How to Read and Why [Paperback]

Forget the didactic title. This is a highly entertaining guide to many of the highlights of Western literature by one of the most widely read and engaging of contemporary literary critics.

The book is divided into sections on the short story, poetry, drama and the novel. Of these, the first is particularly illuminating with Bloom outlining the two main strands of short story in the twentieth century (Chekhovian and Borgesian) with trademark zest and flair. It had me running back to compare writers as diverse as Turgenev, Hemingway and Calvino. The section on poetry is also highly interesting and reinvigorated my enthusiasm for Romantic poetry.

If it has a flaw, it's that the section on novels is rather weaker than the first two: the analysis of Great Expectations in particular is rather bland and unrevealing and lacks Bloom's enthusiastic, personal insight which makes his work so readable.

Things pick up in the drama section with intriguing notes on Ibsen and especially Oscar Wilde who remains one of Bloom's favourites.

All in all, well worth a look.

Most bibliophiles will pick up this exegesis from the renowned literary critic, Harold Bloom, simply on the inherent challenge in the title. For those of us who profess as much a desire and self-improving drive through the written word as Bloom does then this book will either confirm our own decisive belief in how to read and the reasons why we do it, or irritatingly deny and confound them. In some respects it can be seen as a marker, an attempt for the avid reader to classify how we should read the great texts and confirm to ourselves that `yes, we do understand them'. What Bloom, therefore, must hold himself up to, by publishing his theory, is whether his own form of literature accurately describes how the populace should read any great literary work. By the end I found it ended up with an answer to a rather different question.
Without going through the entire text there are three sections that leap out: Short stories, Novels Part I and Poetry.
Bloom opens his critical work with short story specialists. His own work reflects the genre, with short one-two pages discussions on each, their salient work(s) and the contribution to the art form. We move from Turganev and Chekov to Maupassant and Hemingway, touching through Nabokov, Borges and Calvino, all the while relating them back to Bloom's idolised literary figurehead, Shakespeare. Of particular interest is the note on Landolfi, highlighting as it does a great work, inspired by another great author, Gogol, that parodies its inspiration. Indeed, the entire concept of `Gogol's wife' takes the real and criticizes it with the absurd, yet an oddly perceptive absurd that echoes Ionesco.
In Bloom's section on poetry he is forced to follow the well-trodden path that any literary critic must do with this format: quote large tracts of various poems in order to get his meaning across, in sharp contrast to those sections ion the short story and novel. He does acknowledge this when he realises that each single word in a poem comprises far more imagery and emotion than is worth explaining or describing. Whereas the novel dictates the scene precisely, the poem offers a tantalisingly liminal nudge to the senses that the reader can allow to bloom in their own mind. As such, the section on poetry becomes more a classification of which of the great poets are in each poetical sub-genre. More a reason on why to read these poets, than how to read them. The section itself deals with Dickinson, Coleridge, Blake, Browning, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and the inevitable Shakespearian sonnets, amongst many others. The most interesting detail is perhaps on the Ballard of Sir Patrick Spence with its "tragic comedy almost unique in its stoic heroism", the most exhilarating the seventeenth century ballard, `Tom O'Bedlam'
Bloom's section on the novels (in two parts) opens with Cervantes' `Don'Quixote' which he professes the greatest of all novels, swiftly moving onto the incomparable Austen who's novels rely so much on society but never a justification for them and Dickens, picking firstly, Emma, then Great Expectations as their benchmarks. There is an interesting comparison between the first and revised versions of James' `Portrait' which serves to emphasize the growth of the author's vast (as Bloom would have us believe) consciousness.
So, by the end we don't feel that Bloom has given us satisfactory explanation of `how' to read and `why', more that his precis of what he considers the greatest of our literary artists suggests why we must read them specifically and (in an even more limited attempt) some pointers as to how to read them. For example,
his explanation of Shakespearian vernacular does attempt to satisfy the `how to read' as it imparts different and more clear meaning to the poetry . By the end, we are left not with an answer to his titular concept, but a rather disparate reason for our `motives' to read, best given in his summation on poetry:
"Poetry...does...startle us out of our sleep-of-death into a more capricious sense of life. There is no better motive for reading...."

How to Read and Why is an excellent and interesting book about literature, but the contents have relatively little to do with the title. As I always do when the title is misleading, I rated the book down one star. If the book had a more accurate title (something like How I Enjoy Literature), I would have happily rated the book with five stars.

On the other hand, I am indebted to the title because I might not have read the book otherwise. Because of that benefit, I was tempted to revise my rating to five stars. But I felt a need to be consistent in my grading that may be "the hobgoblin of little minds."

Having avoided all literature classes after high school but having much enjoyed the great literature I have read, I was interested in a book that would expand my ability to perceive and benefit from fine literature. What I found was useful in that regard, but less so than a fuller treatment might have been. Let me explain what is in the book, and then go on to what is not.

This book is organized into five major parts: Short Stories; Poems; Novels, Part I; Plays; and Novels, Part II. The format for each is an introduction about Professor Bloom's choice of literature to consider, then a series of short sections that analyze a few passages from each work, followed by a summary that puts the works into themes and connects those themes to the benefits that a reader may seek.

The major exception is the poetry section which does provide readers with guidance on how to read: On first reading, use an annotated guide to explain the words and the allusions (what I assume he means by mediation); read aloud; reread; memorize; and recite aloud when the poetry strikes you as relevant to the situation or the moment. I suspect that more than poetry would benefit from this approach. Ulysses is a case in point.

In the preface, he encourages us to embrace literature directly in other cases. He is very concerned that the philososphy of the day may divert our attention from the subjective lessons otherwise from within ourselves. He often repeats that written words are more than marks on paper, that the feelings evoked are more important than the things described, and that literature creates the possibility of expanding our ability to communicate and to appreciate. He seems to be a bit discouraged about trends in readership, citing concerns about whether good novels will be able to sustain the necessary audience to support their continuance.

What I found most beneficial about the book were his descriptions of works that I had not read before. I considered it a great treat to learn his views about what he enjoys and why, among all of the vast amounts of literature that he must have read. From this, I was able to locate literary works that I would like to explore. So think of this aspect of the book as being like an outstanding Amazon.com reader review. Except, of course, he has vastly more knowledge and skill at this than do any reviewers I have read on-line.

The second most beneficial part of the book was his creation of themes in literature, as he perceives them. While one may or may not agree with those themes (they are very simple), they certainly do add another element to consider when one reads a given work.

On the works themselves, you may (if you are like me) disagree with his reading in a particular case. That's perfectly fine with him. In fact, reading his interpretations of a passage after developing my own created a sort of mental dialogue between us that I found interesting. If I ever meet Professor Bloom, we would have a great deal to discuss in an enjoyable fashion. In fact, given that this is a popular book, I suggest you read it in part because you can then use it as a Rosetta Stone of sorts to compare your views with others who have also read it. That would be much more enjoyable than most of what people who have just met discuss at cocktail parties.

As Professor Bloom points out, a common theme in literature is the inability of people to communicate to one another . . . because they do not listen.

I have two primary regrets about this book (other than wishing he had included more of his favorite works). One, that Professor Bloom did not personalize the book more. He might have explained how his life's decisions and actions were affected by literature in critical instances. Two, that Professor Bloom ignored other forms of writing such as essays and nonfiction books. I assume he reads both, and I wish to know what he likes and why. In other words, I would wish to know Professor Bloom better through his book. I was attracted to the parts of his personality I became acquainted with and would have liked to have continued the conversation in my mind.

Enjoy this book, be enhanced by remembering the works he describes that you like, and delight in, the works that you will read because you learned more about them here!