his case.

As I said, claiming that Dickens is a rich writer does not explain the choice of Dickens. Victor Hugo, Dostoievisky, Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal, Melville, etc are all great writers. But yet he choose Dickens. And why? Because Fecundity and power is one of those expressions that means nothing.

That is ridiculous. Since when quantity measures quality? Joyce and Proust produced just a handful or works, should we eliminated them? (Not to mention, the number of romances of Dostoieviksy is not exactly much inferior to the number of romances of Dickens). And Fewer Memorable characters? According to whom? Even Bloom would not say such thing, since everyone knows Dostoievisky is a turning point in the history of novel when dealing with characters creation. Lets not be funny, the guy walked shoulder to shoulder with Tolstoy. He is not some light weighty you can thow away with "fecundity". That is why E.M.Foster was obligated to say that english language did not produced a single work as great as Brothers K or Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina or War and Peace in the early XX century. The two russians turned the cultural centers upside down.

I will rework this: Dickens generates far more salt pepper, more cat-chup and cocking skills. Because those expressions are absolutely meaningless.

Comparing plot, that is it? I am sure we can find a hundred sydney sheldon novels with a leading character with the same age, drop-out students, poor a close sister and mother. Btw, Sydney Sheldon published more works than Dostoievisky and Dickens and probally Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce and Proust put together.

That is nice. The "eternal power" of Dostoievisky is such that you may not even face him in a desert island...
Anyways, my desert island would have eletricy, net connection and a lap top because I can have all this to read.

That is bloom saying. Since he knows that Dostoievisky makes Freud look an amateur. All the great literature that was under Freud ideas had aesthetical (funny how literature can not sell politics but can sell freud selfimposed messianic position) link to Dostoievisky. The whole inner monologue was possible because Dostoievisky was developing it, not Freud. It is Dostoievisky who write the works that symbolic link Cervantes to Kafka, not anyone else. (Kafka loathed Freud, that is why Bloom text about Kafka is poor. Using Freud there is picking the wrong eyeglasses). Funny how the entire theory of Bloom is showing the route of influence and he jump pass Dostoievisky and the only explanation is lack of space. Hey, hello, Woolf, Joyce and Proust are writing the same chapter of the history, they could live together!

This is not a good argument. A good argument produces evidence. If we seek the complete works of Borges there is 3 poems in english! He wasn't even his translator (only helped Norman Thomas Giovanni). Pessoa only wrote early poems in english and no one of those had even his "personalities". It is lame argument. If I was a teacher and a student came with those I would just thank him and ask to read again.

His jewish bias is everywhere. He replaces Yaveh with Shakespeare, read the history of literature as a religious cult, picks writers with jewish sympathy. Only the english anti-jewish (at least in fame) survived.

I understand your anger. Would have loved to assist you here but sorry I am still speechless. I think I am scarred for life :rolleyes:

mal4mac

08-27-2009, 11:15 AM

.
Dostoievisky is a turning point in the history of novel when dealing with characters creation. Lets not be funny, the guy walked shoulder to shoulder with Tolstoy. He is not some light weighty you can thow away with "fecundity". That is why E.M.Foster was obligated to say that english language did not produced a single work as great as Brothers K or Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina or War and Peace in the early XX century. The two russians turned the cultural centers upside down.

I agree! Have you read "Tolstoy or Dostoevsky" by George Steiner? I'm reading it at the moment, and enjoying it very much.

I was not trying to throw Dostoevsky away, just indicate why Bloom gave Dickens the nod over Dostoevsky. His reasons: "power" and "fecundity" need unpacking, but are (I think) meaningful as far as they go ... which is not that far, it is only an interview after all ...

Drkshadow03

08-27-2009, 11:32 AM

That is where the main problem lies. Bloom is not the last word on anything. He is an enthusiast and good for some beginners who need his brand of enthusiasm for everything literary in order to get them on the right track, to get them going. In the same way Will Durant is a good historian of ideas because he has infectious enthusiasm. Apart from that he is old and dated like Bloom.

No, he isn't, but nobody is the last word on anything. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not Derrida, not Frye, not Foucault, not Freud, not Lacan, not Butler, not Jcamillo, not drkshadow03, not Kafka's Crow, and certainly not anybody from Canada.

Will Durant's histories and philosophies are fine for a survey, and commentary. The material might be a bit dated, but it generally is still accurate as far as I can tell. It just lacks cutting edge material, newer methodologies, and newer discoveries. Read Durant, then read some other historians.

The "old and dated" libel is basically a canard. Are you claiming Durant is so old and dated that the information he presents is basically obsolete? Durant is a good starting point to then be supplemented by other newer sources.

As for the side-note. The whole Naomi Wolf controversy uncovers the dynamics of 'popularity' and even so-called quality of things in this discussion. The conservative media-machine was behind their man in that affair. They used every reason ranging from female hysteria to ageism to defend him. Bloom is popular among the conservative circles. He is the John McCain of literary establishment: "OLD, not old old but don't-throw-your-ball-in-my-backyard-old" (Chris Rock on McCain). Same goes for the 'praise' of established critics. If your publisher asks you to write a blurb or something for a forth-coming publication, you don't have much choice. This is how publication industry works and if you are conservative on top of everything else (A S Byatt?) you would be inclined to back a conservative critic. Capitalism and politics (among some other things) will come to the fore-front if we 'deconstruct' this debate.

These are all irrelevant points. A person's political leanings says nothing about the accuracy or quality of their intellectual work. Throwing a tag on someone, "conservative," "liberal," "radical," "reactionary" doesn't rebut a specific claim, a lesson that many left-leaning English professors and students can't seem to comprehend (despite it being commonsense), and many conservative talk show hosts don't understand. At best it is short-hand to communicate to specific in-groups that a person shouldn't be taken seriously, but it's mostly a strategy for poisoning-the-well and an ad hominem.

I suspect the conservative media machine was less interested in supporting a literary critic like Harold Bloom because they necessarily like his views, and more that they wanted to attack a well-known feminist Naomi Wolf whose views they probably abhor. Still, the fact that a guy may inappropriately make sexual advances to some of his students has no bearing on the quality of his scholarship.

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 12:10 PM

No, he isn't, but nobody is the last word on anything. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not Derrida, not Frye, not Foucault, not Freud, not Lacan, not Butler, not Jcamillo, not drkshadow03, not Kafka's Crow, and certainly not anybody from Canada.

