HOW TO READ AND WHY, BY HOWARD BLOOM

I’m a conflicted, neurotic reader. Some books just bother me and I don’t know why, and I’m afraid I love the books I do for all the wrong reasons. So I figured I’d get a book about reading. Seems like it’s mostly Bloom idolizing his literary pantheon, most of which I’ve never heard of, nevermind read, but maybe I’ll get something out of it. Andy says it could be useful for me, which I take to mean it could be suited for those who, like me, need a few explosions (or pictures of explosions) every ten pages.

Done (a while ago)

Alas, a book of marginal utility to me. Well, that’s a lie. It tought me that I will probably never comprehend “serious” literature because doing so clearly takes way too much work. I should probably just come to terms witht he fact that I read primarily for escapism and that any other benefits are purely incidental. Yes, I am willfully dumb. I thought it was sort of interesting that Bloom always seems to assume that authors have some intent, that they write specifically for purposes of which they are wholly conscious, and that readers should be trying to crack the puzzles in the text, or at least consider the puzzles intentionally left unsolved. I guess I would like to believe that, but I never feel like that’s a safe assumption with non-genre fiction. WYSIWYG vs. WYSI? literature.

Further Reading

• Turgenov, Sketches from a Hunter’s Album – seemed to have cool nature themes
• Calvino, Invisible Cities, probably he source/inspiration for Gaiman’s Marco Polo Sandman story, “Soft Places”