How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom

How to Read and Why Reviews

• 
  Riku Sayuj

  
  This book has come by some harsh criticism, especially by eminent reviewers like Terry Eagleton and fellow goodreaders. In spite of the bad reviews by goodreaders I usually take at their word, I decided to give the book a chance. With Bloom’s combination of ideas such as Shakespeare being the progenitor of all modern fiction and poetry, of the bard also being the inventor of ‘Human” in literature and with Bloom's audacious theory on all literary works being nothing more than a sort of plagiarism or a creative misreading of earlier efforts, I was sure that at the very least I would get some interesting things to read about the thirty odd literary masterpieces (and forty odd authors) that he endeavors to discuss in the book.
  
  One of the major criticism leveled at the book by most of the reviewers I found on goodreads was about how most of his discussions on various books, especially of short stories and poems, were just recapitulations of the plots and the verses and then some banal commentary on how good they were or how moving they were. This is well captured by Terry Eagleton when he says that Bloom has now fallen into the “quote-and-dote” school of criticism. In one of his most stinging passages he remarks:
  

  “Why does Bloom need to augment the self? 'We read,' he suggests, 'not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.' It sounds as though Harold is a bit short of mates and reads to make up for it. Perhaps he alienates them by his repeated chanting of excessively long poems.”

  
  Turns out that the fundamental problem with the book is that it is not an essay on how to read or on why to read but it is a book about books, a book by a passionate reader about the books he loves the most - the best sort there is. It does not teach you how to read books but it is an exercise on how to talk about books you have read, how to love them, how to re-read them and how to reminisce about those old companions in the most intelligent and enamored fashion. That is what bloom demonstrates.
  
  This book is an exercise in love - a reader talking about what he loves to read and why, converted forcefully into a book on how and why another should read - and this I feel was the reason the book got all its bad reviews. It built up the wrong expectations. Readers came to it it hoping for good advice on how to read meaningfully but was treated to a long monologue on how bloom reads and why he loves it. With a better title and an explanatory subtitle, the same readers might have loved the same book that they criticized so much. Luckily for me, I did not go into it hoping for someone to teach me how to read or wondering why I should read, I am getting by well enough on those fronts; I went in hoping to discuss some of these great books and I got exactly that - a nice conversation with someone who loves books, the very best of pleasures that a reading life offers.
  
  Ultimately, my biggest complaint is about how short the book is, how perfunctory it is - glossing over Blake and Chekov and others in the space of a few pages and treating only the smallest possible sample of their works (one). I have a strong feeling that the title of the book was fixed around midway through its writing, because from then on, probably following his editor’s orders, Bloom takes to ending each chapter with the questions of the book title, the “how” an the “why” of reading, and mostly the answers he provides are platitudes that only serve to irritate the serious reader who wants only to talk on about his favorite books and not wait for the author to come back to the discussion after giving a small meaningless speech to the public like an advertisement that intrudes on it. It feels like a sell-out and cheapens the experience.
  
  I did not mind the many shortcomings of the book, it reminded me of old friends and gave me a few good insights from the texts quoted and many more from my own memories of reading and most valuably, it made me think of why I read them, what I experienced then and how I was changed by each of the readings. That was the great pleasure Bloom gave to me while I put up with his “teenage groupie” sticky sentimentality about shakespeare and repeated admonitions to read poems aloud or to read to ‘expand one’s consciousness’. The “how” to read part of the book is stifling and pedantic and the “why” part of the title does not get much attention but Stuart Jeffries captures it brilliantly when he says: “Ultimately the intellectual and the sensual are married in Bloom's notion of reading as a difficult pleasure. He calls this "the reader's Sublime". It is the closest to secular transcendence that we may achieve in this life - it helps us get beyond despair, loss and death. The cultivation of that difficult pleasure, finally, is why we should read.”
  
  You don’t have to agree with Bloom’s views to enjoy the book because the book is just a shared exercise in enjoying other books - you just need to have a love for the same books that Bloom discusses and the patience to put up with some commercial asides and the rest will take care of itself.
  
  If you have read and enjoyed most of the books discussed, pick up the book and read it to reminisce with a fellow reader and you are bound to enjoy most parts of it. Bloom’s love of great literature being so contagious, it might even send you anew to Proust, to Ibsen, to Borges, to Italo Calvino, to Pynchon, to Emily Dickenson and most importantly to Shakespeare. But, if you have read very few of the works discussed and pick up the book to find a reason why you should read them, you will probably hate this book and also stay away from the wonderful classics discussed, and there could be no greater tragedy. With that caveat, take my five-star rating and my complete recommendation for reading this book.
• 
  BlackOxford

  Learning to Listen by Reading
  
  Listening and reading are generally considered independent activities. The only way to spot imposture is to listen attentively to lots of people. And the only way to spot fakery in print is to read lots of books critically. But it strikes me that Bloom is making an implicit case for considering listening and reading as functionally equivalent. Everything he has to say about reading applies with even greater urgency and relevance to listening.
  
  One need only substitute the word ‘conversation’ for ‘literature’ to see the relevance of Bloom’s insights to human communication in general. For Bloom, “literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness.” Clearly there is no difference here from conversation. According to Bloom, the best critics are those who “make what is implicit in a book finely explicit.” Isn’t this the same outcome as with good conversation? And doesn’t it make sense that what we are really doing in any serious conversation is exactly the same as what we do when we read, namely “prepar[ing] ourselves for change,” in order to “strengthen the self, and to learn its authentic interests?”
  
  And it seems to me that Bloom’s principles of productive reading are also important in creating productive conversation. The first principle, “clearing one’s mind of cant,” that is, recognising pious platitudes and their source in one’s tribal history is as relevant to listening as it is to reading. Most conversations are formulaic and have no real content other than establishing peaceful social relationships. But even significant communication is dominated by cliché and inarticulate usage. And when we are challenged to provide a description of our emotional state, we are likely to drop into an abyss of the most awful and trite vocabulary. Cant is our typical way of life.
  
  The second principle flows from the first in light of our universal tendency to confuse words with reality: “Do not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how you read.” Because we instinctively feel that the language we use is an concrete as the things we experience, we believe that the language used by others is just as concrete as our own. Words therefore become things to argue and fight about, sometimes even to die for. At best we become idealists trying to get the rest of the world to conform with our ideas of what is good for it; at worst we become monsters who use those words to beat it into submission. Strengthening the self has nothing to do with changing the world.
  
  Bloom’s third principle is taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson and echoes the advice of many others: “A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light.” It seems to me that scholarly conversation has little to do with erudite academics but with an appreciation of one’s interlocutor. The realisation that language is as much a veil as a bridge between two people suggests that one must listen not for the words but for the intention and interests which are unspoken. Listening for what is agreeable is one way to discover purpose. The logic of purpose is often hidden below layers of irrelevant language, a sort of anti-poetry which hides what is trying to be expressed. This is Bloom’s “making explicit that which is implicit,” and establishes the same relationship between speaker and listener as between writer and reader, namely a collaboration that produces a new experience.
  
  The fourth principle is an Emersonian variant of the third: “One must be an inventor to read well. ‘Creative reading’ in Emerson's sense I once named as ‘misreading,’ a word that persuaded opponents that I suffered from a voluntary dyslexia.” This goes beyond refusing to accept language at face value. The principle demands conscious interpretation of what one reads or hears. Interpretation is in any case inevitable even in the most casual of conversations. So Bloom’s idea is simply to ‘fess up to the process, not only to oneself but to one’s partner in communication as the foundation for clarification and expansion. Another way to state the principle is that if nothing new arises from a conversation, it wasn’t worth having. I think Bloom is correct about all our communication when he says that we are, “frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.” If we are not so disposed, perhaps we ought to be.
  
  Finally, Bloom’s final and most important suggestion is “that the recovery of the ironic might be our fifth principle for the restoration of reading. Think of the endless irony of Hamlet, who when he says one thing almost invariably means another, frequently indeed rhe opposite of what he says.” This fifth principle is a summary and recapitulation of all the rest. Language, it says, is beautiful but it is not to be trusted because it is beautiful. Remember that this is from a man who has devoted his entire life to language and its beauty! It is because of this devotion that we can trust him when he says that “Irony demands a certain attention span, and the ability to sustain antithetical ideas, even when they collide with one another.”
  
  To extend these principles to all of communication is, to me, an obvious and productive necessity. Bloom’s one-sentence dictum captures his programme concisely: “Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.” I think I’ll try it out this evening over dinner with my wife.
  
  Postscript, on the same day: In the way of these things, the attached article showed up from the NYT:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/op...
• 
  Trevor

  This is a remarkably conservative introduction to how to read and why. His selection of texts is also quite conservative and illustrative of his ideological positioning. What is most interesting is that he spends so much time criticising the very idea of reading from within an ideological position that he appears completely blind to the fact of his own ideology or even that it is an ideology. This ideology is most clearly illuminated at the end of the book when he discusses why it is good to read his series of modern American novels with their all too apocalyptic visions – that is, as a way to understand America’s obsession with religion and guns.
  
  Here is a man who believes that Shakespeare not only recreated our entire language, but that he also invented ‘the human’. Who believes that the point of literature is never ‘to improve society’, but rather purely for self-improvement. That much of literature is a kind of genealogy in which mapping the filial debts a work owes is much of the point of reading.
  
