Recently, I reviewed Harold Bloom's The Anatomy of Influence. I liked it. But what was interesting about it was the account it provided of how Bloom experiences literature. He experiences it differently from the way I do, and probably from the way most other people do. But how he experiences it is interesting, It's a little to hieratic for my taste. For Bloom, literature is a substitute Torah, and he approaches it Taldmudically. Seems to work for him.
Good description of lit crit. I tend to agree. This is exactly why I'm suspicious of self-anointed Critics such as James Woods.
ReplyDeleteI tend to prefer book reviewers to critics any day, because there's no hidden critical agenda. Avignon said tht, I think every novelist and poet ough to write the occasionl review, just to keep that useful discernment skill honed.