how to interpret a book/story

[cacian]

A book tells a billions stories not just one. It is one story within another within another. How should we as a reader begin to interpret what a story is telling us. There are billions shades of words a second. Each time a word informs tells or retells an idea a nuance about a something. When a word is put in a sentence it becomes unique to it and each time the sentence changes the word changes too and so does the meaning.
It is like lego one block builds a thousand towers.
Reading between the lines is crucial if we are to understand the writer the language and ultimately us.

[jayat]

Reading the same book once and again. As that can blow your mind, I usually read that books which several lines of interpretation several times in several years. I dose the lectures and in every one I discover new things or I understand the bloody sense at least.
As writing is re-writing, reading ends up to be re-reading (assuming we get good literature and don't spend a second in bad stuff). What is good and what is bad? Mr. Harold Bloom is very revealing in that way.
"Western Canon" = The Holy Bible for passionate readers. Again, just an opinion, maybe some "knight" will stand up against Bloom sacred classification. Not me, certainly.

[hillwalker]

Mr. Harold Bloom is very revealing in that way.
"Western Canon" = The Holy Bible for passionate readers.

It's rather sad that one man can influence how and what you read so much.

H

[Charles Darnay]

Yes because Harold Bloom doesn't care about any text any text besides the Bible. Shakespeare? Don't waste your time, says Mr. Bloom.

[jayat]

It's rather sad that one man can influence how and what you read so much.

H

Why not, if you consider his criteria is higher than yours. Maybe I'm wrong and Bloom is not a good literary guide but so far anything (maybe I'm dim, I'm not myself aware of that) make me "believe" the opposite, that is, his reasonings become convincing, to me at least...And yes lately I am reading "so much" like a bloody wretched evil (idiomatic expression, I'm not sure at all. "com un boig, comme un fou, como un condenado")

[jayat]

Yes because Harold Bloom doesn't care about any text any text besides the Bible. Shakespeare? Don't waste your time, says Mr. Bloom.
Are we talking about the same Harold Bloom, the writer of Wester Canon and The Anxiety of Influence...?

[hillwalker]

Why do you need someone to tell you what's good to read and what isn't? Surely you have the intelligence to work out for yourself what books are worth reading based on the author's style, the genre, word-of-mouth from a wider readership, etc.

Is Bloom's criteria higher than mine? Purely because he makes a living as a literary critic? It's hardly relevant. Are you saying one's appreciation of literature can only be fashioned by another person's opinion (in this instance someone who sets himself above the heaving mass of readers who may not even have heard of the guy)?

I consider myself widely read yet have never opened a single book of literary criticism. Has my life been any poorer as a consequence? I doubt it. Life's too short and there are too many books out there waiting to be read. Why should I rely on some 'authority' to tell my why I should enjoy a particular book - or not - as the case may be?

H

[cafolini]

Why do you need someone to tell you what's good to read and what isn't? Surely you have the intelligence to work out for yourself what books are worth reading based on the author's style, the genre, word-of-mouth from a wider readership, etc.

Is Bloom's criteria higher than mine? Purely because he makes a living as a literary critic? It's hardly relevant. Are you saying one's appreciation of literature can only be fashioned by another person's opinion (in this instance someone who sets himself above the heaving mass of readers who may not even have heard of the guy)?

I consider myself widely read yet have never opened a single book of literary criticism. Has my life been any poorer as a consequence? I doubt it. Life's too short and there are too many books out there waiting to be read. Why should I rely on some 'authority' to tell my why I should enjoy a particular book - or not - as the case may be?

H

Bingo, I think. There are so many masters. Why read the piggybacking ones, who can't walk on their own, in order to select? Is there any value in wasting time when there is so much to explore in the raw? Thrice cooked pork barrel?LOL

[jayat]

Why do you need someone to tell you what's good to read and what isn't? Surely you have the intelligence to work out for yourself what books are worth reading based on the author's style, the genre, word-of-mouth from a wider readership, etc.

Is Bloom's criteria higher than mine? Purely because he makes a living as a literary critic? It's hardly relevant. Are you saying one's appreciation of literature can only be fashioned by another person's opinion (in this instance someone who sets himself above the heaving mass of readers who may not even have heard of the guy)?

I consider myself widely read yet have never opened a single book of literary criticism. Has my life been any poorer as a consequence? I doubt it. Life's too short and there are too many books out there waiting to be read. Why should I rely on some 'authority' to tell my why I should enjoy a particular book - or not - as the case may be?