Will Durant's histories and philosophies are fine for a survey, and commentary. The material might be a bit dated, but it generally is still accurate as far as I can tell. It just lacks cutting edge material, newer methodologies, and newer discoveries. Read Durant, then read some other historians.

The "old and dated" libel is basically a canard. Are you claiming Durant is so old and dated that the information he presents is basically obsolete? Durant is a good starting point to then be supplemented by other newer sources.

These are all irrelevant points. A person's political leanings says nothing about the accuracy or quality of their intellectual work. Throwing a tag on someone, "conservative," "liberal," "radical," "reactionary" doesn't rebut a specific claim, a lesson that many left-leaning English professors and students can't seem to comprehend (despite it being commonsense), and many conservative talk show hosts don't understand. At best it is short-hand to communicate to specific in-groups that a person shouldn't be taken seriously, but it's mostly a strategy for poisoning-the-well and an ad hominem.

I suspect the conservative media machine was less interested in supporting a literary critic like Harold Bloom because they necessarily like his views, and more that they wanted to attack a well-known feminist Naomi Wolf whose views they probably abhor. Still, the fact that a guy may inappropriately make sexual advances to some of his students has no bearing on the quality of his scholarship.

Of course Bloom's attempts at Naomi's whatever (virtue???) mean nothing but the storm it caused showed the fault-lines within the academia, the media and the feminist movement quite clearly. How can one's politics not affect their views? This is strange, to say the least. How do we discus Maxim Gorky, George Lukacs, Sartre, Eagleton or the Russian Formalists without taking politics in consideration? Deconstruction teaches us to look for 'fractures' in seemingly stable façades and find the instability behind them. Politics is the instability behind Bloom's seemingly 'stable' literary reputation. It is a good thing that the present generation are willing to question his stature. Everything should be, must be, questioned.

Durant was mentioned because of his enthusiasm. He is writing a factual history of Philosophy, a more objective field than literature. Bloom displays similar enthusiasm but in a different field. He is making aesthetic judgements which can not be solely based on enthusiasm, specially when you are compiling a 'list' for other people to follow because your enthusiasm is affected by many things including your political leanings. Why take the huge task of defining a whole canon on your shoulders? Why?

Drkshadow03

08-27-2009, 12:45 PM

How can one's politics not affect their views? This is strange, to say the least. How do we discus Maxim Gorky, George Lukacs, Sartre, Eagleton or the Russian Formalists without taking politics in consideration?

I said, "[a] person's political leanings says nothing about the accuracy or quality of their intellectual work." I never said anything about a person's politics not affecting and contributing to their views. Certainly a person's politics affect their views and in many cases to understand their motivations for a particular intellectual inquiry (the context) it is fruitful (but not always) to know about their politics, but we also shouldn't automatically dismiss works or particular thinker because they have the "wrong" politics. Not only because it is fallacious (genetic fallacy) as a person's politics or background has no bearing on whether the statements they are making are true or false, but it leads to further abuses in academia where critics then feel comfortable throwing around asinine denunciations about other critic's interpretations for supporting some kind of imaginary societal status quo with their literary criticism.

To understand Marx, one should understand his historical milieu, his politics, the French revolution, etc., but it would be wrong of me to merely dismiss Marx on the grounds that he was, well, a leftist Marxist radical. To rebut Marx I would have to summarily challenge his actual points and claims.

Kafka's Crow

08-27-2009, 01:01 PM

I said, "[a] person's political leanings says nothing about the accuracy or quality of their intellectual work." I never said anything about a person's politics not affecting and contributing to their views. Certainly a person's politics affect their views and in many cases to understand their motivations for a particular intellectual inquiry (the context) it is fruitful (but not always) to know about their politics, but we also shouldn't automatically dismiss works or particular thinker because they have the "wrong" politics. Not only because it is fallacious (genetic fallacy) as a person's politics or background has no bearing on whether the statements they are making are true or false, but it leads to further abuses in academia where critics then feel comfortable throwing around asinine denunciations about other critic's interpretations for supporting some kind of imaginary societal status quo with their literary criticism.

To understand Marx, one should understand his historical milieu, his politics, the French revolution, etc., but it would be wrong of me to merely dismiss Marx on the grounds that he was, well, a leftist Marxist radical. To rebut Marx I would have to summarily challenge his actual points and claims.

Good post, very cogently argued.

I think the whole point and purpose of this discussion is to refute Bloom's attempt at defining a canon. If it is a "personal list" then why publish it? This list can lead to closure and exclusion. We need, in a rapidly changing world like ours, a more inclusive system with porous boundaries. Canon is dynamic. It is changing and protein. Someone living in the past can not dictate things to the future generations. Bloom is dangerously accessible as can be demonstrated in some of the posts in this thread. The whole idea of a defined canon is dangerous as it gives one individual the power to dictate taste and literary discourse. The best thing about human expression is that it changes as does humanity and its values, aspirations, goals and fears. Even true classics don't stand unchallenged, true classics bounce back like Shakespeare's works did after the 18th Century or like Milton withstood the attacks by some of the greatest critics in early 20th century. Let time dictate what is great and what deserves to survive. Please don't give us written lists of what needs to survive what does not.

JCamilo

08-27-2009, 02:00 PM

I agree! Have you read "Tolstoy or Dostoevsky" by George Steiner? I'm reading it at the moment, and enjoying it very much.

I was not trying to throw Dostoevsky away, just indicate why Bloom gave Dickens the nod over Dostoevsky. His reasons: "power" and "fecundity" need unpacking, but are (I think) meaningful as far as they go ... which is not that far, it is only an interview after all ...