  I very nearly stopped reading this a great many times. Look, the book was inoffensive enough, just a bit pointless. So much of the book is a retelling of the plot lines of other works (better works) that it made me think that I ought to be reading those books instead. The two central questions in the title – how to read and why to read – were rarely adequately answered in relation to any of the texts analysed.
  
  The point of a lot of this book was an excuse to expound the central American myth of the individual as the only worthwhile focal-point of society (he says at least twice that an American is only ever truly himself when he is alone) – essentially, we are advised to read as this is the best means of turning our gaze inward and this reflection will allow recognition of aspects of ourselves that may not illuminate so well without the light of genius supplied by the Western canon.
  
  Don’t get me wrong. I think Hamlet is a much better play than say, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, however, I don’t think this is because Shakespeare was a god, but rather because of a series of factors that really do help Shakespeare along here, of which four centuries of critical appraisal and analysis is but one never even mentioned in this text.
  
  Although, hardly a phallic reference in any text is passed over unnoticed.
  
  And for someone who sees irony as the key to understanding literature, it is interesting how rarely he points to the irony in any of the literature he discusses and how his view of irony seems nearly entirely limited to direct opposition – to irony as sarcasm, or merely stating the direct opposite of what is actually believed. However, irony does not need to be so limited. Irony is also involved when there is a meaning understood by the audience that is not understood by the character – as when Duncan in MacBeth calls MacBeth a ‘peerless kinsman’. The audience knows MacBeth is about to kill Duncan and so also knows a deeper meaning to Duncan’s words unknown to him. This level of irony is often much more interesting than that of mere contradiction or negation – but Bloom is obsessed with negation.
  
  I found some of his genealogies a little annoying and some just plain wrong. For example, he divides short stories into two traditions – either Chekhovian or Borgesian – and then places Calvino squarely into the Borges camp. Many may well agree with this assessment – but he does this on the basis of Invisible Cities. But I think it would be possible to classify Calvino as a descendant of Chekhov if one were to have read Mr Palomar or Marcovaldo instead – not to mention his longer short fictions such as The Baron in the Trees. It is certainly the case that Difficult Loves would be hard to class with say The Castle of Crossed-Destinies. But honestly, do we really read so as to find such effective schemes to squeeze authors into? Do we really read to draw such elaborate textual family-trees?
  
  It was interesting reading this at the same time as I am reading lots of Bourdieu. There is a quote from the introduction to this book which says: "Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading of the now much-abused traditional canon is the search for a difficult pleasure." Bourdieu points out that ‘difficult pleasures’ are one of the best means of finding ‘distinction’, of showing you belong to a particular class of people, rather than to a lesser class who are incapable of such appreciation or even of the effort required in such discernment. I found this quote an interesting confirmation of Bourdieu’s theory.
  
  Mostly, this book would be useful if you were studying literature and, as luck may have it, one of the works you have been set just happens to be discussed here. However, the ‘analysis’ provided is mostly of a ‘retelling of the story’ kind – that is, the kind most likely to see you fail literature – and so I would only recommend this as introduction to your thinking about any of the books discussed.
  
  On its own terms – that is, in providing an answer as to how and why to read – I think this book comprehensively fails. However, it is not devoid of interest as a work in itself and it is hard to completely dislike someone who so clearly loves so many works I too love very deeply.
  
• 
  فايز غازي Fayez Ghazi

  "كيف نقرأ ولماذا" كتاب هارولد بلوم، الناقد والأستاذ في الأدب الإنجليزي والدراسات الإنسانية في جامعة ييل في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية. هو كتاب يتضح مضمونه من عنوانه، لكن في النص هناك جواب على سؤال أهمّ الا وهو ماذا تقرأ؟!
  
  يستعرض بلوم في كتابه قصائد وقصص قصيرة وروايات ومسرحيات، وهو قد علل سبب اختيار كل واحدة منها من حيث أهميتها او سياقها التاريخي او موقعها المركزي نسبةً للأعمال التي تلتها وأرتكزت عليها او استوحت منها وطوّرت في بعض جوانبها من أجل ابداع جديد. إختيارات بلوم ملفتة للنظر ومن نافل القول انه يعشق شكسبير ويعتبره مسيح الأدب، وخصوصًا مسرحيته "هاملت". سيشجعك بلوم على اعادة قراءة "هاملت" من زوايا مختلفة وسيجعلك ترى انعكاسه في كتابات غيره.
  

  
  رغم ان شكسبير ما كان ينبغي ان يكون كاتبًا دنيويًا مقدسًا، فإنه يبدو لي انه المنافس المحتمل للإنحيل في قوته الأدبية."
  

  
  يعتبر بلوم ان القراءة العميقة نوع من الإدمان او الحاجة العاطفية، وفي جوابه عن لماذا نقرأ؟ يقول لأننا لا نستطيع ان نعرف ما يكفي من البشر فنقرأ الكثير من الكتب، ليس ذلك فحسب بل لأن الصداقة عرضة لأن تتغير، عرضة للضعف او الاختفاء. نحن نقرأ لنبحث في الكتب عما يلمع، نحن نقرأ لنعدّ أنفسنا للتغير (بفعل القراءة). ونحن نقرأ لنستطيع ان نزن الأمور ونمعن النظر فيها (حسب تعبير فرانسيس بيكون).
  
  في القصص القصيرة يعتبر بلوم ان القصص اما تكون تشيكوفية (نسبة لأنطوان تشيكوف) او بورخاسية (نسبة لخورخا لويس بورخاس). وفي استعراضه للقصص القصيرة لكل من تشيكوف وبورخاس وهممينغواي وتورجنيف ونابكوف وكالفينو يعطي دليل للقارئ في "كيف يقرأ" هذه القصص ويحللها ويستنبط المعنى والمقصد والمغزى منها فيما أظهره الكاتب وفيما أضمره وحذفه
  
  

  
  "أفضل القصص هي التي تحتاج وتستحق إعادة قراءة مرات كثيرة. وقد لاحظ هنري جيمس ان القصة القصيرة "وضعت في تلك البقعة البديعة التي ينتهي عندها الشعر ويبدأ الواقع" وهذا يضع القصص القصيرة في مكان وسط بين الشعر والرواية، وأن شخصياتهما كما قال جيمس ايضًا لا بد ان تكون على درجة من الخصوصية غريبة وساحرة ولكن ايضًا يمكن التعرّف عليها بصفة عامة."
  
  "القصة القصيرة تؤثر التضمين، إنها ترغم القارئ على تنشيط ذهنه، لكي يفطن الى الشروح التي يتحاشاها المؤلف. فالقارئ يجب ان يتروى عمدًا وان يبدأ في الإنصات بأذنه الداخلية. هذا الإنصات يتيح له أن يتنصت على الشخصيات وان يسمعها، فكر فيهم كشخصياتك، واستفسر عما هو مضمر، أكثر مما هو مروى عنهم، وعلى خلاف معظم شخصيات الرواية، فإن مقدمتها وخاتمتها متروكة بقدر كبير لذكائك لكي يستفيد من اللمحات الخفية التي يقدمها المؤلف."
  

  
  
  في الروايات يستعرض بلوم كوكبة من أعظم الروايات العالمية، ويضع رواية سرفانتيس كأول وأعظم الروايات، ثم ينتقل الى ستندال في دير بارما وإيما لجين اوستن، والجريمة والعقاب والبحث عن الزمن المفقود وغيرها...وفي القسم لاثاني يستعرض الأدب الأمريكي وتأثير رواية "موبي ديك" في هذا الأدب يحلل ويشرّح خصوصًا في شخصيات الروايات، يحذر من القراءة من أجل إيجاد حلول. امّا في جوابه عن لماذا نقرأ الروايات فقد تعددت الأجوبة كإكتساب المنافع الجمّة وتثقيف وعي الفرد، الحماس وبعد النظر وتوسيع دائرة المعارف الإجتماعية والوعي السياسي ولكي نعالج أنفسنا من القصور الذاتي ولنقيم ونعزز الذات المستقلة ونجد أنفسنا
  

  
  "إن ستندال مع بلزاك وفلوبير يمثل أحد أضلاع الثالوث العظيم للروائيين الفرنسيين الكبار السابقين على مارسيل بروست الذي بلغ قمة الإبداع. وعلى خلاف فلوبير وبروست وحنى بلزاك الغزير الإنتاج والغزير التفاصيل، فإن ستندال هو أرفع الرومانسيين الكبار، كان مناصرًا لشكسبير وبدرجة أقل اللورد بيرون."
  
  "الأسهل ان تنسب أهدافًا اجتماعية للروايات وليس للقصص القصيرة او القصائد لكن القارئ يجب ان يكون حذرًا من كل هؤلاء الذين يصرون على ان الرواية، لكي تبقى يجب ان تكون وسيلة للإصلاح."
  
  كيف نقرأ رواية؟ إنما تعني بالنسبة لي كيف نقرأ مارسيل بروست، قمة الروعة في الرواية الكلاسيكية: ماذا نفعل عندما نواجه الإبداع على إطلاقه في رواية " البحث عن الزمن المفقود
  
  للأسف لقد تعرض توماس مان بدرجة ما للخسوف عبر الثلث الأخير من هذا القرن، بإعتباره روائيًا من ثقافة مضادة. "جبل السحر" لا يمكن ان تقرأ مجزأة بين فترة وأخرى كالسندوتشات على الطريق مع قرص الجين. إنها تمثل الثقافة الرفيعة التي تتعرض الآن لبعض الأخطار لأن الكتاب يتطلب درجة عالية من التعليم والتفكير."
  