H

All you said couldn’t make more sense H. I can't agree more. Otherwise, I would not come across Shakespeare and its greatness (let me use an hendiadys, hops) without H. Bloom. (well, that and the fact I rarely go to the bookshops having Internet, which is a huge library) You may think is an arrogant, presumptuous attitude I’m showing off. No need to do it. What’s the purpose, if so?

Once I read the reasoning he weaves to defend one of the greatest authors ever, I couldn’t wait to read it and to confirm he was right. I am capable of choosing as well as anybody who adores reading, certainly, but if it would depend entirely on me I had never come across W.S., who has been the best reading so far (revealing, intensive, grasping, dramatic,…). Maybe I’m living on a cloud but that is true when everybody is reading stuff with no a bit of relation with him and no comments on the matter.

I studied Western Canon in college but I’ve never opened this book until six months ago when I borrowed it from the personal library of my little brother, who is now in college. Can you trust? Well…

[JCamilo]

Look you can read any book you want. You cannot dismiss bloom knowledge just because you read a thousand books. You better base your criticism on him on something else. Or know him better, because anyone claiming Bloom only cares about the bible and would not lead to Shakespeare and other authors (not you jay) is like a fish out of water and certainly not a master. The Western Canon is not relevant, it was just his way to make money, with one or another text that yuo can find in his other works.

[hillwalker]

I'm amazed that you claim to have only come across Shakespeare because you read Bloom - it's rather like admitting you only heard about Picasso because Citroen built a car with the same name.

H

[jayat]

I'm amazed that you claim to have only come across Shakespeare because you read Bloom - it's rather like admitting you only heard about Picasso because Citroen built a car with the same name.

H

Bad expressed. I came across W.S. tenth of time in my student span life but it looked abhorrent, dull and boring to me (I was obliged to read the british number one author ever). Now maybe I am more mature and, in addition, without the trigger of Bloom I hadn't "gone to" catch it. I do not know if this answer will make me feel more stupid than the other. I hope it doesn't. Well..."all the ways of Lord are loving and faithfull" the psalm says.

[hillwalker]

So what you're saying is that you had heard of WS but dismissed him as boring until Bloom put you straight. Ok - that makes more sense. But there's so much more out there to discover - Hardy, Eliot, Dickens, Faulkner - and that's barely scratching the surface. I suppose it depends on the reasons why you choose to read English literature in the first place.

H

[osho]

We have a billions choices and I switch between books and I do not choose to read traditionally and classically. I read breaking all reading traditions or formulas. I have started Proust, James Joyce and made several endeavors to comprehend their intricate words and complicated sentence structures and wasted my valuable times and then switched to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy I enjoyed reading the Russians. Of course those books are not intepretable. I do not like books there are multiple narratives. Like meta-narratives that precede narratives.

[cacian]

Here is a thought capture the writer not what he writes. That is ultimately the pleasures or reading writing. The rest is secondary but albeit very pleasant too.

[jayat]

So what you're saying is that you had heard of WS but dismissed him as boring until Bloom put you straight. Ok - that makes more sense. But there's so much more out there to discover - Hardy, Eliot, Dickens, Faulkner - and that's barely scratching the surface. I suppose it depends on the reasons why you choose to read English literature in the first place.

H

Right, H, although I can see your previous syllogism is wrong when putting in the same relation H. Bloom and a French car trademark and breaking the same semantic field (philosophy will have their own voc. I hardly know). I don’t know what kind of intention brought you commit that mistake but I know what I think now about Bloom’s criticism: the same. To be honest, his classification may be one of many but deserves the fame it has. It’s a good guider for me and so far at least. I repeat I am maybe wrong.

On the other hand, this days I'm reading J. Conrad to dose my W.S. lecture...the four literary pillars you gave me sounds a ring to me (I didn’t studied English philology neither I’m likely a reader like you, but I’m aware of that). Otherwise, Could you give me the name of any living Anglophone writer that you consider is not a waste of time reading her/him? I trust more in your opinions than in your analogies.

[hillwalker]

I would have to recommend Thomas Hardy for his lyrical way with language and his memorable characters. 'Far from the Madding Crowd' and 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' are both well worth reading.

H

[cafolini]

I would have to recommend Thomas Hardy for his lyrical way with language and his memorable characters. 'Far from the Madding Crowd' and 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' are both well worth reading.

H

It's sad the Victorians burned a lot of his stuff. But they could not destroy it all. And even there, in Hardy's heart, Dickens' influence is just as obvious as anywhere else, among many other writers.
Hardy, a very important one in the development of the UK.

[jayat]

Ok, thank you H.