Well, here the problem: he does not say anything. Not in the interview or in the book itself. In fact (the interview seems rather strange) he mentions Dostoievisky quite a few times in Tolstoy text. The reason is quite simple: there is no way you can pass the XIX novel without him. The novel was something for french and english and german, it was something else after the russians. Bloom know it but he can not avoid, in a selection of psychology in narratives, Dostoievisky will have the upper hand over Freud (and almost everyone else) so it would scramble Bloom logic, making his text (not the list, btw) flawed.
In the interview he even gave more reasons to include Dostoievisky, since he is really very alike Shakespeare in the construction of the characters. It would be great to show even how Shakespeare is also behind the moderm novel. But there is no axiety at all. With Tolstoy, his position, is show as axienty (and I do not think it is, Tolstoy deals with Tolstoy), so it is fine to place him. Something totally unique, like Madame Bovary - which is probally the most emblematic romance of XIX century - is put appart. Mostly because it goes to french lineage, which is less shakespearean.
Words like power or fecundity do not work here. The Power of Madame Bovary was enough to turn in a social phenomem in all europe. Dostoievisky existiencialism is fundamental to philosophy. Victor Hugo social novels moved france. This is power. (Dickens social novels also moved england, it is also power). And fecundity? What it means? Producing more texts? Or notable characters? Brothers Karamazov alone have a family of notable characters that almost no writer have managed to create.
No, Bloom does not explain, he just avoid the question because it is his bias, this bias he said it does not exist and must justify the whole "Shakespeare is my god, Freud my prophet"

Adding to Drkshadow,
the problem is exactly this one, bloom dismiss the school of ressentiment because they are feminists, marxists, etc (Or false marxists, etc), he does not explain why Derrida theories are wrong.

wessexgirl

08-27-2009, 02:11 PM

Good post, very cogently argued.

Bloom is dangerously accessible as can be demonstrated in some of the posts in this thread. The whole idea of a defined canon is dangerous as it gives one individual the power to dictate taste and literary discourse. The best thing about human expression is that it changes as does humanity and its values, aspirations, goals and fears. Even true classics don't stand unchallenged, true classics bounce back like Shakespeare's works did after the 18th Century or like Milton withstood the attacks by some of the greatest critics in early 20th century. Let time dictate what is great and what deserves to survive. Please don't give us written lists of what needs to survive what does not.

Dangerously accessible? Should critics be so difficult and complex that "the common reader" is denied access? By all means question, challenge and debate literature and what is great, but don't deny people access to what he thinks. You don't have to agree with him, but at least it's opening up a debate on literature and what one literary academic thinks should be retained in the canon.

DanielBenoit

08-27-2009, 03:38 PM

Dangerously accessible? Should critics be so difficult and complex that "the common reader" is denied access? By all means question, challenge and debate literature and what is great, but don't deny people access to what he thinks. You don't have to agree with him, but at least it's opening up a debate on literature and what one literary academic thinks should be retained in the canon.

Yeah but the point is, is that Bloom thinks that he can decide what should survive and what should not. Thus leaving works that don't satisfy his tastes to be repressed. No one is the ulimate autority on anything, let time tell what will be remembered.

Drkshadow03

08-27-2009, 04:16 PM

Yeah but the point is, is that Bloom thinks that he can decide what should survive and what should not. Thus leaving works that don't satisfy his tastes to be repressed. No one is the ulimate autority on anything, let time tell what will be remembered.

But does he in fact present/frame his list in that way? I don't know I have never read The Western Canon; I had it in my hands the other day thanks to all this discussion about it, but decided against purchasing it.

DanielBenoit

08-27-2009, 04:32 PM

But does he in fact present/frame his list in that way? I don't know I have never read The Western Canon; I had it in my hands the other day thanks to all this discussion about it, but decided against purchasing it.

I haven't read it in a while, so I'm not sure (from what I remember I think he kind of did), but to call your book "The Western Canon" seems to send that kind of message.

I suppose I should be more apt to criticizing those who treat Bloom as the ultimate authority, rather than Bloom himself.

JBI

08-27-2009, 06:31 PM

Yeah but the point is, is that Bloom thinks that he can decide what should survive and what should not. Thus leaving works that don't satisfy his tastes to be repressed. No one is the ulimate autority on anything, let time tell what will be remembered.

It's not even that though - how many of Bloom's readers are knowledgeable in schools of criticism that Bloom attacks? Are we to think all of them are well versed in Feminist criticism, Marxist Criticism, or Semiotic critical work?

Lets be honest - these schools exist, but to what extent can we say that the average reader who picks up Bloom knows of them? He claims he defended the world from the New Critics, but how many of his readers have read Richards, Leavis, Eliot, Empson and the others? How many people were alive for the transition from New Criticism to a general structuralism. New Criticism, we all know, didn't go out of favor because Bloom was there with a Broadsword and Helmet - it was just superseded by other theories, working with the same developments that their new Critic forerunners developed - does the average reader know this? What does the average reader, who, if we are to go with the suggestion that Academic work isn't accessible, knows little of the discourse, supposed to think? I think, by necessity, he is supposed to think there is a war out there, out to get good books, and people who like good books, which, if you have read any of the "school of resentment" would prove hardly to be the case - Barthes, for instance, was enamoured by Balzac and Racine, Cixous with James Joyce, Said with Yeats, Showalter with Woolf - all of these are canonical writers, perpetuated by major theorists - these people are no less enamored by good works as Bloom himself is.

Then what is the problem? Well, quite simply, they have the nerve to realize that these works can take a few hits at their reputation, so they take the hits - does that mean they are really trying to kill reading?

That's the real problem with this sort of accessibility - it allows Bloom to, quite cheaply, construct an enemy for literature, defend the world against it, without naming names, actually engaging the discourse, or directly questioning the validity of their points. Barthes too was very much a public intellectual, yet he was criticized for his critical style's use of formal language - he defended it in a work whose name I cannot remember (it has been translated separately). One doesn't need to write for the average person to be a good critic - ironically, Bloom's defence of his favorite poet, Hart Crane, shows this, as Crane is perhaps the most rhetorically dense poet in the language, and one of the least accessible - so how can we not make the distinction, when it comes to literary criticism as well?

DanielBenoit

08-27-2009, 06:51 PM

That's the real problem with this sort of accessibility - it allows Bloom to, quite cheaply, construct an enemy for literature, defend the world against it, without naming names, actually engaging the discourse, or directly questioning the validity of their points.

lol, Bloom is kind of like the Ayn Rand of literary criticism.

