Bloom was my guide to reading the great authors in prose and poetry.

Bloom was a GIANT. I love him and the many gifts he left us.

i loved his pretentious ass! i had a prof once who told me he produced so many books because he had a disabled son who required round the clock care.
i don’t know if he fancied himself samuel johnson or william hazlitt, but reading him led me to pick up and consider other literary critics like northrop frye. i miss those charlie rose interviews.

I've been reading and enjoying Bloom for almost 50 years.  I've read a lot of books that I may never have looked at if not for him.  I think of him as a well read bookman not some kind of a demi-god.  A character for sure but pleasant company.

very interesting. thank you.

His memory was significant and inspirational.

Bloom was an intellectual giant.  Thanks for this post.

I heard a lot of snide remarks about Bloom from my college professors, but I think they were just jealous .  " The Book of J " is marvellous .  Also, his collections of other critical writers on different authors are priceless, I got like 100 of those in hardback for free that the school library was throwing away .  I have a lot of his books and would not throw any away .

The only Bloom book I've read is The Western Canon which I have an old mass market paperback copy of. And I vaguely remembered his interview with Charlie Rose. So I went back and watched that episode where they discussed his canon then reviewed his list. My first impression was he looked tired and exasperated. My second impression was man that dude read a lot of books. At first I was pleased with myself for having read quite a few on his list myself but that morphed into envy then depression as the number of books I've read was outpaced by the number I haven't. I say depressed because at one point I looked at the clock on the wall and realized I'm 67 years old and I don't have time to read the ones I've missed before bedtime 😢

Bloom is a great with great neuroses about power that we all (in more limited form) share.  So he overstated the neurotic agon between great artists, though perhaps not beneath the surface.  What great artist does not stare at an empty page and seek originality and overcoming his precursors?

Yes this power dialectic is not the only lens, and it shares an ironic shadow parallel in the School of Resentment.  But for Bloom of course power is about aesthetic power, not any other sort.  And we need such a transcendent reader across 26 languages to inform us what he thinks is greatest and why.

Bloom seemed strongest in his study of character, particularly in Shakespeare, and his endless dilations thereupon.  As a magnificent quoter he always nailed the meat of any subject.  In terms of a close reader though, while I don't doubt Bloom had that too, he tends to display it far less in his genericized takes than Harold C. Goddard, whom he greatly admired.

If one was making the appeal for who has thought most deeply about the interrelatedness of great writers, I am not sure anyone in human history tops Bloom.  Nor perhaps who has best expressed their greatest ideas.

I like Harold Bloom quite a lot more than many. I appreciate the high standard that he upheld for literature. That being said, being too concerned with what literary critics say, or holding fast to mainly 1 critic, is in itself going to create an anxiety of influence.

I believe Bloom has a nice intro to the Everyman's Library edition of In Search of Lost Time.

Harold Bloom had many interesting insights, but he also had strong dislikes that do not resonate with readers.  For example, he hated everything that Edgar Allan Poe wrote, even though Poe remains highly popular.  Likewise he disliked T.S. Eliot intensely, even though most analysts hold Eliot in high regard. I did like Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children, even though I am not a child and even though I do not regard myself as extremely intelligent.  It's still a good collection. I think he was not as kind-hearted as you are, Jim.  That matters for long term mental health and life satisfaction.

Over the past 45 years or so I have read seventeen of Harold Bloom's more than forty books--some of them several times. If you are looking for the best interlocutor with whom to hold a lifelong dialogue about the greatest works of English and American literature, Harold Bloom is the one. He will also lead you to reread works you thought you knew, to discover works you haven't read, and to make connections between them you've never thought of.

Jim you're becoming oracular in your appearance and your statements.  From a long-term follower and fan, all best wishes.

Reading Harold Bloom is a lively pleasure.  How many times has he sent me back to Hamlet !  The Anxiety of Influence had its critics.
The Salt Companion to Harold Bloom  (2007,  England)  Editors Graham Allen & Roy Sellars.  Salt - based in Norfolk publish poetry & novels.

Didn't he say he read at a rate of one thousand (1,000) pages per hour? I think that's what I recall him saying, either in an interview with Chris Lydon or with Charlie Rose...
Anyone else recall that?
Seems incredible.
Awe inspiring.
Doubtful.
Untrue.

Thanks for responding to my comment Jim! It’s fabulous when booktubers interact with their community like this.

I think we’re on the same page for Bloom more or less. I got a lot out of Invention of the Human, even if it goes a bit far. And I enjoy one of his poetry collections on the regular. In a liberalism of neutrality it becomes difficult to argue for any transcendent set of morals or even wisdom. But some things matter more than other things. And where are we when we don’t value transcendence. That’s not a comment about European cultural dominance so much as it is a comment about a fight against the nihilism of relativism — that perhaps can come from a devotion to neutrality. Bloom fought that fight (in favour of transcendence), albeit not in a universal way, and not without endlessly repeating himself in increasingly histrionic ways. But when he shines, he’s defending transcendent beauty and wisdom — and that’s him at his best. Inspiring readers and so on. Or that’s my take.

I sort of shudder when I think that Douglas Murray may have picked up right where Bloom left off.

Also, your response to him is sensible overall.

Somebody had to pick up after Mortimer Adler lett the public light.