  
  
  في قسم المسرحيات استعرض ثلاث مسرحيات، هاملت لشكسبير، هيدا جابلر لإبسن، وأهمية ان تكون جادًا لأوسكار وايلد. يعظّم بلوم أهمية هاملت وشكسبير وتأثر إبسين ووايلد به وقد اختار ثلاث مسرحيات من ثلاثة أزمنة مختلفة.
  

  
  "اننا نميل الى تعريف "العبقرية" على انها قوة عقلية خارقة. وأحيانًا نضيف لفظ "المبدعة" الى التعريف. من بين كل الشخصيات الخيالية "هاملت" هو أعظم عبقرية."
  
  "لماذا نقرأ هاملت؟ لأنها تقدم لنا عرضًا لا يمكن رفضه. لقد اصبحت موروثنا نحن، وكلمة "نحن" شاملة شمولًا ضخمًا. ان هاملت مفكر المفكرين، النبل والكارثة في الوعي الغربي. هاملت الآن ممثل ايضًا للذكاء ذاته. هذا ليس شرقيا ولا غربيا، ذكرًا او انثى، ابيض او اسود ولكن الإنسانية فقط في أفضل حالاتها، لأن شكسبير او كاتب حقيقي متعدد الثقافات."
  

  
  
  الكتاب بشكل عام وجبة ثقافية دسمة، ليس المهم ان تقرأ بالطريقة التي يقرأ بها بلوم، وهو لا يطلب منك هذ لكنه يعطيك فكرة عن الأعمال العظيمة ولماذا وكيف يقرأها هو مما سيساعدك كقارئ على توسيع دائرة معرفتك وزاوية النظر الى هذه الأعمال والى اعمال اخرى. بالنسبة لقسم القصائد الشعرية لم أقرأه لأنني لست مطلعًا على تلك القصائد لكنني سجّلت بعضها لأقرأه لاحقُا.
  
  تجدر الإشارة الى ان هذا الكتاب كان لإعادة القارئ الغربي لقراءة الأعمال العظيمة بدل التلهي بالقشور و"السدوشات" التي لا تسمن، وإعادة الإعتبار للقيمة التي تقدمها الجامعة لطلابها. فما بالك اذا نظرت شرقًا؟؟!!!
  

  
  "هناك حملة عنيفة مخططة أيديولوجيًا لكسر وتحطيم الحواجز بين ما يسمى الثقافة الشعبية (الجماهيرية) وما تم اعتباره في الماضي ثقافة رفيعة. ليس لأنهم كانوا حقًا يتحدثون عن ثقافة شعبية- انهم لا يتكلمون عن اساليب شعبية او عن الفلكلور (الفن الشعبي) انهم يتكلمون عن نفاية تجارية تصنع من أجل مجتمع استهلاكي."
  

  
  انهي هذه المراجعة بهذا الإقتباس المقصود:
  

  
  "ان تقرأ في خدمة أي أيديولوجيا معناه أنك لا تقرأ مطلقًا."
  
• 
  FotisK

  Είναι πιθανόν οι περισσότεροι (ιδίως μεγαλύτερης ηλικίας) αναγνώστες, ερχόμενοι σε επαφή με ένα βιβλίο λογοτεχνικής κριτικής και δη με την αυθεντία του συγγραφέα του, όπως συμβαίνει ξεκάθαρα στο εν λόγω, να αντιδράσουν αρνητικά, διαβλέποντας μια προσπάθεια ποδηγέτησης, επιβολής γούστου κ.ο.κ. Απολύτως κατανοητό και συγγνωστό. Εγώ πάλι, δεν ανήκω στην κατηγορία αυτή.
  Έχοντας αποδεχθεί το γεγονός πως η ψευδαίσθηση της ατομικότητας είναι μια ακόμα σύμβαση του σύγχρονου αστικού πολιτισμού (Σαρτρ), με συγκεκριμένο ιστορικό περιεχόμενο. Πως άλλα μυαλά, πολύ πιο πρωτότυπα και εξελιγμένα από το δικό μου έχουν σπαταλήσει ατέλειωτο χρόνο και κόπο στην έρευνα και την ανάλυση των έργων που εγώ απλά απολαμβάνω. Πως ο χρόνος μου είναι πεπερασμένος και δεν δικαιούμαι να τον ξοδεύω άσκοπα επιχειρώντας να ανακαλύψω πρώτος Εγώ (κεφαλαίο το Ε) το επόμενο ή το προηγούμενο ή το αείποτε αριστούργημα…
  Έχοντας αποδεχθεί λοιπόν, ταπεινά, τα προηγηθέντα, απολαμβάνω τεμπέλικα την υπέροχα, μοναδικά και πρωτότυπα "μασημένη τροφή" που υπέρλαμπρες μορφές όπως ο H. Bloom παρέχουν αφειδώς. Άτυπτα προσπίπτω στην εξ αποκαλύψεως άποψή τους, απολαμβάνοντας κάθε εντολή, αφορισμό και κριτική.
  Το "απολαμβάνοντας" είναι εδώ η λέξη-κλειδί, καθότι δεν συνεπάγεται πως ενστερνίζομαι άπαντα όσα καταγράφονται σε αυτό ή σε όποιο παρόμοιο βιβλίο. Η εσωτερική κριτική μου φωνή δεν είναι δα και τόσο πρωτόλεια ή δουλοπρεπής. Μου αρκεί όμως να κρατάω όλα εκείνα που μου ταιριάζουν και με διδάσκουν, προσπερνώντας τα υπόλοιπα μειδιώντας και υποτονθορύζοντας.
  Εξάλλου, Τιτάνες της Γνώσης όπως ο Bloom δεν έχουν χρεία των "Ευλογητός" κανενός. Είναι μάλιστα εξίσου πιθανό ο θαυμασμός των πληβείων -όπως εγώ- να υποτιμούσε το τεράστιο, ελιτίσ��ικο Εγώ του. Και αυτή η γνώση με διασκεδάζει ακόμα περισσότερο. Πώς όχι, αφού το από καθέδρας ύφος του Απόλυτου μπορεί να σε προκαλέσει μόνο όταν το θεωρήσεις ως πρόκληση απέναντι στο δικό σου Εγώ. Αν πλησιάσεις, όπως το προτιμώ, ανάλαφρα, με θαυμασμό και ευφρόσυνη διάθεση να ακούσεις τι έχει να σε διδάξει αυτός ο άνθρωπος, δεν έχεις λόγους να θιχτείς.
  Σταματάω εδώ, μη έχοντας πει απολύτως τίποτε για το βιβλίο και τι περιέχει. Τούτο μόνο: Όσοι γνωρίζουν ποιος είναι και με τι έχει ασχοληθεί ο Bloom, θα απολαύσουν ακόμα μια φορά το μεγαλόπρεπα αφοριστικό του ύφ��ς και την ακόρεστη δίψα του για διδασκαλία. Οι λοιποί, απλώς θα προσπεράσουν. Και οι δύο θα είναι κερδισμένοι, για διαφορετικούς λόγους.
  
  ΥΓ: Και μόνο γιατί ο Bloom πρεσβεύει πως ο "Ματωμένος μεσημβρινός" του ανυπέρβλητου Κ. Μακάρθι (απευθείας απόγονος των Φώκνερ και Μέλβιλ) ανήκει στην ελίτ των σημαντικότερων μυθιστορημάτων του προηγούμενου αιώνα, έχει κερδίσει τον σεβασμό μου.
• 
  Anthony

  Really dull and pedantic view of literature, IMO. On the one hand, it purports to explain why one should read (I'll save you the time and money-- read for enjoyment). On the other hand, it contains many references to literature that it makes almost no sense to read it unless you have already read the copious books Prof. Bloom makes reference to. All of this begs the question: To whom is this book targeted? I humbly suggest: To no-one in particular.
  
  As someone who posits that literature should be read for pleasure, this book is full of draconian rules of pleasure. I think a more honest title for the book would be "How I Read and Why".
  
  I can only hope this rather late work is not representative of what the good Professor is all about. I was quite inclined to like him.
• 
  W.D. Clarke

  
  
  I dunno 'bout any of this here Why business, but that there is How I read How to Read and Why, with all the Bloom-demanded "receptivity" I could muster (and despite having written some of the "political criticism" he rails against a bit too too much in his introduction than is healthy) for this book which advocates for his personal faves—and some of my own.
  