(Though, that might be of some injustice to Bloom, for not even Bloom is that bad ;). Besides I've enjoyed some of Blooms works in the past.)

stlukesguild

08-27-2009, 06:52 PM

DanielBenoit

08-27-2009, 07:23 PM

Exactly... and that leaves just me...:D

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-whacky108.gif

stlukesguild

08-27-2009, 07:33 PM

I think the whole point and purpose of this discussion is to refute Bloom's attempt at defining a canon. If it is a "personal list" then why publish it? This list can lead to closure and exclusion. We need, in a rapidly changing world like ours, a more inclusive system with porous boundaries. Canon is dynamic. It is changing and protein. Someone living in the past can not dictate things to the future generations. Bloom is dangerously accessible as can be demonstrated in some of the posts in this thread. The whole idea of a defined canon is dangerous as it gives one individual the power to dictate taste and literary discourse.

It would seem to me that any time a critic makes the assertion that a given artist is great or less-than-great they are suggesting something of an idea of a canon. Certainly the "canon" is fluid... especially when speaking of newer works... or of works which have only recently become accessible through translation. Bloom's "canon" is nothing more than one critic's opinion as to what works of literature are "essential"... or simply among the greatest books he has ever read. Obviously, the value of this canon lies with the reader and how much he or she trusts Bloom's opinions. Personally, I have not found many books on this list that I feel assured should not have been there. If there are shortcomings (as there must be on any list) they are in what was left off the list. The notion that a canon is dangerous is ridiculous. There have always been such lists. The indexes to most encyclopedias suggest lists of essential writers, artists, composers. The same can be found on Wikipedia. Bloom's list is actually one of the more generous or broad to be found. How many lists get published every year proposing to offer up "The 100 Greatest Books" or "1000 Books to Read before You Die"? How many of these virtually ignore poetry, drama, essay, and the vast majority of literature not written in English? Most of us here surely have a notion as to what books we consider "essential"... unless we fully accept some relativist notion that as all opinions in art are essentially subjective, it all remains but opinion and there can be nothing which is truly good or bad. Surely any one of us who has taken the position that blanket statements such as "Shakespeare is Boring" or "Mozart sucks" believes that there is a canon or a body of works that are "essential"... even if we cannot fully agree upon what these are.

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-whacky108.gif

Thank you.:smash:Now for my first dictate I deign that the following be etched in stone... I'm thinking Canadian granite:brow::

Nobody is the last word on anything...not Jcamillo, not drkshadow03, not Kafka's Crow, and certainly not anybody from Canada.

:D

JCamilo

08-27-2009, 11:05 PM

well, Stlukes, bloom certainly choice a easy target. You can define Borges canon? He is also an elistist that place valors only in the aesthetic message, but can you?

Bloom exposes himself. That is all. The list is a mistake, as all lists, so I care less. But his vision. c'mom, Only Shakespeare? Shakespeare have less than 500, even with the awesome importance he have, there still much before he can match Homer or Virgil importance. Those are around for 2000 years. Yes, the west is today centered around him, but this is a chronological occurance. It was not like that until 300 years ago. How come a serious critic can build a theory about something with 3000 years basead on 300?
Even Eliot, he does confess he is against Eliot because it was the holy thing taught when he was a student. What case of anxiety... And he does not dismiss a single idea of Eliot and why? Because Eliot is and will always be more responsable for the canonical status of Joyce and Woolf than Bloom will ever be. Saying Eliot is a good poet is not apoletic enough, it is saying : that dude saw the modernism coming when it was new.
Derrida then. he barelly scratches Derrida theories. Multiculturalism? It is more english than french. Barthez? No dialogue with the death of author. Even Foucault super-social structure of knowedge... and for this he could had the help of Chomsky, but of course, he would not use it, since Chomsky is also a marxist. (and Eliot also approaches works from the aesthetic point of view, so it is nothing new).
It is a hell when the Chinua dude goes attacking Conrad basead on moderm political principles? Or Mark Twain and Melville being set apart because of political correctness? Yes, it is a pain. They are above it. But it is equally painful seeing someone trying to revive Freud cult. Or a version of fundamentalism where Shakespeare is the scripture. And in the XIX century it was subject of discussion. It is the same extreme. Lets not allow left wing, and you have nothing at all, because dialogue is essential. I can only answer to those criticisms of Conrad knowing all about him, it does not hurt or damage the appreciation of aesthetics at all...
And JBI is right there. There must be some canadian last word... ok not that, his allegory about the school of ressentiment lacks any information. Why is Derrida wrong? Because he is left wing? Eliot was not. Was Bakthin polyphony wrong? He was left wing. Virginia Wollf? She was feminist. Those labels are a way of dumbing down, not giving information to anyone about what it means.

stlukesguild

08-29-2009, 03:39 PM

Bloom certainly choice a easy target. You can define Borges canon? He is also an elistist that place valors only in the aesthetic message, but can you?

Of course Borges offers up a "canon" of sort in his A Personal Library. Bloom suggested that the books on his list were those that had given him a particular aesthetic pleasure and which he believed were of lasting value. Borges suggests as much, admitting that as a reader he is not interested in dates or stylistic shifts as the academic might be, but only in the pleasure the work afforded him. He continues that he knows not whether he is a good writer, but he believes he is an "excellent" or at least a "sensitive" reader. He concludes by offering up his list to an audience with the statement that he hopes some may find the book they were looking for there. This is followed by a list of some 75 books and a brief commentary on each.

I don't think that what Bloom offers is all that different ignoring the scale... except in that there is something of an implied suggestion that the works which did not make this list were inherently aesthetically unworthy. Bloom is certainly as aware of the issue of mortality and the impossibility of reading everything of merit as Borges... who fashions a great many narratives upon this very theme. The scale of Bloom's list, however, implies something of a list of the complete literature of Western culture worthy of consideration... again... not unlike what is offered in the appendices of many encyclopedias. I still find the list deeper and broader than most other attempts at listing the "1000 Books to Read Before You Die" which often exclude not only most non-English-language writings, but also poetry, essay, histories, theater, etc...

But his vision. c'mom, Only Shakespeare? Shakespeare have less than 500, even with the awesome importance he have, there still much before he can match Homer or Virgil importance. Those are around for 2000 years. Yes, the west is today centered around him, but this is a chronological occurance. It was not like that until 300 years ago.

