Harold Bloom and SF

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Harold Bloom and SF

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1RandyStafford
Ott 15, 2019, 5:27 pm

Has anybody read any of Harold Bloom's lit crit books on sf? Is his criticism worth reading?

2rshart3
Ott 16, 2019, 10:58 pm

I haven't read his criticism of SF (I didn't know he had done any) but I've found his writing pompous, overbearing, and too obsessed with the Canon. A year ago I decided to try working through his book Genius: a mosaic of one hundred exemplary creative minds, but found it heavy going. It's arranged in a strange Kabbalistic order, and not only did I find it overbearing, I also sometimes had trouble understanding just what he was trying to say about the person. I've been stalled for many months now, but I still hope to read a bit more, selectively, as a way to learn more about some of the subjects. It's hard to imagine him being very simpatico with SF.

3anglemark
Ott 17, 2019, 3:01 am

"Le Guin is the overwhelming instance of a superbly imaginative creator and major stylist"

" I have written extensively about everything so far mentioned, and desire to recommend strongly a fantasy novel much too little known, though it was first published a quarter century ago, John Crowley's Little, Big (1981). I have read and reread Little, Big at least a dozen times, and always am startled and refreshed. It seems to me the best book of its kind since Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass."

4Cecrow
Ott 17, 2019, 7:26 am

>3 anglemark:, that was the quote that got me reading Little, Big. Stylish, definitely.

5rshart3
Ott 17, 2019, 10:36 am

Good to see a better side of Bloom -- and those are two of the best choices.

6stellarexplorer
Ott 17, 2019, 11:22 am

>2 rshart3: But on the other hand, if you happen to want to read about the Canon, he’s your guy!

7rshart3
Ott 17, 2019, 9:53 pm

>6 stellarexplorer:
I don't have any problem with the canon at all -- it's the canon for a reason, and important. But his awestruck, worshipful attitude, persistently expressed, gets suffocating after a while. One can be told that Shakespeare is god so many times, in so many different ways, that it gets old.

8stellarexplorer
Modificato: Ott 17, 2019, 10:37 pm

>7 rshart3: Maybe I should have added a smile emoji. I get what you’re saying. I just take him for what I like and ignore the rest. He was a character.

9justifiedsinner
Ott 18, 2019, 11:17 am

>7 rshart3: Anyone tired of hearing Shakespeare as being godlike should watch the TV series Upstart Crow. A useful antidote.

10elenchus
Ott 18, 2019, 12:22 pm

>3 anglemark:

I didn't know of those quotes, and frankly am surprised Bloom published those. And I agree wholeheartedly with both recs, especially the Crowley. That said, I came to those authors without reading Bloom's recommendations, and so don't think he's the best avenue for learning about SF / F works that are unknown to me.

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