Let's discuss the best books of all time

[Kafka's Crow]

How very... French? Foucault leads to nothing. The point is Foucault acts as a fusion between Poli-science and literature. It is poli-science and pesudo-philosophy crossed into literature, where quite frankly, it does not belong. Foucault has his moments, but he really has no place in understanding or appreciating literature.

Derrida on the other hand is a different matter. His methodology is revolutionary in its context, but for the most part is taken as standard now. In the early 70s his stuff broke new ground, but now, lets be honest, he has been replaced with a newer form of criticism. Deconstruction has become part of everything to such a degree that it has actually been replaced by that which it started off to overthrow. The post-Derrida scholars now, instead of reading to understand the assumptions and underlying assumed elements, rather add their own to the assumed, and see if they fit. The method doesn't cut the work anymore as context, but adds its own context to the work, and then cuts at it from what doesn't match up.

Neither scholar really offers much, in terms of enjoyment in literature, or really even enjoyment in life. They both have different points, and ways to view texts. But deconstruction itself has become one of the underlying assumptions it sought to understand.

Either way, all these sorts of methods fail, for the simple fact that all books are different (some to higher degrees than others) and therefore it is better to read without a set method, rather than with one, as with one you always will derive a similar answer, which never will be worthwhile.

I guess that is why after The Anxiety of Influence Bloom shifted out of theory to what he writes now, catalogs. He realized that theoretical reading only goes so far, until it is usurped by a better theory. It is the works themselves that really matter, as the theoretical processes won't last forever.

Even then though, as the Paul de Man - Nazi incident showed, the so called theorists are always going to be subjected their own histories and politics. The theory is but a theory, since it cannot exist in practice to a perfect point. It is better to just read, and see what you discover from the text itself, than to add something to the text, and see what sticks to it.

Neither Foucault nor Derrida claimed to be 'literary' critics or even literary theorists. Their main concern was philosophy. In our present state of affairs we need no other thinkers more than these two. Foucault's concept of the workings of 'power' and discourse can easily blow away the control of media and so called 'interest groups' and hand us back our lost democracy, Derrida's deconstruction can uncover the workings of the mind-control machine that controls our lives and is eroding our freedoms. These people are dangerous hence the concerted effort to reduce their influence, specially in America. There is absolutely nothing new about deconstruction deconstructing itself. It was never against systems as such. It was against oppressive static systems and being a dynamic self-modifying system itself, it has every right to be in the position of a dominant discourse. As long as it is dynamic, organic and protein and is doing the excellent job of uncovering hidden motives, contradictions, and concealed interests, it is good for us.
Paul de Man affair can be compared with the recent show of despair at the Neo-Conservatives by Francis Fukuyama, the movement's leading intellectual spearhead:

[neoconservatives] believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.

Neoconservitism was the American answer to 'liberalism' (!) that came out of the French theories of 60s and 70s. It has killed more human beings than any other ideology since the fall of Nazis and Stalinism.

As far as literature and the French theories are concerned, most of them were appropriated by literary scholars like Feminism and Marxism were used before them. Was Carl Marx a literary critic? Alan Sokal attacked some theorists for appropriating scientific concepts. Well, philosophy, specially postmodern philosophy, is open and flexible. It is not territorial like science. It lets itself being used because it is all-embracing. Sokal used a scientist's rigid and wooden logic and labeled things "nonsense" because he failed to understand them with his ossified intellect. There are some theorists who did cross the limits. I despise Lacan, (but then I am scared of him and can't understand him a lot and am too lazy to make an effort) and think that he was rightly taken to task by the scientist, but then maybe Sokal failed to understand Lacan like I did. One man's nonsense is other man's way of life.

[JBI]

This isn't about changing society. It is about enjoying the best books ever written.

I'm not American, I don't really care how strong that country is, except for its economic ties with Canada, which I acknowledge as important for my economic welfare. I personally couldn't care less about "moral values." Literature is beyond moral values, and isn't to be read for moral values, but to be read for pleasure, and self-reflection, and self-expansion.

What theorists like those mentioned above do, is uncover political currents, and cultural currents within the history of world. That has no use other than contexting with literature, except for uncovering additional meanings. The best books ever written have nothing to do with politics, as they weren't all written within our political mind frame. Roman politics isn't American politics, yet Virgil is still a pungent poet, because he wrote great verse.