That is arguable. Bloom is not the only critic to place Shakespeare at the center of the Western literary tradition. Eliot would do so as well... as would James Joyce (among many others). I'm not certain that we need for an artist to survive for millenia before his or her merit might be assured as "canonical". Michelangelo and Rembrandt are towering figures in the visual arts... certainly at the very center of Western art history... in spite of the fact that they have survived a far less period of time than Praxiteles or Myron. Picasso, almost assuredly, holds his own on the same scale. The central figures of Western music... Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart... have survived less than 300 years... yet there is no way around them... there is no ignoring them.

Even Eliot, he does confess he is against Eliot because it was the holy thing taught when he was a student. What case of anxiety... And he does not dismiss a single idea of Eliot and why? Because Eliot is and will always be more responsable for the canonical status of Joyce and Woolf than Bloom will ever be. Saying Eliot is a good poet is not apoletic enough, it is saying : that dude saw the modernism coming when it was new.

Certainly a great many artists (and one would assume art critics as well) find that they rebel against the dominant strain of their time... especially if they feel it challenges or even strangles what they most value. Bloom is a Romanticist: Blake, Shelley, Keats, Whitman, and Hart Crane are among his aesthetic heroes. He recognizes that Crane struggles against Eliot. He bristles at the manner in which Eliot downplays the Romantics... especially Blake (whom he argues might have been a far greater poet had he worked within the accepted tradition and not been an outsider... as if Eliot himself can compete with Blake). He suggests a hypocrisy at work in Eliot's preference for the Metaphysical poets over the Romantics... and especially for Dante over Shakespeare... Dante clearly being the only formalist that can rival Shakespeare the Romantic (which obviously ignores Dante's own Romanticist leanings). As a non-practicing Jew, Bloom is also more than distrustful of Eliot's rumored antisemitism and later embrace of a form of Anglican Christianity (undoubtedly part of his longing for a sense of tradition and continuity which he recognized was so fragmented and gave voice to in the Wasteland). Still... he admits to reading every last word Eliot ever wrote with a passion. As a result, I respect his willingness in this instance to hold firm to his aesthetic judgments even when what the artist says is in absolute opposition to his own beliefs.

And JBI is right there. There must be some Canadian last word... ok not that, his allegory about the school of resentment lacks any information.

Of course dialog is essential and the Canadians as much as any one may enter into this dialog. On the other hand, a great deal of his resentment is based upon misinformation or a lack of real information about the big American "boogie man" and it is just as archaic in a way as any of the theories or critics that he would dismiss as sorely dated. I will also note that his continual dismissal of various American figures s having no relevance to the larger world takes on a rather comic edge when you consider his continual championing of what are essentially "regional" figures of marginal merit. Of course the same might have been said of Emerson's writings at the time in which he was active. They only appear prophetic after the fact. I guess we'll need to wait for the development of a great Canadian tradition.

JCamilo

08-29-2009, 06:05 PM

Bloom certainly choice a easy target. You can define Borges canon? He is also an elistist that place valors only in the aesthetic message, but can you?

Of course Borges offers up a "canon" of sort in his A Personal Library. Bloom suggested that the books on his list were those that had given him a particular aesthetic pleasure and which he believed were of lasting value. Borges suggests as much, admitting that as a reader he is not interested in dates or stylistic shifts as the academic might be, but only in the pleasure the work afforded him. He continues that he knows not whether he is a good writer, but he believes he is an "excellent" or at least a "sensitive" reader. He concludes by offering up his list to an audience with the statement that he hopes some may find the book they were looking for there. This is followed by a list of some 75 books and a brief commentary on each.

I don't think that what Bloom offers is all that different ignoring the scale... except in that there is something of an implied suggestion that the works which did not make this list were inherently aesthetically unworthy. Bloom is certainly as aware of the issue of mortality and the impossibility of reading everything of merit as Borges... who fashions a great many narratives upon this very theme. The scale of Bloom's list, however, implies something of a list of the complete literature of Western culture worthy of consideration... again... not unlike what is offered in the appendices of many encyclopedias. I still find the list deeper and broader than most other attempts at listing the "1000 Books to Read Before You Die" which often exclude not only most non-English-language writings, but also poetry, essay, histories, theater, etc...

There is a slighty difference and that difference is what make Bloom list slighty ridicilous. It is Borges canon, not the Western Canon. Books he have read (or books he have at home, or whish to have). His critery is his bias, his life bias. Bloom? He is listing works he did not like, works that he did not read, works that are only supposed to be famous. If Borges lists Macedonio Fernandez, the few I read of him is nowhere canonical, it is his experience that talks. If Bloom that talks about yiddish writers who are there in a supposed fair world lists, he is producing a list flawed under his own analyses. That is why most of people who are not prepared already reacts against Bloom as an elitist... The majority of people posting here do not find him some harmless santa claus showing the path that leads to happiness, rather some evil dude who is getting out of his pyramid to destroy humankind and Cananda.

That is arguable. Bloom is not the only critic to place Shakespeare at the center of the Western literary tradition. Eliot would do do as well... as would James Joyce (among many others). I'm not certain that we need for an artist to survive for millenia before his or her merit might be assured as "canonical". Michelangelo and Rembrandt are towering figures in the visual arts... certainly at the very center of Western art history... in spite of the fact that they have survived a far less period of time than Praxiteles or Myron. Picasso, almost assuredly, holds his own on the same scale. The central figures of Western music... Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart... have survived less than 300 years... yet there is no way around them... there is no ignoring them.

Oh, Shakespeare is the main figure of Western literature. I do not deny it. But bloom goes to extremes like you only need to read Shakespeare. You do not need Dante. Oh, wonderful, Shakespeare is our god, Freud is the prophet, Bloom the messiah massacred by the ignorant mob and his peers. I am jesting, but is obviously what he is writing.
I do not deny also that time is what makes someone be in the canon. I am a borgesian after all... But Bloom quantifies the vallue, rank it. We can not really measure who is the most influential writer ever, Shaskespeare domain may end in 100 years after all. Meanwhile, Virgil domain lasted a considerable shift of nations and culture. Or Homer, who is after all big daddy. The point is that influence is not a center. that is is false, but several points of influence. Shakespeare was not the main influence for several authors- Cervantes was, or Moliere, etc.

