How to Read and Why-A Book Review and Some Thoughts

"Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you, because it is, at least in my experience, the most healing of all pleasures. It returns you to otherness, whether in yourself or in friends, or in those who may become friends. Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness. We read 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."   Harold Bloom

    Harold Bloom needs no introduction unless you are like me and have been either living under a rock or teaching science all day to middle and high schoolers. Harold Bloom has been called many things, but we will limit them to the nice things. He has been called and is thought by most to be,  "THE literary critic of our time". He has been called the, "world's most valuable literary critic". He has written over 23+ volumes of literary criticism and has written specific literary criticism for most of the authors who wrote most anything of note during the last two centuries. He is thought by many to be the number one, living authority on Shakespeare, this is a very important one if you dare to read this book. I did not know any of this before I read this book. I read a book about Flannery O'Connor written by Harold Bloom, but I didn't take notice of that.

    This book is really good, but it is very tedious. He divides all of literature into four (4) main categories:

                    1. Short Stories
                    2. Poetry
                    3. Novels
                    4. Plays

The item that makes this book tedious is that Harold Bloom's measuring stick for every piece of written work by any author since the 1600's is that of Shakespeare. To Mr. Bloom, there is no higher standard or more talented artist. In Mr. Bloom's eyes, Shakespeare created or improved most every genre or topic that is written upon. (He once wrote a book titled, Shakespeare: The Inventor of the Human) To be honest, I have only read two Shakespeare works. Several years ago, I tried to read more of them, but just couldn't seem to do it. I know what this makes me and I have come to terms with that. So, maybe if you are well-acquainted with Bill Shakespeare then the tediousness of this book would disappear, but for me it remained.

  However, with the negative things said, there are many, many good things about this book. Even though, Mr. Bloom writes that this shouldn't be used as a list of "what to read", it could very well be. The authors that he uses to prove his points are the authors who defined literature as we know it; it could really be a, "Who's Who" list if you needed it to be.

   Another great thing about this book, is that Mr. Bloom highlights that like most things that are worth anything, reading and writing are costly and have to be worked at and are hard. He is not saying that all things written and published can be categorized as "good writing", but only a select few authors and even a fewer number of what they have written. I am sure if Mr. Bloom were to write a sequel about modern literature, the volume would be very slim. His standard of Shakespeare would be far too high for most of what is published today. As an amateur writer, I would hate to think about what Mr. Bloom would say about the small volume of work I have produced. I think I know what he would say.

    I liked that Mr. Bloom thinks that reading and writing are hard. Yes, there are many books that read easily and there are times when writing comes easy, but more times than not, there are books that I have read that I have had to wade through and even then, it was not till the third, fourth, even fifth read until I saw what true joy there was to be found within the pages that I had read. There have also been and are numerous stories that either took me a year or more to finish or are still waiting to be finished. Mr. Bloom thinks this is as it should be. Real art takes work. Reading and writing both require what Mr. Bloom calls, "implicit discipline." I hope one day to accomplish a piece of real art.


  My favorite thing about this book is that Mr. Bloom highlights five (5) points of why we as humans must read and how we should do so. Each of these points does not try to separate the "how" and "why" because to Mr. Bloom they are the same. I have done my best to follow these five points in the books I have read since I finished this book. I will not try to fully explain the points. Mr. Bloom does a much better job doing that than I could ever do and all you would really have to do is read the Prologue. Here are the five (5) points:

    1. One of the uses of reading is to prepare us for change, and the final change is universal. We read to strengthen ourselves, and to learn its authentic interests.

              "Read not to contradict and confute, nor believe and take for granted, nor find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."  Sir Francis Bacon

    2.    While reading or before reading we must clear our minds of cant. We must rid ourselves of all that is known or represented as being politically correct. Mr. Bloom refers to this as "academic cant". Mr. Bloom points to that fact that over the last several decades we have become so engrossed in the author's life, habits, bias, etc that we forget to read that author's written piece as a work of art that has forever changed or added to the whole of literature.


   3. Do not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how we read. This could be a post or even a book by itself. It seems that most of certain circles in the world read and write only for this and to this end. And as Mr. Bloom says so well, "self-improvement is a large enough project for the mind and spirit", by itself.


  4. A scholar is a candle which love and desire of all men will light. I admit this sounds not just a little strange, but very, but looked at just a little deeper, it makes perfect sense. This point has much to do with the last. A scholar is one who has become or is trying to become an "authentic reader". ( A term that is quickly becoming something I am trying to become. I am trying to move away from my claim as a fully amateur reader...Sorry J.D. Salinger. Maybe I could become an authentically amateur reader.) Anyway, this point can be thought of like this: as an authentic reader betters himself through good reading, then in turn he betters society because societies are shaped by individuals, not by movements. (I know many will disagree, but every movement has a leader.)


 5. One must be an inventor to read well. This point leads us to what Mr. Bloom and R.W. Emerson refer to as "creative reading." This is where the reader becomes lost in the book only to find the author, and more importantly, the author's voice. And when the reader is able to find the author's true voice, not the voice of his teacher, his social norms, the voice of political connectedness, then he in turn will find his own. And if thought about, this may be the most important one. In an age defined by egocentricism and GPS devices, do we not hear far too often that no one feels that they have a voice and that they feel so very lost? Is this because we have forgotten where to look or even how to go about doing so? And Mr. Bloom believes, like Emerson, that this will make the reader develop what they call "self-trust" and this development leads to the a, "Second Birth of mind, which cannot come without years of deep reading...".


 As you can see, this book is a work of the highest level of thought. It took me two months to weed through it. I am glad my school's library lets teachers escape those pesky late fees. I would need a third job. I will honestly say that I still haven't truly finished it. I didn't make it through the plays and I may not. Mel is teaching me that. I am a slow learner. I am also continuing to learn that books aren't always easy or fun. They are hard. They are tedious. They are rewarding.

  Trying to learn to become an "authentic reader",
      David

"Literature is a form of the good." -Harold Bloom