  (3.5 stars, I liked it, sometimes a lot, sometimes not)
• 
  Mohamed Ateaa

  بعض تعليقات علي الكتاب و افكار جاءت علي نفس فكرته قد تعجبكم و تشجعكم علي قراءة الكتاب
  
  (1)
  لماذا نقرأ ؟
  - اجابات خاطئة : لان القراءة تجعلنا نبدو مثقفين (لا مثقفين)
  القراءة لا تثقف احد يمكنك ان تقرأ اطنان من الكتب دون ان تعي حرف واحد و يمكنك ان لا تقرأ و تكون جد مثقف - هي عملية عقلية ف المقام الاول لكن ف الغالب من يقرأون يتم تثقيفهم ذاتيا
  - اجابات مبتسرة : لان القراءة مفيدة
  القراءة لا تفيد الا من يريد ان يستفيد كم من مرة قرأ البعض الكثير من الكتب دون ان يفقهوا شيء و لم يستمتعوا اطلاقا - وكم من قليل قرأو بنية العلم و نية الاستمتاع و نية الافادة فافيدوا - افيقوا يا سادة فالقراءة لا تفيد الا من يريد
  - اجابات مهلهلة : لان القراءة تريح العقل
  من يقول ان القراءة مريحة علي خطأ ومن تريح القراءة عقله فهو واهم اما انه لا يقرأ او انه يقرأ فلا يفهم حرف مما يقرأه القراءة الحقة هي من تثير في ذهنك اسئلة و تتعبك في الوصول الي اجابات تشحذ مناطق الفكر في عقلك تجعلك ضيق الخلق في البداية الي ان تتعود انه عندما تستغلق عليك فكرة ما تقرأ تعرف انك وصلت للمضمون
  - اجابات بعيدة : القراءة كالماء و الهواء
  في ظني القراءة جهاد في عدة ج��هات اولهم جهاد في الوقت فانت تسرق من وقتك سويعات لتقرأ تحرمك من اصحابك و تبدلهم باصحا اخرين تحرمك من فسح جميلة تضيع الوقت و تبدل ذلك بفسح تدوم - تحرمك من النوم احيانا و من الطعام احيانا ومن الحب احيانا كثيرة و تجد فيها كل ذلك . اما الجهاد الاخر فهو جهاد مالى فانت تبحث عن الكتب باقل القليل في زمن اقتربت اسعار الكتب من الخيال فكيف تقول ان الكتب و القراءة كالماء الذي لا ثمن له و الهواء المجاني . جهادك في هاتين الجبهتين شرف لك .
  - اجابات مهملة : القراءة جميلة
  لا تبتئس من مقولتي تلك " القراءة قبيحة يا سيدي" كل الذين يكتبون يكتبون لاغراض شتي اهمها انهم يكبون امراضهم النفسية في هذه الصفحات يعرضون كثيرا لقصص فجة لا تستحق النشر يدونون في مئات الصفحات ما لا قيمة له ان سمعته في قول من سطر واحد افادك . القراءة قميئة يا سيدي في عصر يطبع في اليوم الواحد كتب رثة الهيئة و كتاب يبدو جميل الطلعة يخدعك في شكله و ثوبه الملون البراق ولكنه يسمم فكرك . القراءة قبيحة عليك بفلترة كل عدة كتب لتظفر بكتاب واحد جيد.
  
  (2)
  لماذا نقرأ ؟
  - اجابة غامضة : لان القراءة تجيب عن الاسئلة
  القراءة بقدر ما تجيب عن اسئلة نبحث عنها بقدر ما تطرح اسئلة يلزمها قراءات اخري للاجابة عنها .. كل حياتك قد تتحول لنوع من انواع الصراع الممتع او الجهاد الحياتي لموقف واحد يشمل كل المواقف الاخري – تقرأ لتجيب عن اسئلة فتنشأ اسئلة اخري فتقرأ لتعرف اجابتها لتنشأ اسئلة اخري و هكذا – صراع سيزيف اخر من نوع اخر له كده و له جهده و له متعته يجعل منك في النهاية مثقف ثقيل يعرف عن كل شيء شيء
  - اجابة مضللة : لان القراءة تبحث معي عن الحقيقة
  كل ما يحدث عندما تقرأ انك تقرأ أفكار اخرين قاموا بصياغتها في كتب و في ورق كان ابيض كالصدق فتمت طباعة افكارهم عليه فمنهم من كان مؤمنا بما يفكر فمهد لك طريقا سويا تسير فيه لتصل فيه الي حقيقته لا حقيقتك – او كمعظم من يكتب فقط ينفث افكارا وسموم قد تحيل حياتك الي نوع من انواع الوهم الغبي المحبط – فلن تصل الي اي حقيقة ع الاطلاق وان وهمت بنفسك انك وصلت الي حقيقة تخص ذلك الشخص فاعرف انك مضلل . كل ما تفعله القراءة هي انها تمنحك نتف من حقائق عليك ان تجمعها و تصوغها في حقيقة لا تمس غيرك
  - اجابة معتادة : القراءة نوع من انواع الصداقة
  يعرف الجميع ان الصداقة لا تضر و احيانا لا تنفع كذلك القراءة بعد فترة مع الكتب ستدرك انك تقرأ لتكون اعداء لا اصدقاء – ستحاربك الكتب بافكارها في عقلك ستثبت لك انك لا تفقه شيء عن هذا الشيء و ستدحض و تهدم افكارا كنت تعتبرها انت من المسلمات و ستختلف معك في كثيرا مما تقدمه لك – ستلعن احيانا من كتب كتاب ما و ستكره نفسك ان قرأت له ستكون بمرور الوقت جبل من اعداء ينتظرونك بين الكتب – لذا صدقني انت نصف قراءتك تكون لك بمثابة صداقات و النصف الاخر سيحاربك بعنف لانهم من الاعداء
  - اجابة شبه صحيحة : اقرأ للاستفادة من تجارب اخرين
  كل ما تقدمه لك القراءة يا سيدي هو عدة مفاتيح لعدة ابواب انت من عليك ان تبحث عن المفتاح المناسب للباب المناسب كل من سبقوك فتحوا ابوابهم الخاصة بمفاتيح اخترعوها فهل تأتي انت لتجرب بنفس المفاتيح المستخدمة ابواب جديدة .. قد تجدي و قد لا تجدي .. ان تقرأ معناه ان تعرف عن مفاتيح اكثر و ان تعرف عن ابواب اكثر ولكن لن تجد من يقدم لك المفتاح المناسب للباب المناسب – انت تستفيد من تجارب من كتبوا لا تسير علي نهجهم
  - اجابة غريبة : نقرأ لاننا لا نعرف
  فاصل الشيء نهايته و حده هو ان تجهل ما وراءه و انا اقرأ لانني لا اعرف و موقن انني لا اعرف اقرأ لاكتسب كل الاجابات السابقة اقرأ لانني اعرف ان عمري محدود و لن يكفيني فوقه الف عام اخر كي اجد كل المفاتيح المناسبة لكل الابواب التي ستقابلني .. اقرأ لاكون اصدقاء و اعداء من الكتب و الكاتبين اقرأ لاري مدي توغل الافكار ف البعض و مدي سيطرتها علي البعض الاخر اقرأ لا لشيء بل لكل شيء
  
  محمد عطية
  يناير 2013
  
• 
  Manybooks

  I absolutely and generally speaking do not AT ALL appreciate how much of an utter and absolutely horrible academic snob author and Yale professor Harold Bloom ALWAYS AND INCESSANTLY tends to be with regard to both himself and also concerning anything literature based, and yes, that ALL of the books from Bloom’s pen I have read to date (two in their despised entirety thus far, this here book, How to Read and Why and The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, but I also did try a few horrible Harold Bloom titles at university, but do not actually even remember anything about them, not even their titles, except that I definitely and vehemently hated the author’s, that I totally despised Harold Bloom’s tone of voice and attitude), well, Professor Bloom’s books on literature, they are basically and generally just so massively full of his literary majesty, of Harold Bloom boasting about himself, of somehow considering himself to be the proverbial greatest thing since sliced bread so to speak, that bien sûr, this sure totally does get very tedious and frustrating really and horribly quickly. Therefore, I did not of course expect to in any way enjoy How to Read and Why (and indeed, I also was not at all surprised to encounter everything in How to Read and Why that I tend to always very much despise about Harold Bloom, namely his intense both personal and academic arrogance, his lack of respect for anyone but him, him, him, a huge amount of conservative pedantry and so on and so on).
  
  And honestly, I would thus also NEVER EVER recommend How to Read and Why if you truly wish to learn how to both appreciate and enjoy reading different types of literatures. For aside from Harold Bloom’s pedantic, conservative and male authors as obviously being superior and much more worthy of accolade take on global literature (since yes, there are only about three women authors listed in How to Read and Why), Harold Bloom’s textual arrogance would in my humble opinion far more readily and easily cause especially younger readers just starting out with, just getting ready to delve into literature, to end up with negative, restrictive and disinterested attitudes towards reading (and towards literature in general). For honestly, if I had encountered How to Read and Why as a young adult, when I was first starting to get interested in reading, in perusing the classics of literature both at school/university and also simply for myself, for my own joy and pleasure, both Harold Bloom’s ridiculous pedantic snobbery (completely permeating every part of How to Read and Why) and his much too very one-sidedly male oriented literature samples would very likely not only have turned me off Harold Bloom as an author but might also have negatively affected my attitude towards reading altogether.
• 
  Randi Taylor-Habib

  Harold Bloom is an elitist, a snob, a horrible sexist, and as an Ivy League professor, could care less. He is not here to make friends, he is here to inform us that we are incredibly under read and that we are reading for the wrong reasons.
  
  Once he gets past his ranting in the beginning regarding the politics of education regarding not pursuing excellence, that reading is in no way improving of society as in his mind it is a "selfish act", and spending long dreary moments denouncing feminism in literature, disregarding that most of his readers are not wealthy debutantes of the liberal elite given full ride to Harvard, we finally get to book at hand.
  
  When he finally puts aside his politics we find a glimpse of Bloom's lyric heart. Although like some Southern teenage boy nervous about anyone discovering his femininity he constantly pulls the curtains back over any of his true sentimentalism regarding these his most precious gems, his literary canon.
  