Certainly a great many artists (and one would assume art critics as well) find that they rebel against the dominant strain of their time... especially if they feel it challenges or even strangles what they most value. Bloom is a Romanticist: Blake, Shelley, Keats, Whitman, and Hart Crane are among his aesthetic heroes. He recognizes that Crane struggles against Eliot. He bristles at the manner in which Eliot downplays the Romantics... especially Blake (whom he argues might have been a far greater poet had he worked within the accepted tradition and not been an outsider... as if Eliot himself can compete with Blake). He suggests a hypocrisy at work in Eliot's preference for the Metaphysical poets over the Romantics... and especially for Dante over Shakespeare... Dante clearly being the only formalist that can rival Shakespeare the Romantic (which obviously ignores Dante's own Romanticist leanings). As a non-practicing Jew, Bloom is also more than distrustful of Eliot's rumored antisemitism and later embrace of a form of Anglican Christianity (undoubtedly part of his longing for a sense of tradition and continuity which he recognized was so fragmented and gave voice to in the Wasteland). Still... he admits to reading every last word Eliot ever wrote with a passion. As a result, I respect his willingness in this instance to hold firm to his aesthetic judgments even when what the artist says is in absolute opposition to his own beliefs.

Oh, yeah. But he dismissed Eliot critical work, as If as a critic Eliot wasn't as much a champion of aesthetical approach, as much as he was more influent than Bloom - he does it because Eliot was apparently the main critic taught when he was young and the teachers would not "think out of the box" (which funny enough lead to the descontruction and etc.)... That is ridiculous, as much as anyone dismissing Bloom just a old head that try to control everyone. As I said, Bloom made himself an easy target.

Of course dialog is essential and the Canadians as much as any one may enter into this dialog. On the other hand, a great deal of his resentment is based upon misinformation or a lack of real information about the big American "boogie man" and it is just as archaic in a way as any of the theories or critics that he would dismiss as sorely dated. I will also note that his continual dismissal of various American figures s having no relevance to the larger world takes on a rather comic edge when you consider his continual championing of what are essentially "regional" figures of marginal merit. Of course the same might have been said of Emerson's writings at the time in which he was active. They only appear prophetic after the fact. I guess we'll need to wait for the development of a great Canadian tradition.

ok, I am just joking with the canadian stuff. I do not mind it at all and soon this place will be just like South Park and canadian jokes. If the path we will follow is the nihilism, which better place to show us this than an empty giantic country covered with snow and sasquatches? I suppose the horror caused by the white color that Melville wrote about was the horror of one day having to live in Canada...

stlukesguild

08-29-2009, 07:49 PM

There is a slight difference and that difference is what make Bloom list slighty ridicilous. It is Borges canon, not the Western Canon.

I agree that it is the title is unfortunate. Of course the title was actually that of the book of essays as a whole while the list was simply an appendix which Bloom has stated was but an afterthought... and one he somewhat regrets having made.

Bloom? He is listing works he did not like, works that he did not read, works that are only supposed to be famous.

Bloom is a voracious reader... not unlike Borges... so I don't know that I would presume the list contains many works he has not read. With many of the non-English works he lists suggested translations. I largely presume that a good many absences in non-English literature (I immediately think of a good many books by Hesse including Steppenwolf) may be works he has not read. As for including texts that he read but did not like... I think that I would include some such "disliked" books as part of a personal list of essential reading. Personally, I have some real issues with Plato and even Rousseau... I disagree with them on more than one occasion... but I cannot deny their aesthetic merit. What I would find problematic would be including books that you feel are "great" or "essential" based solely upon hearsay.

If Bloom that talks about yiddish writers who are there in a supposed fair world lists, he is producing a list flawed under his own analyses.

Of course any personal list will include personal quirks. Some of the Yiddish writers he includes are certainly not bad... but of course one could argue that they might just as easily been replaced with any number of writers from Poland, Hungary, the Middle-East, Brazil (and maybe even Canada:D)

Oh, Shakespeare is the main figure of Western literature. I do not deny it. But bloom goes to extremes like you only need to read Shakespeare. You do not need Dante. Oh, wonderful, Shakespeare is our god, Freud is the prophet, Bloom the messiah massacred by the ignorant mob and his peers. I am jesting, but is obviously what he is writing.

I agree that while you can imagine a center of an artistic tradition (whether it be Shakespeare and Dante; Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart; or Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rubens) you cannot reduce everything else to a mere acolyte of their achievements. Michelangelo is a towering giant in the field of art... but Rembrandt owes very little to him and Vermeer and Paul Klee would probably been the same had he never existed. Of course the issue of artistic influence is not limited to Bloom's Anxiety or Freud. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent posits an ideal "canon" that changes with the addition of each truly new work of originality and admits that the new is as influenced by the past as the past is by the present. Borges argues that one cannot even imagine such links beforehand suggesting unsuspected links between writers separated by vast gaps of time, space, style, and intent (which would seemingly contradict Eliot's supposition that such continuity with the tradition can only be brought about by sustained conscious effort).

We can not really measure who is the most influential writer ever, Shakespeare's domain may end in 100 years after all. Meanwhile, Virgil domain lasted a considerable shift of nations and culture. Or Homer, who is after all big daddy.

Oh certainly I would agree that any notion of the "canon" must be fluid. Picasso must rank among the 4 or 5 greatest/most influential artists ever... and yet he only entered upon the scene 100 years ago. There is no reason to think that Beethoven or Shakespeare or Picasso cannot be surpassed. The "death of history" was greatly exaggerated.

Oh, yeah. But he dismissed Eliot critical work, as If as a critic Eliot wasn't as much a champion of aesthetically approach, as much as he was more influent than Bloom - he does it because Eliot was apparently the main critic taught when he was young and the teachers would not "think out of the box" That is ridiculous, as much as anyone dismissing Bloom...

I don't think that he attacked Eliot simply because of his influence... although (just as with the case with Bloom) his influence and his visibility made him a target for anyone with differing aesthetic viewpoints... and certainly Bloom embraced many of the same poets championed by Eliot, but not to the same extent, and not at the expense of the Romantics.

Speaking of Eliot's influence... is there really anyone that approaches that today? I'm not speaking of their influence upon academia (which is essentially irrelevant... sorry JBI;)) but I am speaking of their impact upon artists working today.

ok, I am just joking with the canadian stuff. I do not mind it at all and soon this place will be just like South Park and canadian jokes. If the path we will follow is the nihilism, which better place to show us this than an empty giantic country covered with snow and sasquatches? I suppose the horror caused by the white color that Melville wrote about was the horror of one day having to live in Canada...

