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Harold Bloom Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#81

Post by coldtea »

mannykannot wrote: post #40
coldtea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, hitting on women (for men), hitting on men (for women), drinking, taking drugs, being tightwad, being lavish, being easily angered, and tons of other things, never stopped anybody from being a giant of letters or the arts, a great politician, a good scientist, a great athlete, a great actor, a great humanitarian, a great businessperson or any other thing... In fact it's probably more common in the great men and…

I see that you are employing the rhetorical device of diluting rather serious allegations by putting them in a list that also contains things of no importance, but nevertheless, I am in favor of judging a person's contributions independently from their personal attributes. I will not, however, accept that the contributions either justify or excuse harmful behavior.

>I see that you are employing the rhetorical device of diluting rather serious allegations by putting them in a list that also contains things of no importance,

Let me add somethings of importance then: one can be thief and/or murderer (like e.g. Caravaggio, François Villon, Burroughs, Jean Genet, Cellini, etc.) and still be a great writer, poet, painter, sculptor, etc.

>I will not, however, accept that the contributions either justify or excuse harmful behavior.

Could be the worse, the harmful behavior could inform the contributions.

Good people can still make great art (Bach for one), but they don't make great art of the kind bad people make, nor do they have the same access as bad people to express those impulses and that side of humanity.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#82

Post by coldtea »

LeonB wrote: post #61
supernova87a wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible that extreme greatness in certain talents comes with unavoidable flaws in others? Creativity, depression, wit, temper, outbursts, humor, affection. Would banishing some also eliminate the others? Lots of amazing writers, poets, scientists, are terribly flawed, depressed, tortured souls. Hell, even we here on HN debate every day the ridiculous company founders and VCs whose behavior creates interesting…

People in power are the only ones who have opportunities to abuse power. People who are given power and abuse that power should have that power taken away from them. There’s plenty of other people who will fill their role.

And what if they people who "are given power and abuse that power" are still by far the best for the role?

One can imagine a politician who is a thief for example, stealing public money or who uses the state to harm his personal enemies, but is still a genius of public policy, great for steering the economy, a great leader at war, and so on. In the end, the amount of money they stole e.g. (in the case of the embezzler) is insignificant compared to the good he hid for the country as a leader.

You'd replace them with some "good person" if said good person's weren't as good?

And here's the catch, history accounts are filled with such people.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#83

Post by [deleted] »

oska wrote: post #77
whiddershins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do as you like, but for me it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead. I, personally, really don’t enjoy reading about people using someone’s death or funeral as a platform for maligning their life, regardless of the accuracy and poignancy of the claims. Would you bring up this discussion in front of a grieving family member? Do you think it impossible someone already in pain might read what is sai…

> it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead I take somewhat the opposite view: once someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle. Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon , which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the…

[deleted]

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#84

Post by kieckerjan »

pixelmonkey wrote: post #58

I wrote an essay about Bloom’s conception of “the Canon” back in 2003. Was probably my favorite essay I published publicly from that period. I still go back to it from time to time, thinking especially about Bloom’s concept of “The Anxiety of Influence”. The thread I weave starts from a piece by Walker Percy, entitled “The Loss of the Creature”. That one is somewhat esoteric and underrated, but beautifully describes…

Completely tangental, but nevertheless. Your quote of Percy brought back a memory.

Almost thirty years ago I was in Avignon. It was scorchingly hot, with temperatures reaching into the 40 degrees Celsius range. My girlfriend and I sought refuge against the heat in the neighbouring village of Villeneuve-Les-Avignon. There was going to be a festival of old music there in the remains of an old fortress that evening. We could hear someone practicing a piece on the cello.