  Bloom and I do not have the same taste in literature, it precisely the types of qualities in individual pieces, political and romantic that he despises that I adore, however when he finally begins to de-construct classics such as Joyce, the Russian novelists, and Shakespeare his brilliance and candour are remarkable. This is what we have paid the price of admission for in reading his sentiments, and having spent an incredibly well educated life disseminating literature his reflections are lovely and inspiring. They are delicate flowers left beside teapots to dry, but they are subtle in their integrity.
  
  The point is you may disagree with Bloom, but this is the sort of literary criticality we need, and are so often deprived of. Each book and author is shared, besides Shakespeare of course, in a few short pages. This is good literary criticality, the sort we do not see often on sites such as this, but which should be read and listened to as it inspires us in how to speak about the hearts of books, and their purpose.
• 
  Allie

  Mega Yale lit. critic Harold Bloom is an intelligent reader with a love for good literature, which I admire. I enjoyed his enjoyment of reading, his philosophy of reading, and message on the importance of solitary reading & reading quality lit., all of which will positively influence the way that I approach reading, and I am very grateful for it. This said, I had just a few issues:
  
  (1) I feel that the book is more of a personal work for him; it's more like "I'm Really Old (69 when this book was published) and Here's What I Think Is the Best Out of What I've Read Along With Some of My Reflections On It, + An Essay On Why I Think You Should Read In General." I.e. it mostly = his commentary on what he considers to be the best literature. It's like his own special anthology, all with insightful but rather aimless annotations. They claim to be united by the purpose of showing us "how to read," but they don't really do that. So I would've felt better had he fulfilled the purpose that he professes with the title & intro.
  
  (2) Given that this is essentially a personal anthology (while proclaiming larger purposes in its intro), it clearly favors Bloom's area of total expertise, which is the Western canon. (He even wrote a book called, The Western Canon. Which I should prolly check out.) Sometimes he'll make big statements such as Best Novel Ever and Best African-American Novel. He always tells us when he has chosen books that are his favorites, but at the same time he kinda blurs "my favorite" with "the absolute best of this author."
  
  Another thing is that he irritatingly & endlessly exalts Shakespeare, who is named & referenced in every chapter multiple times, and other people's stuff had to be described as "Shakespearean," as if Shakespeare invented literature. This book could also in part be "Random Comments About How Shakespeare Is Related To Any Literature You Will Ever Read."
  
  These things aside, I'm glad that I spent time with this book. I will for sure use his list as a guide for future reading.
• 
  Kat

  I don't think Harold Bloom can so much as take a shit without referencing the act to Shakespeare in some way, shape or form.
  
  I understand now that he is a Shakespeare scholar, but prior to picking up this book, I had no idea. I knew him to be a literary critic and scholar and therefore assumed he would be treating the topic of reading and literature to an academic analysis. Really, the book should be titled "How to Read Everything as an Offshoot of Shakespeare." On the general topic of reading he has relatively little to say. The book opens with a short essay on the experience of reading, why one should read, etc. Nice, well-written if exceedingly contained within his position as traditionally educated within Western culture. The great bulk of the book however is a series of essays on various works. Within each, usually, is a sentence or two drawing the individual piece back to his overarching theme - Why read? - but more so he elaborates on why he believes each piece to be vital to Western literature (perfectly acceptable), to be engaging and beautiful (again, expected) and intrinsically related to Shakespeare at its very core (wait, what?). He writes in a kind of code, drawing parallels between characters in the individual works to Shakespearean characters. Rather than elaborating on characteristics of the work and how those specifically enhance one's love of reading or one's ability to read, he has created a Shakespearean shorthand that the reader must decipher before s/he can glean anything beyond the superficial.
  
  A great deal is assumed of the reader. This isn't for the layman who has never studied literature but has read a lot (unless it's a lot of classics). Do not pick this up for a bit of light reading. It can be rewarding, I believe, but is not easily accessible.
  
  I found his section on poetry particularly enjoyable. I do not think I would have continued reading the book if I had not met with that writing at the time that I did. On plays, he shortchanges us. Three are selected as compared to dozens of short stories, poems and novels. What's worse, he expends all his energies on analyzing Hamlet and leaves a few paltry pages for Hedda Gabler and The Importance of Being Earnest. (Even worse, his commentary on Hamlet is immediately unreadable unless you are prepared, as he is, to liken Shakespeare and Hamlet to God, all-knowing and wise. (And no, that is not hyperbole on my part.))
  
  If I had known what I was getting into, I would not have picked up this book. Not because the writing is bad or I am offended by his opinions. On the contrary, I agree with some of his reading and appreciate his assumption of a female reader. (I would not shun a book simply because I do not agree with some of the opinions, anyway.) But I am no Shakespearean scholar. I enjoy Shakespeare greatly, but I do not expect him to inform every aspect of my reading life, and the theme grew tedious rather than enlightening.
• 
  John

  Before getting this book from the library, I had heard of Harold Bloom, but I had never read any of his books. Most of what I'd heard was positive so I was really looking forward to reading How to Read and Why.
  
  But, alas, I was not prepared for Bloom's massive erudition, and his prologue pretty much finished me off. Consider, for example, this sample from page 23 of the Scribner edition, "Value, in literature as in life, has much to do with the idiosyncratic, with the excess by which meaning gets started. It is not accidental that historicists--critics who believe all of us to be overdetermined by societal history--should also regard literary characters as marks upon a page, and nothing more. Hamlet is not even a case history if our thoughts are not at all our own." This, and much else in the prologue, makes no sense to me. I'm confident this is because of my ignorance and view this as a loss on my part. Since much of what he writes makes no sense to me, further reading of the book seems rather pointless, so this is one of the very few books I've started and not completed. If you, reader of this review, can make sense of the quote above, you will perhaps gain much by reading the book.
  
  As for me, never having confronted Shakespeare's King Lear with or without ideological expectations, I must be "cognitively as well as aesthetically defrauded" (pg 23 again). Since I'm now 72 years old, it is unlikely I will ever recover from this tragedy.
  
  I do have one observation based on my reading of the prologue. It seems curious to me that Bloom, who seems to put so much value on having thoughts "at all our own", relies so heavily on the thoughts of others. It's almost as though he wants his readers to be totally aware that he is in line with his heros, Bacon, Johnson, and Emerson. Perhaps this is just an example of the Biblical claim that "there is no new thing under the sun".
  
  
• 
  Steven

  I picked up How to Read and Why because I suddenly felt like reading it. Through a number of close readings from various novels, plays, poems, and short stories, Bloom exalts the pleasures of reading and urges us to listen to what authors have to say in their works—and especially to what they leave out. He is here, as elsewhere, adamantly against ideological reading. He is also here, as elsewhere, a staunch Shakespearian—he never lets an opportunity pass to compare a character to, say, Hamlet or Falstaff. This can get a little repetitive, as can his characterization of just about anything as 'ironical' or not. It doesn't always explain as much as he seems to think it does. The book is also somewhat mismarketed: it is neither a work for those who are only beginning to read literature proper, nor does the work extend all that much beyond Harold Bloom's own how and why to read. I don't mind, though, as I'm sympathetic—his approach is instructive and laudable. Overall, then, this collection is a pleasure to read.
  
  I have seen criticisms of Bloom that suggest that his anti-ideological stance is paradoxical, because it is itself ideological. This makes no sense to me, because ideology is not simply any kind of perspective; which, it is true, we all inescapably have. Ideology is more than that. If I listen to a person speak simply in order to hear them and to try to make sense of what they are telling me—rather than, say, approach a person with ready-made ideas about gender, race, politics, etc. that I expect them to reveal through their words—then I am not taking any kind of ideological stance toward them. I am treating that person simply like a human being who has things to say. Why would it be any different for approaching an author and their work?
• 
  Michael

  101229: more how to read what harold bloom reads. i agree with idea reading is ultimately private, not necessarily socially ameliorative, nor productive of greater mind or heart, but also that it is more that people read that is important rather than set texts must be read. most texts chosen i have read, some with less impact than suggested, some i have not read or remember only vaguely…
  
  i do not read poems much, i value plays in production not text. no surprises, no texts that are not eurocentric or american, no equivocal recommendations, extended draft arguing for centrality of hamlet as the invention of the modern human. i guess other cultures are not human. shakespeare is universal, reading of any sort threatened with extinction by modern technology, shakespeare is universal, reading is under siege from various schools of criticism that have no validity but cant- oh, yes, and shakespeare is universal...
• 
  Pierre Menard

  The safest general characterization of the European philosophical Western literary tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato reproductions of Shakespeare. [Alfred N. Whitehead Harold Bloom?]
  
  Il saggio del decano dei critici letterari statunitensi Harold Bloom poggia su un grosso equivoco legato al titolo, che più correttamente sarebbe dovuto essere Come si leggono questi libri che vi dico io (e perché), con il sottotitolo E se non siete d'accordo, siete dei poveracci.
  