Certainly much of what I say is tongue-in-cheek as well... but then I will admit that there are times when the pro-Canada/anti-Americanism grates on the nerves (being in Brazil you don't get the continual digs thrown your way). These irritate after a while... even if one is not of the stereotype of the American "bubba" pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war in Iraq, "we're number one!" variety. But I guess we make ourselves the target by being number one.:D

JCamilo

08-29-2009, 08:52 PM

There is a slight difference and that difference is what make Bloom list slighty ridicilous. It is Borges canon, not the Western Canon.

I agree that it is the title is unfortunate. Of course the title was actually that of the book of essays as a whole while the list was simply an appendix which Bloom has stated was but an afterthought... and one he somewhat regrets having made.

Yeah, the list is an obvious mistake. All lists are, so if you are a serious academic, keep your list in your mind and avoid turning it in a real object, because your work will end corrupted by the list. It is the easy approach (hence why many say it is a good work of beginers, something I disagree, because the names on the list only have any meaning if some previous knowledge is provided and Bloom organized his list basead on Vico, so even the critery is a hard one to grasp) and an easy target. I think Bloom must be critised by the essays, it is where his bias or excessive mythology came in conflict with a good criticism, which btw, is something Bloom is capable.

Bloom is a voracious reader... not unlike Borges... so I don't know that I would presume the list contains many works he has not read. With many of the non-English works he lists suggested translations. I largely presume that a good many absences in non-English literature (I immediately think of a good many books by Hesse including Steppenwolf) may be works he has not read. As for including texts that he read but did not like... I think that I would include some such "disliked" books as part of a personal list of essential reading. Personally, I have some real issues with Plato and even Rousseau... I disagree with them on more than one occasion... but I cannot deny their aesthetic merit. What I would find problematic would be including books that you feel are "great" or "essential" based solely upon hearsay.

Yeah, I find hard that someone have read all those works (or at least with profundity needed to be a scholar about it) ,and Bloom said himself to know not enough writers from spanish literature in some other sources. So he can not organize a Canon that claims to be universal (In the sense the West is universal), he can only do his reading list. But he claimed otherwise. And I really doubt anyone can like all those works. Anyways, it is not about agreeing, you gave Borges example, but he gave books he liked enough to keep reading again and again... that is not Bloom method, which is the bad thing. I mean, Borges liked Carlyle to the point to be one of his major influences, but was a heavy critic of Carlyle philosophy of heroes... You know much of the blind man fame and work was basead on critics of two dear canonical works: Don Quixote and Martin Fierro.

Of course any personal list will include personal quirks. Some of the Yiddish writers he includes are certainly not bad... but of course one could argue that they might just as easily been replaced with any number of writers from Poland, Hungary, the Middle-East, Brazil (and maybe even Canada:D)

Yeah, they just should not be there, it was pure sentimentalism, but in light of Bloom sometimes extremes jewish views, it is just a bad signal.

I agree that while you can imagine a center of an artistic tradition (whether it be Shakespeare and Dante; Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart; or Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rubens) you cannot reduce everything else to a mere acolyte of their achievements. Michelangelo is a towering giant in the field of art... but Rembrandt owes very little to him and Vermeer and Paul Klee would probably been the same had he never existed. Of course the issue of artistic influence is not limited to Bloom's Anxiety or Freud. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent posits an ideal "canon" that changes with the addition of each truly new work of originality and admits that the new is as influenced by the past as the past is by the present. Borges argues that one cannot even imagine such links beforehand suggesting unsuspected links between writers separated by vast gaps of time, space, style, and intent (which would seemingly contradict Eliot's supposition that such continuity with the tradition can only be brought about by sustained conscious effort).

Yeah, I know. That is Borges aesthetics talking strongly, the Kubla Khan fable... Anyways, in Borges anti-freudism, he is inclined towards Jung (altough not mystical) and used and abused of archetypes.

Oh certainly I would agree that any notion of the "canon" must be fluid. Picasso must rank among the 4 or 5 greatest/most influential artists ever... and yet he only entered upon the scene 100 years ago. There is no reason to think that Beethoven or Shakespeare or Picasso cannot be surpassed. The "death of history" was greatly exaggerated.

The big point is that it is hard to quantify influence except as how much time they lasted. Picking a given period of time, even picking Now!, is arbritary... It does not work for me...

I don't think that he attacked Eliot simply because of his influence... although (just as with the case with Bloom) his influence and his visibility made him a target for anyone with differing aesthetic viewpoints... and certainly Bloom embraced many of the same poets championed by Eliot, but not to the same extent, and not at the expense of the Romantics.

In the preface he said that about Eliot and nothing else. So, he certainly mislead people to think Eliot was just some tyrant, and not really someone with ideas. Anyways, that is just the canon isnt? Eliot, Bloom, Derrida, Borges, Woolf, Johnson, Dante, Baudelaire, Le Man, Eco, Ortega y Gasset, etc all are different, with different approaches to literature. But in the end of te day there is a group of works they pick in commun. If Borges is profane while attacking Beckett, someone else will save Sammy. If Virginia thinks Joyce is dirty, he will be spared. Not even Tolstoy or Voltaire could wash Shakespeare down the drain...

Speaking of Eliot's influence... is there really anyone that approaches that today? I'm not speaking of their influence upon academia (which is essentially irrelevant... sorry JBI;)) but I am speaking of their impact upon artists working today.

Sometime I go I saw a review of a book of his letters and his wife, saying something about new light on him, so I suppose somewhere someone still works with his mind. I suppose anyone studying his poetry will use his criticism as support, since they will talk loud about his own aesthetical approach. I think Bloom does (he do have the tendency to not be creative and even repeat something that his "enemies" used to say) even when he picks Woolf and Joyce as representants of modernism (with Proust), the omission of Eliot is just a strong presence. I can not say much, a literature PhD i had a chat some other day said when she was young, Eliot was a must have here also, but not today. I used Eliot in my Borges monography, more to support a few of point where he and borges agree, but more to show Borges conection with the world where he lived, and not that he just a incident in Buenos Aires, feeding himself with clouds.