I brought up the Paul de Man affair not to pull down deconstruction, but to pull down theory in general. The theoretical readings of texts have no more truth than the aesthetic readings of texts. We simply add additional theory to the reading, like glue, and hope to catch something. The Marxists and Feminists use our culture context to try and find discrepancies within previous contexts, the Marxists use the idea of the superstructure to try and grab their answers, but neither of them comment on the text itself, which is essential, negating the concept of literary criticism, and making it, as it is called now, culture criticism.

This isn't bad, but it isn't literary study. It is culture study, a different discipline that exists beside literary study. You cannot politicize something like:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

The poem isn't meant to be read as politics, and anyone who tries to politicize it, or find morals in it merely just transposes additional facts, such as Tennyson's biography, and historical context, into the poem, in order to try and create a sort of meaning that they desire. The poem itself can be enjoyed simply because of its beauty, yet beauty is of no concern to a culture critic, or post-modernist, whose goal in life is to destroy any form of categorization of culture.

And, on your note on literary theorists and critics, anyone who reads is a critic, and anyone who writes about literature is a public critic. You don't need tenure to be a literary critic, people in grade school are forced to do it too.

[Erichtho]

It is an English list. You seem to be ranting that one man is not capable to read every European work in their original.

No, you don't seem have read my posts; I said: I don't expect anyone to narrow down a full Western canon, but obviously H. Bloom thinks he is in a position to do that, which is what I criticise.

He is one man, and an English professor. Not only does he need familiarity with the major English works, he must teach them. Naturally English is going to be the most important language to him on a Canon, as it is the language he is most comfortable with, and it is the language in which the most volumes are available to him (if something isn't published in the U.S., how is he even supposed to no about it. The canon itself should include works that are available, and not ones that have been out of print since their time). The language bias is to be accepted.

The very word canon means rule, code, not "some personal suggestions" or "random reading list". If he publishes a book with the name "The Western Canon" I expect him to include works because of their quality and importance, not because of their availability. Burns, Blake and Wordsworth are there, but no Mácha or Mickiewicz? This eludes me.

Even if one acknowledges that it really is limited to English and works that influenced English/influenced Bloom directly, such as Dante whose influence in English is enormous. The truth of the matter is that people reading books do not have the time to search out quality translations, and therefore the canon itself needs to reflect an availability.

I don't comprehend this paragraph. The first sentence is a fragment (or senseless if refering to the former paragraph), and the second contradictory. Dante is important, ought to be in the canon, and is translated many times, certainly also available in several translations - that makes it more difficult for the reader to choose a good translation than if there was only one or even none, doesn't it?

Either way, the point which seems to be unacknowledged, is the fact that this isn't even the book. This is merely a nice list he made of his favorites as suggestions to the reader who wishes to break away from the so called "School of Resentment", and get back to "canonical standards". It is a tip for people needing recommendations without having to worry that their choices are bad, since, if one is to believe Bloom's thesis, the reviewers and critics in the U.S. have totally separated from the canon, and are praising so called "inferior works." [...]

I know that this list is only the appendix of the book. You are saying Bloom wants the reader to get back to "canonical standards" without mentioning what the canon actually is - if that was true, it would make even less sense: You are talking about the canon here as if it was an unalterable construct and everyone already knew it somewhere in the intelligentsian corner of one's mind, but this isn't the case. There is not "the canon", it needs to be developed, changed, condemned and developed again - and isn't this what Bloom is trying to do by giving us his tips?

[Kafka's Crow]

This isn't about changing society. It is about enjoying the best books ever written.

I'm not American, I don't really care how strong that country is, except for its economic ties with Canada, which I acknowledge as important for my economic welfare. I personally couldn't care less about "moral values." Literature is beyond moral values, and isn't to be read for moral values, but to be read for pleasure, and self-reflection, and self-expansion.

What theorists like those mentioned above do, is uncover political currents, and cultural currents within the history of world. That has no use other than contexting with literature, except for uncovering additional meanings. The best books ever written have nothing to do with politics, as they weren't all written within our political mind frame. Roman politics isn't American politics, yet Virgil is still a pungent poet, because he wrote great verse.

I brought up the Paul de Man affair not to pull down deconstruction, but to pull down theory in general. The theoretical readings of texts have no more truth than the aesthetic readings of texts. We simply add additional theory to the reading, like glue, and hope to catch something. The Marxists and Feminists use our culture context to try and find discrepancies within previous contexts, the Marxists use the idea of the superstructure to try and grab their answers, but neither of them comment on the text itself, which is essential, negating the concept of literary criticism, and making it, as it is called now, culture criticism.