  Nella prefazione Bloom afferma che "leggere bene [...] è il più terapeutico dei piaceri". Difficile essere in disaccordo. Il nostro critico aggiunge poi che la narrativa di finzione serve principalmente ad alleviare la solitudine e contemporaneamente ad affermare l'io e "a coglierne i veri interessi": la lettura, insomma, porterebbe a una sorta di potenziamento dell'io e al disvelamento dell'intima natura umana. Ciò è senz'altro vero, ma penso che non sia l'unico effetto che la letteratura ha sui lettori, e che sia sbagliato ridurre a tale singolo effetto l'intero spettro di opere che fanno parte della letteratura mondiale. Rimango dunque perplesso sulla giustificazione autoreferenziale del lettore che Bloom difende. Rifuggendo da aride teorie, Bloom spiega che ci renderà conto di questa premessa facendo leva sulla sua critica letteraria, "empirica e pragmatica anziché teorica". Poche paginette di introduzione ci portano in men che non si dica a scoprire come ci dobbiamo comportare quando si legge un libro, per coglierne l'essenza. Seguono poi le brevi disamine (massimo una decina di pagine ciascuna) di opere che Bloom ritiene fondamentali, suddivise in sezioni dedicate ai generi: racconto, poesia, romanzo, dramma teatrale.
  
  Se è vero che un buon esempio vale più di mille parole (o di mille teorie) è anche vero che l'esempio deve essere appropriato a ciò che si vuol veicolare proponendolo. Fin dalla prima sezione dedicata al racconto ci si accorge subito che Bloom non è intenzionato a farci da guida nella lettura o a fornirci strumenti di lettura intelligente e generalista, bensì a indicarci in modo cortese ma perentorio quali sono i libri che dobbiamo leggere per poter dire di aver letto o di leggere bene. In effetti il perché leggere un'opera, tolte le paginette del secondo capitolo, si declina sempre in "leggete quest'opera perché è fondamentale leggerla se volete capire la cultura occidentale".
  
  Ogni sezione inizia con un breve excursus sugli autori di quel genere, prosegue con l'esame dei singoli autori, generalmente rappresentati da una o due opere, per chiudere con un ripasso, piuttosto superfluo rispetto all'excursus iniziale. Gli autori citati sono in larghissima parte di lingua anglosassone: lo sono tutti i poeti, 10 su 15 romanzieri, 2 drammaturghi su 3 (diciamo pure tre, visto che Ibsen viene trattato come un epigono di Shakespeare) e gran parte degli autori di racconti. Vien da pensare che i poeti antologizzati siano tutti anglosassoni perché Bloom ritiene che in traduzione una poesia non renda come nella versione originale... ma allora perché non dichiararlo apertamente? Il libro sembra la copia "da battaglia" dell'altro saggio di successo di Bloom,
  Il canone occidentale: I libri e le scuole dell'età, dove più esplicitamente il nostro identifica i 26 autori che bisogna conoscere se uno vuol dichiararsi esperto di letteratura occidentale (diciamo pure letteratura tendenzialmente anglosassone, dato che anche qui 13 autori su 26 sono di lingua inglese).
  
  Il difetto principale del libro resta l'ossessivo riduzionismo. La parte sul racconto è troppo incentrata sulla dicotomia tra Hemingway/Cechov e Borges, come se ogni racconto potesse essere riconducibile soltanto a queste due alternative. A me sembra che esistano altre forme di racconto, ad esempio il racconto psicologico-intimista di Alice Munro o quello incentrato su episodi marginali della quotidianità di Carver, che non vedo immediatamente riconducibili a Hemingway (o a Cechov). Sul fronte opposto Dürrenmatt non mi pare del tutto borgesiano. Al di là di questa insistita dicotomia c'è veramente poco altro nella sezione, se non la malcelata antipatia per lo stile retorico e barocco di Poe: Bloom sembra stimare più l'essenzialità di un Calvino o di un Cechov, se non vogliamo pensare che disprezzi il racconto fantastico o l'horror come generi minori per appassionati. Interessante, ma forse scontata, l'osservazione che il racconto richiede al lettore una più attiva partecipazione immaginativa: il simbolismo in esso contenuto in esso è nascosto e spesso non riusciamo a identificarlo correttamente (né Bloom ci fornisce alcuno strumento utile).
  
  La sezione dedicata alla poesia sembra più interessante. Ho trovato molto istruttiva l'analisi dei componimenti di Robert Browning su Orlando, di Coleridge e di Shelley. Gli esempi di poesia citati sono quasi tutti di argomento funebre. La conclusione di Bloom è che il compito della poesia sia quello di destarci dal nostro sonno di morte e "iniziarci a un senso più ampio della vita". Certo un compito fondamentale, ma non credo sia l'unico.
  
  A parte il racconto, secondo Bloom tutti gli altri generi e tutti gli altri autori discendono in maniera diretta o indiretta da Shakespeare: tutto, dalla caratterizzazione dei personaggi alla scelta di buoni e cattivi, dalle scene ai dialoghi, alle situazioni narrative, è riconducibile ai modelli del Bardo. Alla fine del saggio ci si comincia a convincere che Shakespeare sia riuscito nell'impossibile sfida di influenzare autori vissuti prima di lui: in effetti Bloom legge Cervantes e anche i tragici greci in funzione degli elementi shakesperiani che si ritrovano nelle loro opere. Da Henry James a Jane Austen, da Flaubert a Maupassant, hanno tutti un enorme debito con Shakespeare. Tutti i romanzieri della sezione finale sono riconducibili a Melville, che a sua volta è riconducibile a Shakespeare. Insomma, non c'è scampo! Chissà come le femministe potrebbero interpretare l'affermazione secondo cui Emma Bovary è in realtà una versione femminile di don Chisciotte che a sua volta è una declinazione dei personaggi del Bardo. Più centrata la critica al romanzo stendhaliano
  La Certosa di Parma di cui si descrive molto bene lo spirito romantico. Sono invece rimasto negativamente colpito dalle accuse al povero Dostoevskij, trattato come una sorta di retrivo conservatore, gretto e dalla mentalità chiusa, incapace di spontaneità e specializzato in romanzi a tema... eppure ci ha regalato personaggi che vanno ben oltre la tragedia shakesperiana e che difficilmente si potranno dimenticare (fra l'altro anche DFW se la prendeva con l'autore russo fornendo argomentazioni speciose e anacronistiche in
  Considera l'aragosta). Le pagine dedicate a
  Ritratto di signora mi sono parse un po' banali: Bloom ritorna sempre sul fatto che il lettore si innamora della protagonista, cosa che condivido anch'io (specie se la si immagina con il volto della divina Kidman), ma forse parlare di qualche altro elemento del romanzo non guastava. Anche su Mann e
  La montagna incantata Bloom non dice molto. In Italia Dante è un po' l'equivalente di Shakespeare, tuttavia ho l'impressione che, quando uno dei nostri critici letterari commenta testi e autori anche recenti, non sollevi continuamente la questione "Quanto Dante c'è dentro questo autore?", nemmeno nel caso dei poeti. Quanto Dante c'è in Montale? Quanto in Ungaretti? E quanto in Pontiggia o in Camilleri?
  
  La conclusione è completamente fuori dal seminato. L'aforisma del rabbino Tarphon sul lavoro da completare poteva bastare come semplice epigrafe: invece Bloom azzarda un'esegesi pseudoreligiosa che ne smorza completamente l'effetto e rende la conclusione pressoché inutile nell'economia dell'opera. Più che spiegare al lettore come completare in modo autonomo il lavoro, anche qui Bloom si limita a suggerire di leggere altri libri (genio!) e ad affermare, molto banalmente, che tale lavoro non ha mai fine (e menomale!). Forse sarebbe bastato chiudere con il distico zappiano "So many books, so little time".
  
  Deprecabile il fatto che Bloom usi l'ironia in maniera un po' pesante, minimizzando in modo offensivo le opinioni diverse dalle sue e indulgendo (forse per l'età) a difendere il proprio gusto personale andando oltre valutazioni più serene e equilibrate. Sembra che per lui le posizioni degli altri critici derivino da mode passeggere, mentre le sue da convinzioni ragionate che resisteranno nel tempo (vedi p. 262 per un esempio). Ralph Ellison e Nathaniel West saranno certamente grandissimi autori, e i loro libri molto importanti, tuttavia resta l'interrogativo sul perché nel canone allargato siano stati preferiti a Philip Roth (citato spesso da Bloom) o Don DeLillo, senza contare che di Toni Morrison, che pure compare nel canone, Bloom non ha un'opinione molto positiva.
  
  Di qualche autore comunque mi è venuta voglia di leggere le opere:
  Meridiano di sangue di McCarthy, i poemi di Robert Browning e Shelley,
  Hedda Gabler di Ibsen,
  La montagna incantata di Mann. Le pagine su Cechov mi hanno fatto venire voglia di attaccare i due volumoni Garzanti che occhieggiano sornioni in libreria. Ma del resto, se introduci nella tua libreria un libro, prima o poi devi leggerlo... Tutte le presentazioni sono comunque troppo brevi perché il lettore ne trattenga più che un'impressione, soprattutto con i romanzi, meno con i poemi e i racconti.
  
  Consigliato al Club Amici di Shakespeare.
  
  Sconsigliato a chi cerca di motivarsi alla lettura.
• 
  Anna

  Well, I am sure that Mr. Bloom is a lot smarter and definitely more educated than I am. Sadly that doesn't stop him from being an annoying jerk who thinks he is above everyone else, apparantely.
  
  I am not in the habit of leaving a book half-finished, but in this case I was seriously thinking about it. The style (in the translation, at least, but probably in the original as well) was pompous just for the sake of pompousness (is that even a word...?), and the amount of repetition was simply mind-numbing.
  
