Rating: 
Summary: outtakes
Review: My original review posted here was largely negative, since the work seemed flat and disorganized to me. But it's growing on me over time. Bloom's failures in executing his grandiose organizational scheme are to some extent remedied by his always sensitive attention to texts, and wise remarks scattered like pixie dust when you least expect them. I still like The Western Canon better, but the current book is at least a gold mine of precious remarks, if often disjointed ones.
Rating: 
Summary: 100 is too much
Review: no critic, I suppose, can love and know truly as much as 100 writers, no matter how sympathizing and diligent he/she is; therefore Mr. Bloom's comments on most of his chosen writers are bound to be superficial and thus misleading.
Rating: 
Summary: A conservative view
Review: OK, for him only The Great Classics who speak of Death, Doom and Misery are worth reading. Well, let's bow to his critical skill, but I think I'll follow my own path and I'll decide what is worth reading.For humble me,Joe Keenan and Armistead Maupin are worth a dozen Cunningham. And give me Robertson Davies and Tom Robbins over Thomas Pynchon any time.
Rating: 
Summary: Harold is a genius, but,...
Review: Page 306: "Ahab is no villain, not even a hero-villain like Macbeth," Page 307: "Ahab is a hero-villain, like Macbeth and Hamlet,..." I guess I'll just keep reading.
Rating:
Summary: putting the human back into humanities
Review: Professor Bloom's readings of the great authors of the Western tradition are a welcome alternative for those who need to be reminded of why they love reading literature in the first place. Bloom rightly says that we should not read to prove to ourselves what we already know or to see only what we want to see--we read in order to put ourselves into direct communication with the most original and creative minds who ever lived.
Rating:
Summary: Witty and erudite
Review: Serious readers will imagine what fun it was for Bloom, compiling this celebration of (deceased) literary genius - reading and rereading, marveling at the passions, the artistry, and the jealousy and admiration they often felt for one another. Bloom, ("The Western Canon"), says his choices were "arbitrary." "These are certainly NOT 'the top one hundred' in anyone's judgment, my own included. I wanted to write about these."And write he does, with erudition, wit and verve. The most difficult thing about this book is the introduction, with its elaborate explanation of the book's structure, based on the Kabalistic "Sefirot," attributes of God and God's image, emanating out from an infinite center. Once embarked on the essays, Bloom's enthusiasm animates his scholarship. He begins with the "crown," five masters, "each of whom dominates his genre forever." These are Shakespeare, Cervantes, Montaigne, Milton and Tolstoy. The essays are short and tend to seize on one aspect, character or work to celebrate the whole. For Shakespeare it's Falstaff. "Does anyone else, in all of literature, enjoy what he is saying as much as Falstaff does?" And "All that Hamlet, Falstaff, and Cleopatra require of you is that you not bore them." Bloom's writing is tart and barbed; he enjoys taking aim at his critics nearly as much as extolling his subjects. Perhaps it is partly to needle those who disdain his partiality for dead white males that he posits the Biblical writer J, or the Yahwist, (writer of parts of Genesis and Exodus) as a woman. He pokes fun at revisionists and deconstructionists, though he seldom wastes a full sentence on any of them. "In our increasingly virtual reality, three authors seem immune to the decline of authentic reading: Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens." All three, says Bloom, share one profound gift: "personalities major and minor burst forth from the pages of these writers, in a profusion otherwise unmatched in the language." Personality is essential to Bloom, who has plenty of it himself, and his discussions of artists as varied as Milton and Hemingway, Dante and Tennessee Williams, George Eliot and Muhammad, Iris Murdoch and Mark Twain, are fired with their difficult personalities, and the personalities of their art, their place in their world, their yearnings, longings and demons. Bloom himself - enthusiastic, opinionated and authoritative - kindles the urge to read.
Rating:
Summary: dear dear bloom
Review: so ... why in the heck does bloom comment on harry potter in the section about louis carroll? im not fond of potter either (although... the movies are quite entertaining) but i bought the book so i could learn about the so called genuises of literature and poetry and im reading about how louis carrol was in love with 11 year old girls!!! I mean, its his book and all, so he can write whatever the heck we wants to, and well, he is a critic after all, but once in a while it would be nice to read a section about someone where blooms obession with shakespeare doesnt show up. Read a little further about Emma bovary. Come on now... he tells us that everyone has a little bit of emma in us, but i don't forsee myself committing multiple acts of adultry and looking for arsenic.
Any who, despite all of my previous comments, i love the book and i recommed it. It would be a good addition to anyones library and yes ... wouldnt it be nice to own a library like the one in beauty and the best? -good book but it goes off on things sometimes
Rating:
Summary: Overblown style
Review: The concept of the "genius" continues to resonate in the popular imagination. Bloom is now a one-man industry, sort of the Stephen Ambrose of literature, and this book is likely to sell well. I don't find his insights into individual authors very insightful, or his Kabbalistic categories helpful. His choice of authors is also fairly predictable.
Rating:
Summary: If I see one more Shakespeare reference...
Review: The good news is that this book contains a wealth of knowledge, and you'll definitely feel like you've learned a lot upon completing it. Harold Bloom is extremely knowledgeable and has to be one of the most well-read people alive (at least as far as the Western canon is concerned). The bad news is that this book is really tough to read. Bloom often goes off into little tangents (about G.W. Bush, the collapse of modern culture, his religion, etc.) that distract from his overall message. I also found it especially annoying that he seemingly can't go more than a page without mentioning Shakespeare (however irrelevant he may be to the topic at hand) or without using the word 'daemon'. Overall, I'm glad that I read this book, but mostly I'm just glad that I've finally finished it.
Rating:
Summary: If I see one more Shakespeare reference...
Review: The good news is that this book contains a wealth of knowledge, and you'll definitely feel like you've learned a lot upon completing it. Harold Bloom is extremely knowledgeable and has to be one of the most well-read people alive (at least as far as the Western canon is concerned). The bad news is that this book is really tough to read. Bloom often goes off into little tangents (about G.W. Bush, the collapse of modern culture, his religion, etc.) that distract from his overall message. I also found it especially annoying that he seemingly can't go more than a page without mentioning Shakespeare (however irrelevant he may be to the topic at hand) or without using the word 'daemon'. Overall, I'm glad that I read this book, but mostly I'm just glad that I've finally finished it.
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