Certainly much of what I say is tongue-in-cheek as well... but then I will admit that there are times when the pro-Canada/anti-Americanism grates on the nerves (being in Brazil you don't get the continual digs thrown your way). These irritate after a while... even if one is not of the stereotype of the American "bubba" pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war in Iraq, "we're number one!" variety. But I guess we make ourselves the target by being number one.:D

Or by the amount of crap movies hollywood send to us every month :D

stlukesguild

08-29-2009, 10:32 PM

Or by the amount of crap movies hollywood send to us every month

Of course Brazil provides us with all those "Brazillian Babes Gone Wild" porno, so we still love you.:lol::ladysman:

JBI

08-29-2009, 10:37 PM

You kidding - everyone reads Eliot whether they want to or not -a giant chunk first half of the 20th century in English language poetry from the US and England is Eliotic. He's like Tennyson almost, in the way that his influence took control - you can't ignore that if you read poetry - you cannot not read Eliot if you are reading any Post-Wasteland stuff - his influence didn't only extend to Canada too - The Waste Land was translated widely into other languages to the point of causing a sensation in distant traditions - the man has had an unquestionable influence, to the point where you can't not read him in the following generations.

stlukesguild

08-29-2009, 10:50 PM

Yeah, the list is an obvious mistake. All lists are, so if you are a serious academic, keep your list in your mind and avoid turning it in a real object, because your work will end corrupted by the list.

So we should get rid of those LitNet Top 100 Authors and LitNet Top 100 Books lists, eh?:lol: Of course I find them inane if only for the exaggerated ratings of Dostoevsky and Orwell (youthful obsessions, perhaps?)

He certainly mislead people to think Eliot was just some tyrant, and not really someone with ideas.

That is one way to undermine one's opponent... simply vilify him or her so that all he or she says becomes the opinion of the villain. Of course we see as much here when Bloom or the "ugly American" is presented as the boogie man.

Quote SLG- Speaking of Eliot's influence... is there really anyone that approaches that today? I'm not speaking of their influence upon academia (which is essentially irrelevant... sorry JBI) but I am speaking of their impact upon artists working today.

Sometime ago I saw a review of a book of his letters and his wife, saying something about new light on him, so I suppose somewhere someone still works with his mind. I suppose anyone studying his poetry will use his criticism as support, since they will talk loud about his own aesthetical approach... Eliot was a must have here also, but not today. I used Eliot in my Borges monography, more to support a few of point where he and Borges agree...

I'm not suggesting that Eliot still has the sort of influence he once had... or even that his influence was universal (although I've read Montale and other Europeans writing of coming to terms with what he represented). I am simply musing over the question as to whether there really is any critic that hold the sort of impact beyond the realm of academia and into the actual world of artistic creation... where it really matters. I think, for example, of the art critic Clement Greenberg, who in the 1950s and 1960s virtually had the ability to influence the direction of art. Personally I feel that such an influence is a danger... as it became in Greenberg's hands... but I don't really see any critic having such power today.

JCamilo

08-29-2009, 11:35 PM

Or by the amount of crap movies hollywood send to us every month

Of course Brazil provides us with all those "Brazillian Babes Gone Wild" porno, so we still love you.:lol::ladysman:

It was Goddard who said that a great movie started with a beautiful woman, so we have at least the right start :D :banana:

You kidding - everyone reads Eliot whether they want to or not -a giant chunk first half of the 20th century in English language poetry from the US and England is Eliotic. He's like Tennyson almost, in the way that his influence took control - you can't ignore that if you read poetry - you cannot not read Eliot if you are reading any Post-Wasteland stuff - his influence didn't only extend to Canada too - The Waste Land was translated widely into other languages to the point of causing a sensation in distant traditions - the man has had an unquestionable influence, to the point where you can't not read him in the following generations.

If Eliot is like Tennyson, then frankly, Stlukes pointed a good question: your Theodor is becaming stuff frozen in the museums, because Tennyson is today someone that only a few would remember. Even Blake or Coleridge were easier to be remembered than Tennyson those days, I must say his influence here is almost null. Eliot I think still remains somehow, at least everytime some quote who the universe ends. Ok, people still love and lost, so Tennyson may stay, but the Celtic Twilight still with revivals, Pessoa is opening space, americans still hold dear their Georges or Williams to allow them to fade away, Neruda Cult still up, Mayakowiski lives with the soviet drama, Valery still with his 2,3 readers that he had since he was alive... Becaming like Tennyson or like Keats or Blake which cult had revival and considerable revisionism with time?

Yeah, the list is an obvious mistake. All lists are, so if you are a serious academic, keep your list in your mind and avoid turning it in a real object, because your work will end corrupted by the list.

So we should get rid of those LitNet Top 100 Authors and LitNet Top 100 Books lists, eh?:lol: Of course I find them inane if only for the exaggerated ratings of Dostoevsky and Orwell (youthful obsessions, perhaps?)

I have no much use for lists. Even sports lists... So i joke about them, but Dostoievisky overated ? That is very Nabokovian of you.

That is one way to undermine one's opponent... simply vilify him or her so that all he or she says becomes the opinion of the villain. Of course we see as much here when Bloom or the "ugly American" is presented as the boogie man.

Yeah, the difference is that nobody have the credentials of Bloom when he defend the canon. I think of him when I think of Richard Dawkins.

I'm not suggesting that Eliot still has the sort of influence he once had... or even that his influence was universal (although I've read Montale and other Europeans writing of coming to terms with what he represented). I am simply musing over the question as to whether there really is any critic that hold the sort of impact beyond the realm of academia and into the actual world of artistic creation... where it really matters. I think, for example, of the art critic Clement Greenberg, who in the 1950s and 1960s virtually had the ability to influence the direction of art. Personally I feel that such an influence is a danger... as it became in Greenberg's hands... but I don't really see any critic having such power today.

No, I think not. The academia seems unable to have anything but fights over dead bodies. Relevant critics like Derrida or Eliot are gone. We may have Eco, but he is more a semiotic that with old age is using his pen for something else. Not even controversial cultural critics like Foucault or Chomsky or Bourdier appear. I dunno, the access to culture have rendered most of humanities as something everyone can do, so it is hard to have any impact... Maybe it is hard because America seems to be conservative while they are once progressive and no other country (Europe is conservative for quite while) seems to change it. Or maybe we are just dumbed down in a internet forum after all...