  I can manage all of that, don't get me wrong. I can handle pompous writing and repetition, I've done so many times before. It was the whole "it is I, the man who tells you what is the RIGHT kind of literature!" attitude that was a definite turn-off. Shakespeare is God, Poe sucks. Just so you know. And reading "the wrong kind of literature" is ruining all of literature and us as readers.
  
  Well, screw you Mr. Bloom, and your old-fashioned thinking. I am of the opinion that reading even crap (such as this) makes me a better reader, and most importantly, it makes me a reader. I might not be a good reader, but unlike so many others, at least I friggin' try to be one. And unlike so many others, I try not to judge people by the books they read (not that I always manage that), and MOST EFFIN' CERTAINLY I DO NOT TELL ANYONE WHAT IS THE RIGHT KIND OF LITERATURE.
  
  Mr. Bloom, you are an old, annoying prick. Probably a smart prick, but a prick nevertheless.
• 
  MTK

  Σχολαστικό και επηρμένο, ελιτίστικο και σνομπ, κυρίως δε παντελώς άσκοπο. Πρόκειται για μια σειρά μάλλον ασύνδετων κειμένων όπου ο αδιαμφισβήτητων περγαμηνών συγγραφέας σχολιάζει με ύφος αυθεντίας διάφορα κλασσικά έργα, δείχνοντας μια εμμονή να τα συγκρίνει με τον Σέξπιρ. Πρώτον, θα δεχόμουν να μου υποδείξει κάποιος όπως ο Μπλουμ (βλ. περγαμηνές) τι να διαβάσω και πώς να το διαβάσω, ακόμη να μου εξηγήσει γιατί το διαβάζω, αλλά αρνούμαι να μου υπαγορεύουν πως πρέπει να αντιδράσω εγκεφαλικά και συναισθηματικά στην εμπειρία της ανάγνωσης. Παρεμπιπτόντως, γιατί πρέπει να ανάγονται όλα τα γραπτά κείμενα στον Σέξπιρ, ο οποίος ειρήσθω εν παρόδω δεν γράφηκε προς ανάγνωση, αλλά προς ερμηνεία και θέαση;
  
  Τα δύο αστέρια είναι για τις ενίοτε εύστοχες παρατηρήσεις πάνω στα ίδια τα έργα, τουλάχιστον αυτά που έχω διαβάσει, και για την υπόδειξη κάποιων, κυρίως της αμερικανικής λογοτεχνίας, που αγνοούσα την ύπαρξή τους.
• 
  Hamada Mostfa Abdo

  للأسف الشديد فأن المؤلف اخفق للغايه فى هذا الكتاب وهذا من وجهة نظرى للأسباب الأتيه
  
  اولا ... اسم الكتاب هو ( كيف نقرأ ولماذا ) وللأسف فأن مضمون الكتاب جاء مغايرا لهذا الاسم . فعندما يقع نظر الانسان على هذا العنوان لأول مره يذهب تفكيره فى ان المحتوى يتحدث عن القراءة وكيفيتها مثل الاقتناء والتركيز والمقارنه بين الكتاب ومثيله الخ الخ الخ ... ولكن للأسف فأن الكتاب يتضمن نقد ادبى قد كتبه الدكتور هارولد بلوم للعديد من الاعمال الادبيه الغربيه من القصص القصيره الى الروايات الى المسرحيات الى القصائد الشعريه
  وكان من الافضل ان يكون اسم الكتاب ( دراسات نقديه فى الادب الغربى ) او ( اطلاله نقديه على ادب الغرب ) ولكن الاسم الذى صدر به الكتاب ليس له اى علاقه بالمضمون . وهذا فى رأيى اكبر سلبيات الكتاب
  
  ثانيا ... المؤلف يتمتع بقدر عالى من التشاؤم مما اثر على الجو العام للكتاب وظهر هذا بوضوع فى الفصل الخاص بالقصص القصيره
  
  ثالثا ... اسلوب المؤلف اتسم بعدم الوضوح والتشتت فمثلا حينما يقوم بوصف روايه يقوم بذكر معلومات عن المؤلف ثم يكتب فقره عن ملخصها ثم يذكر بعض الاراء النقديه عن الروايه ثم يعود لذكر معلومات عن المؤلف ! وهكذا فأدى هذا الاسلوب الى عدم وضوح افكار الكتاب وبالتالى الى تشتيت القارىء
  
  لهذه الاسباب مجتمعه لم يعجبنى الكتاب ولم يقنعنى
  
  
  كتبت هذا التعليق بعد اطلاعى على الطبعه العربيه من الكتاب المسماه ( كيف نقرأ ولماذا) ... من ترجمة نسيم مجلى وهى الطبعه الأولى وصدرت عن المشروع القومى للترجمة الكتاب رقم 1438 فى عام 2010 ميلاديه
  
• 
  Riah

  This is one of my absolute favorite books. It is a psychological perspective of becoming a bibliophile. Even deeper, though, it explicitly describes how we become connected to a story, a character, a moment. How does reading turn into experiencing? Why does it happen? What do author's do to make sure you love the experience or at least remember it forever? Why do we strive to gain this experience? What characters should we turn to so we can meet that need? These are the questions and answers of the book. READ IT! It's amazing, introspective, dead on, and will provide you with books to read for a lifetime.
• 
  matthew

  i love harold bloom. i just read all his stuff. i had to stop reading this one, though, because, essentially, you have to've read everything that bloom's read to appreciate it, and i'm not quite yet that old. it really should be entitled "how to reread and why", 'cause the book is one ginormous spoiler. he really really really loves shakespeare, too, and he doesn't let ye forget it! i'll come back to it in some years. he's still a great writer.
• 
  عماد العتيلي

  “Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.”
  
  This is one of the most important books I've read this year.
• 
  Gator

  Bloom is a mathematician of literature. He sees things so clearly and makes such beautiful sense of
  It all. An amazing book about books (the Cannon particularly).
• 
  Nelson Zagalo

  Demasiadas coisas más, acabei o livro a bufar, mais ainda depois de um epílogo sobre escritas rabínicas! Opto por justificar esta minha impressão em quatro pontos, o primeiro central, dois menores, e por fim o maior problema deste livro.
  
  Primeiro, este é um livro que não fala absolutamente nada sobre aquilo que o seu título propõe, ou seja, nada é dito sobre o Como, assim como nada é dito sobre o Porquê, de ler, literatura ou outra forma escrita qualquer. Bloom limita-se a mais uma vez, depois de o ter feito n vezes, a listar e dissertar sobre o seu cânone. No final do livro fica a ideia de que Bloom passou toda uma vida a ler literatura, apenas e só, nunca se tendo importado realmente em perceber o ser humano que lê, a sua biologia, a sua psicologia. A filosofia é importante, mas se queremos compreender o processo de leitura, e o porquê da sua importância, não é aí que estão as respostas.
  
  O segundo ponto, menos relevante, é que Bloom defendendo que a literatura deve ser um prazer, faz o favor de dar conta dos conflitos principais nas obras, revelando todas as suas resoluções, e assim destruindo uma das grandes gratificações que se pode retirar da leitura de qualquer narrativa. Ora se o livro diz que procura instigar as pessoas na leitura, isto mais parece uma abordagem de quem está a falar para quem já leu, e se é para quem já leu, acaba por ser um livro sem sentido, já que muito pouco é acrescenta à leitura das obras.
  
  Terceiro, Shakespeare. É uma caraterística académica, isto de trabalharmos tão profundamente uma área, um tema, uma obra, um autor, tanto que depois todo o mundo passa a ser filtrado por aí. É isso que aqui acontece, Bloom revela uma profunda obsessão com a obra de Shakespeare, citando-o num livro tão pequeno mais de 200 vezes. Não conseguindo libertar-se deste, arrisca a dizer que depois deste nada mais de original foi criado na literatura!
  
  Último ponto, o que verdadeiramente me fez perder a vontade de algum dia mais voltar a ler Bloom, tem que ver com o tipo de crítica realizada às obras. Bloom segue a linha de muitos outros académicos estudiosos de artes narrativas, como os dos estudos fílmicos, que �� a de limitar a análise das obras às suas histórias, o que é dito pelo texto, deixando de fora as suas formas, ou seja o como o texto diz. Ora isto não é limitador, é uma autêntica amputação artística, que acaba tendo como efeito principal uma análises estética profundamente deficitária. Não dando conta do contributo artístico do texto, não é possível dar conta da real experiência da obra, a sua estética. Uma pessoa que limite a sua experienciação de uma obra à mensagem passada, à ideia veiculada, e não atenda ao modo como essa ideia é construída, arrisca-se a passar ao lado da arte em si.
  
  Ora isto é tanto mais grave quando se trata de um livro que deveria apontar o "como" e o "porquê" de lermos literatura. Se o "porquê" se limita às histórias, existem histórias por todo o lado, porque razão haveriam as pessoas de investir vidas inteiras na leitura apenas para conhecerem uma história que podem conhecer num filme de duas horas?! Quanto ao "como", Bloom limita-se a listar o seu cânone, e para ele fica explicado o como fazer, basta ler aqueles livros por si indicados. Para além de ser muito pouco, é mesmo contraproducente, acreditar que vamos cativar pessoas para investir na literatura, não fazendo uma pedagogia mínima, não apenas sobre os ganhos efetivos da literatura, mas também sem explicar as complexidades que a leitura de determinadas destas obras contêm, dos requisitos que elas tomam como adquiridos pelo leitor, tudo isto é mau demais.
  