No-one cared to guard the entrace in this impossible heat. We trespassed into the ruins and located an old tower where the music was coming from. There was actually no door and we snuck up the staircase until we were right next to a room where someone was playing a beautiful piece, flawlessly. We sat there on the stairs for fifteen minutes, transfixed by the music. We knew enough about music to know that it was late baroque, definitely not Bach, possibly French, but we never dared to expose ourselves and ask. It was a transcendental experience.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#85

Post by ncmncm »

oska wrote: post #77
whiddershins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do as you like, but for me it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead. I, personally, really don’t enjoy reading about people using someone’s death or funeral as a platform for maligning their life, regardless of the accuracy and poignancy of the claims. Would you bring up this discussion in front of a grieving family member? Do you think it impossible someone already in pain might read what is sai…

> it is a decent heuristic to not speak ill of the dead I take somewhat the opposite view: once someone is dead they can no longer be hurt by anything bad said about them. Defamation law also follows the same principle. Not that I want to speak ill of Harold Bloom. I only knew him through reading The Western Canon , which I found a very rewarding read, and for his disdain for the Harry Potter mania, where I felt the…

The law favors the idea that the dead are beyond harm.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#86

Post by soulofmischief »

tzs wrote: post #36
dlivingston wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Bloom's accuser, > In 2004, Wolf wrote an article for New York magazine accusing literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" more than two decades earlier by touching her thigh. She said that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, and she did not think herself a "victim", but that she had harbored this secret for 21 years. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org…

For those who have never heard of "sexual encroachment" and are wondering how it differs from "sexual harassment", Wikipedia covers it [1]. Briefly, she did not feel harassed or traumatized or victimized by it, but rather that her education was corrupted. She says: "Sexual encroachment in an educational context or a workplace is, most seriously, a corruption of meritocracy; it is in this sense parallel to bribery. I…

When you hear a phrase like "sexual encroachment", you may prepare yourself for a modern pseudo-feminist spiel about how any kind of unwanted physical contact is sexual assault, but Wolf's explanation of her use of the phrase and her emphasis on its distinctions while maintaining its corrupt nature is spot on and very appreciated.

A couple weeks ago my neighbor was drunk and kept trying to make physical contact with me, grabbing my hand, hugging, touching me, despite me incessantly asking her to stop. I didn't feel victimized or assaulted (I have actually been sexually assaulted by another male and it is different), but I was still at a loss for words to explain to her the severity of her actions and how different it would be if our genders were reversed. Sexual encroachment is probably a good phrase for it.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#87

Post by saberience »

Sure it's sad when anyone dies but I never agreed with Bloom's view of literature. He was unbearably snobby about his tastes and thought anything popular was shit and the coming of the end of literature. See his thoughts on Harry Potter, Stephen King, Tolkien, etc. Basically he was living in the past.

He was also incredibly biased towards English language books and had barely read any Eastern or African literature. Not to mention his general bias against anything written in the last 20 years, I seem to remember him saying that there were only three authors in the last 20 years who wrote a good book...

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#89

Post by saberience »

briga wrote: post #65

There are few people who've read so widely and deeply as Harold Bloom. For all his idiosyncrasies as a critic and for whatever personal flaws he might have had, he inspired a generation of readers to read more and explore the classics of Western civilization. His books are valuable guides to the vast world of Western literature, and if they help preserve even a fraction of that heritage for the next generation of rea…

He only read deeply or widely when it came to the "classics" of Western Literature. He was incredibly biased towards Western literature and especially English language literature. He had an irrational hatred for anything that became "popular" such as Harry Potter, Tolkien, or Stephen King. He couldn't handle novels which (in his opinion) weren't difficult or erudite that the "average" person could understand easily.

Re: Harold Bloom Has Died

#90

Post by firasd »

saberience wrote: post #89
briga wrote: post #65

There are few people who've read so widely and deeply as Harold Bloom. For all his idiosyncrasies as a critic and for whatever personal flaws he might have had, he inspired a generation of readers to read more and explore the classics of Western civilization. His books are valuable guides to the vast world of Western literature, and if they help preserve even a fraction of that heritage for the next generation of rea…

He only read deeply or widely when it came to the "classics" of Western Literature. He was incredibly biased towards Western literature and especially English language literature. He had an irrational hatred for anything that became "popular" such as Harry Potter, Tolkien, or Stephen King. He couldn't handle novels which (in his opinion) weren't difficult or erudite that the "average" person could understand easily.

My favorite commentary from him is on 'Frankenstein' which is not a difficult read. In fact he wrote about several 20th century books like 'Catch-22' and 'Death of a Salesman'. But yes I don't think he analyzed John Grisham etc if that's what you mean.
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