This isn't bad, but it isn't literary study. It is culture study, a different discipline that exists beside literary study. You cannot politicize something like:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

The poem isn't meant to be read as politics, and anyone who tries to politicize it, or find morals in it merely just transposes additional facts, such as Tennyson's biography, and historical context, into the poem, in order to try and create a sort of meaning that they desire. The poem itself can be enjoyed simply because of its beauty, yet beauty is of no concern to a culture critic, or post-modernist, whose goal in life is to destroy any form of categorization of culture.

And, on your note on literary theorists and critics, anyone who reads is a critic, and anyone who writes about literature is a public critic. You don't need tenure to be a literary critic, people in grade school are forced to do it too.

Maybe you are right, maybe I am wrong, I don't put things in "nutshells", I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle (as usual!). I knew this would take the thread further off-topic but I don't like people slinging mud on these philosophers just because literary critics use their ideas to further their own careers. As you said, this is not about literature, it is about culture, life, politics, society or whatever. Still the point remains that the postmodern realities have porous boundaries and things do end up where they, traditionally, never belonged. "That's how it is on this ***** of an earth" as Beckett would put it. Richard Dawkins and others attack theory (and everything else) in the name of scientific purity. I think they are fundamentalists whose ears are waxed against all the different beautiful songs that our wonderful time sings. I would be very, very careful before becoming an aesthetic purist. We can't pigeon-hole things any more. Things do tend to crossover to strange places.

Still I would stop here as this thread would roll away into the wilderness further with my off-topic notions.

[JCamilo]

I understand Bloom own limitations when listing a canon (it is just part of the real - that imaginary thing - world canon), usually we need to seek different critics to find a whole concept, this is the case of Bloom.
I also think it is irrelevant if Foucault is good or not (Bloom uses Freud, almost as flawed and pseudo-scientific as Foucault) or Derrida, they introduced a important way to analyse culture and literature from their ways of approaching the relation of the cultural subjects - it is not about Bloom atacking them all the work, but attacking the criticism developed from their works all the way and this leading to a bias against a few artists, which is a bit pointless. That goes with Bakthin which leads to a more secundary place for Dostoieviksy in his list. His concept of "generation conflict" is not even freudian, but marxist or even darwinist...

[Drkshadow03]

How very American!

(I always suspected the presence of a huge number of Bloom-worshipers on this forum. He helped me a lot in my college days- you look for simple and simplistic stuff to start with- but then I grew out of it.)

Oh? Who says I worship Bloom? Besides if the English grad schools in America are any indication, Americans LOVE Foucault. I'm more like a voice in the wilderness when it comes to Foucault (now that's a very American image for you). Foucault is riddled with flaws.

1) Overly reductionist account of history: he cherrypicks very complex historical moments to prove his so-called philosophical "points."

2) Overly generalized conclusions: he stretches the definition of Power almost to the point of meaninglessness, which allows him to conflate Power-Truth/Power-Knowledge.

3) Far from allowing us to overturn "interest groups" and win back our democracy, the first parts of his philosophy that most people are familar with are nihilistic dead-ends. It allows you to discover power everywhere in all forms of knowledge and institutions, but it doesn't really give you much to deal with it.

In all fairness, he finds a way around this so to speak in his last "ethical" phase by turning to the Ancient Greeks and borrowing their techniques of the self leaving us with Parrhesia (truth-telling as a social virtue) and creating one's self as a work of art. I suppose you might be able to get rid of all the interest groups that way, except I suspect most people will use Parrhesiaas excuse to join up with an "interest group" in the self-delusion that they are fighting power (except Foucault's whole point is that you can't fight power, you can only tweak it a bit and change its formations) and not actually supporting the system.

[Jozanny]

Foucault is riddled with flaws.

1) Overly reductionist account of history: he cherrypicks very complex historical moments to prove his so-called philosophical "points."

I find Discipline & Punish to be a credible thesis. Every critical thinker picks proofs for their argument. I asked for a discussion of Foucault in Philosophy, and I guess if any members comment I won't gain much thereby, to read the bone-gnawing here.

[Drkshadow03]

I find Discipline & Punish to be a credible thesis. Every critical thinker picks proofs for their argument. I asked for a discussion of Foucault in Philosophy, and I guess if any members comment I won't gain much thereby, to read the bone-gnawing here.

I checked out your post on the philosophy section. I have to get ready for class now, but I'll try to answer it later. It may surprise you, but despite my dislike for Foucault I've read pretty much all his major works, taken lectures on him, and even presented on him in a different class, and wrote multiple academic papers on him. I feel confident in my criticisms precisely because I've studied him fairly in-depth.