  Fico mais descansado depois de ler a análise de Terry Eagleton no The Guardian, percebendo que não estou sozinho nesta ideia negativa da obra e do autor.
  
  Também em:
  http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...
• 
  Ayesha

  In Literature, the only constant is the solitary act of reading. But even that, Harold Bloom writes, has been deeply mistranslated. The function of solitary reading - be it short stories, plays, poetry, novels - is grossly misunderstood as an appetite for escapism or to provoke the fancies of idealism. What it is, what it could ever be, is a preparation for change, a profound realization of ‘self’.
  
  How To Read And Why offers you a combination of literature’s most whimsical, intelligent, and piercing treasures. The start of the book reclaims and reignites a reader’s lost soul. Harold Bloom evokes wisdom and transcendence in a single breath. His understanding of literature affords you both the solitude and the seductions of reading. The kind that restricts no depth, no essence, and no duration. Some familiar, some strange. But all passionate and necessary to nurture the resilience of one’s life and the role of literature in it.
  
  To read means to elevate the stirrings of a self. To read means to decipher and deconstruct one’s emotional and intellectual solitudes. The absoluteness of the universe that represents the ambiguity of those who are part of it.
  
  Harold Bloom intimates the genius and generosity of those we rarely mull over in our daily chaos and calm. Shakespeare, Chekov, Turgenev, Flannery O’Connor, Hemingway, Nabokov, Whitman, Proust, Bronte, Dickens, Henry James, and so many others. He shines a penetrating light into the many labyrinths and recesses of literature. The lessons, the epiphanies, the ethos of life and death.
  
  “There are still solitary readers, young and old, everywhere, even in the universities. If there is a function of criticism at the present time, it must be to address itself to the solitary reader, who reads for herself, and not for the interests that supposedly transcend the self.”
  
  To read this book is to celebrate more consciously the pleasure of reading. Harold Bloom gives all readers an assignment which is to read deeply, attentively, and solitarily. And what’s in this book is an elaborate catalog of books you can buy right away and start reading.
  
  Anton Chekov, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Shakespeare, Calvino, Walt Whitman, Jane Austen, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Henry James, Cervantes. There are so many thoughtful and passionate book recommendations in this - you need not go elsewhere.
  
  In the introduction, Bloom writes that “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you because it is the most healing of pleasures.” And when asked “Why Read?” he answers by saying that “One of the uses of reading is to prepare ourselves for change, and the final change alas is universal.”
  
  And lastly, he bridges the gap between the assertion of the self to that of reading well with this very thought-provoking sentence:
  When “reading falls apart, much of the self scatters with it.”
  
  This brings you closer to that Reader’s Sublime which is the most and only secular transcendence a reader can ever attain. Bloom urges us to find what truly comes near to us, that can be used for weighing and considering. To read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.
  
  Think of the book recommendations as multiple literary landing places that you need to arrive at. And Harold Bloom’s writing is the compass that points you and guides you through your journeys.
  
  Now I haven’t even come close to reading all the books that Harold Bloom writes about. And yet even now, after reading this book through, I keep going back to these essays and re-reading them. Sort of imprinting them in my mind because of the way they’ve been put across. So insightful, vivid, and artistically-powerful. I have never read a book like this.
• 
  Michael

  “Because, for me, the question of how to read always leads on to the motives and uses for reading, I shall never separate the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of this book’s subject.”
  
  Harold Bloom is the great teacher of literature that I never had; but then of course I do have his books. His publication of “The Western Canon” coincided with my personal desire to find a way in the world of literature. I remember that the discussions in the book of the specific authors that Bloom considered central to the Western tradition were difficult for me to follow at the time, as my reading experience only encompassed less than half of them. However, the sense of excitement in his discussions of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Joyce, Proust, Mann, Beckett, Borges, and so many others, amplified my own enthusiasm to read more and deeper. The appendix, which provided a list of thousands of books through the ages became for me a foundation and starting point for exploring literature.
  
  The smaller volume “How to Read and Why” was published some time later, and to me it felt like a further appendix to “The Western Canon.” In the former work, Bloom looked at some of the greatest authors of Western culture and showed how one followed from the other, and how successive generations of authors have influenced each other. In this later volume, he looks at the different forms of literature – the short story, poetry, the novel and the play – and within each section he explores a number of authors that he sees as eminent and original.
  
  Rather than providing answers to the questions of the book’s title – the “How to” and the “Why” of reading – Bloom appears to say that these questions are for each reader to answer. In discussing the various authors in this book, Bloom often returns to the “Why”/”How to” like a refrain or mantra. “Why” we read, and “How to” read, are the central questions any reader asks him- or herself in relation to any book. Bloom provides his answers, but the answers in the end must to a large extent be personal and relative to the specific story, poem or play.
  
  Great teachers become what they teach, and what they teach become them. This is my experience. The great teachers that I have had the privilege to experience taught me to ask questions, rather than provide answers. They also in a sense taught “themselves.” I would consider Bloom one of my teachers (in absentia), as his books have infected me with the ambition to read more, and read wider and deeper, than I would probably otherwise have done.
  
  In the end, what Bloom then offers here amounts to an opportunity for us to read along with him for a few hours. We read some of the works that have mattered to him in his reading life, and along with Bloom we ask those eternal questions, and we of course hear his answers. For me personally, there need be no greater reason to read this book, because to me the prospect of reading great books along with Bloom is a wonderful proposition.
• 
  pierlapo quimby

  Breve test di controllo sulla assimilazione degli argomenti dibattuti nel volume.
  
  Se alla fine del libro:
  
  ipotesi a)
  brucerete la vostra biblioteca per non correre il rischio di contaminare l'opera completa di Shakespeare da pericolosi influssi pre-shakespeariani, post-shakespeariani o (orrore!) anti-shakespeariani,
  ovvero,
  avvierete le pratiche per la modifica del vostro nome o cognome (fa lo stesso) in Shakespeare,
  ovvero,
  ucciderete, stuprerete, mutilerete nel nome di Shakespeare,
  il libro avrà raggiunto i propri subdoli scopi;
  
  ipotesi b)
  andrete a rileggervi Lo strano caso del dottor Jekyll e del signor Hyde,
  sarete salvi.
• 
  Mark

  Well, to be blunt to begin, Bloom is a snob when it comes to what is worth reading, and when it comes to the works I've read that he discusses, I disagree with his interpretations on at least half of them. But who wants to only read things that agree with what they already think? I may differ with him quite a bit, but Bloom is passionate about his reading. There are more than a few of his opinions that made me look at a work differently. My opinion may not have been his, but the act of reassessing opinions is something that I can thank him for. Recommended, provisionally.
• 
  superawesomekt

  Yes,
  Harold Bloom is pretentious. But I just love sitting at his feet (figuratively) for lectures on literature. If you like reading the classics and enjoy reading essays about them, then this is for you. I haven't read his
  Western Canon yet but I think he tried to make this not very redundant with that work (and it's a much more manageable size). He has evangelized several works that, while already on my reading list, I'm now actually looking forward to reading (
  Paradise Lost,
  Don Quixote,
  Chekhov short stories,
  Hedda Gabler,
  Blood Meridian).
  
  Bloom has also reminded me of the best things I gain from reading and persuaded me to re-read more (again).
  
  I did skip a few sections where I did not want spoilers, but some I read anyway. (Spoilers there are quite a few.)
  
  Favorite sections included his essays on
  Jane Austen (
  Emma) and
  Oscar Wilde (
  The Importance of Being Earnest). I felt very validated that he loves the latter so much and considers its compatriots to be
  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and
  The Pirates of Penzance, as
  Carroll and
  Gilbert and Sullivan were huge cultural influences in my family of origin—all culminating in a sincere love of Earnest.
  
  I felt very validated that he can't abide
  Poe (Ahem. no accounting for tastes...) and he has persuaded me to give
  Emily Dickinson,
  Keats, and
  Shelley all another go.
  
  A wonderful exploration of literature. Only recommended to those who enjoy and/or aspire to read fusty old books ;-)
• 
  Ana

  Despite its flaws, I loved this book.
  
  The first flaw, in my view, is the title: it would have been more accurate if the author had chosen What to read and why instead of How to read and why. The book is mainly about why one should read this or that short story, novel, poem or play, although we can find something on the hows, as on page 187:
  
  “How to read a novel? Lovingly, if it shows itself capable of accommodating one’s love; and jealously, because it can become the image of one’s limitations in time and space, and yet can give the Proustian blessing of more life.
  
  The second flaw, has to do, of course, with the selection of works, which is mainly the traditional Western canon. However, knowing the author, I knew what I was going to find and I don’t regret it. Bloom’s erudition and most of all his love of literature come through each page of this book, even when he writes about a book I’ve read and did not like (and will not change my mind about).
  
  Even when he is a bit snobbish, I found myself amused, rather than annoyed. And he can also be funny: The way we read now partly depends upon our distance, inner or outer, from the universities, where reading is scarcely taught as a pleasure, in any of the deeper senses of the aesthetics of pleasure. This is all the more funny as Bloom was a university professor himself.
  
  Finally, I even found useful advice for myself: Do not attempt to improve your neighbour or your neighbourhood by what or how you read. Self-improvement is a large enough project for your mind and spirit (...) :D