Bloom on Harry Potter

[Anonymous No.4979843]

>[Rowling's] prose style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers....How to read Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone? Why, very quickly, to begin with, perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. Is there any redeeming education use to Rowling?

Is based Bloom telling it like it is or do you disagree?

[Anonymous No.4979850]

>Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.

top keke

[Anonymous No.4979857]

Yeah he's right

[Anonymous No.4979861]

>>4979843
They're certainly a better gateway into literature for your average person than are the classics he'd suggest. But for the most part he's right.

[Anonymous No.4979863]

"Psst, hey, kid. Wanna buy some western canon...?"

[Anonymous No.4979868]

>>4979863

[Anonymous No.4979873]

>>4979861
Harry Potter is only a gateway to more Harry Potter

[Anonymous No.4979936]

>>4979863

[Anonymous No.4980003]

>>4979861
>IL: Yet the defenders of Harry Potter claim that these books get their children to read.

>HB: But they don't! Their eyes simply scan the page. Then they turn to the next page. Their minds are deadened by cliches. Nothing is required of them, absolutely nothing. Nothing happens to them. They are invited to avoid reality, to avoid the world and they are not invited to look inward, into themselves. But of course it is an exercise in futility to try to oppose Harry Potter.

[Anonymous No.4980023]

>>4979843

Bloom is an insufferable faggot who's wrong on a lot of shit. This is one of the only instances in which he is right.

Still, HP is good fun for kids and, while there's plenty of better kid's lit out there, HP isn't the worst place a kid could start reading.

[Anonymous No.4980032]

Everyone knows Harry Potter is junk literature, and of course, everyone likes defending their egos, no matter how true the criticisms of the person are.

[Anonymous No.4980034]

I see no problem with Harry Potter as a children's book, but I am a bit concerned that the readerbase seems to be predominantly adults.

As for Bloom, he really shouldn't be read by anyone.

[Anonymous No.4980138]

>>4980003
>They are invited to avoid reality, to avoid the world and they are not invited to look inward, into themselves.
Well that's clearly wrong. No shit Bloom wouldn't learn anything from Harry Potter, he's read a shit-ton of books. But how does he speak for all the kids who haven't read much else? How does he know what they think about when they read it?

[Anonymous No.4980144]

He's an idiot, basically.

[Anonymous No.4980150]

Of course it doesn't make demands on its readers, it's aimed at eight year olds that don't give a fuck about books.

[Anonymous No.4980155]

I think Rowling crafted a masterpiece with the Harry Potter books, and everything she wanted them to be, they became, too, and that spells genius, to be perfectly frank, and you can deny it all you want, but who are you in comparison to Rowling? She is a woman of profound, profound awareness, massively ambitious and successful. She's literally cult leader status, which was indeed the intention (She's Hermione in the second book, Hermione being the one to write it all out for the boys, the plan to save the world).

[Anonymous No.4980156]

There are a lot of girls I went to high school with, now in their mid 20s, who believe that Harry Potter is just the pinnacle of fiction. They'll always try to weave scenarios or examples from Harry Potter into conversation (Person 1: Oh I've been feeling so drained today. Person 2: Why? Did a dementor get you? Ha!) when years ago maybe that would have been more appropriate.

[Anonymous No.4980161]

>>4980155
Oh, and all the sex jokes were a beautiful touch, too -- they leave the book something to grow old with, and there's depth to their being there besides, too. Clever lady, our Rowling.

[Anonymous No.4980169]

>>4980032
>hating on butterfly

[Anonymous No.4980177]

>>4980138

Certainly Americans would learn a lot about Britain. Even with the censorship the books get there.

[Anonymous No.4980188]

Oh, and Bloom is an absolute retard for that criticism about avoiding reality, because what Rowling actually did with the Harry Potter books was meet kids where they retreat to, fantasy, and explain reality to them through a phase shift that they were comfortable with. I mean she's very clearly hugely politically motivated. Is he fucking stupid?

[Anonymous No.4980192]

>>4980188
>projecting

[Anonymous No.4980206]

This is the first picture of him smiling I've ever seen.

[Anonymous No.4980211]

>>4980192
No, that's you.

[Anonymous No.4980344]

>>4979843
HP is quite good entry-level literature, there are worse options imho. The problem are people who get stuck in it, see >>4979873

[Anonymous No.4980363]

>>4980188
Have you seen how fucking rabid and of terrible personality potter fans are? They wouldn't let the poor lady write something that is not potter.

[Anonymous No.4980414]

It was written as a children's book. The fact that adults also read it is hardly the fault of the author.

[Anonymous No.4980426]

>>4979843
has he ever written on yiddish?
has he ever written /in/ yiddish?

[Anonymous No.4980871]

I'd have been inspired by the first book if I read it at the right time.
The later books suck.
Also who actually would listen to Bloom's opinion on this? Just listening to him talk would convince nearly anyone that the opinions of literary critics are less than worthless.

[Anonymous No.4980893]

Why does it have to be explained that a children's book is a children's book? It's below dignity of criticism. What is actually going on here?

[Anonymous No.4980921]

>>4980188
>>4980344
>>4980034
>>4980150


The avoiding reality srgument is shit, but the following is true:

>his demolition of the well-rehearsed argument which says that at least children are reading something, and that Harry Potter will lead them on to a life of reading - and, by inference, erudition. Now the first part of this argument does have something going for it: no doubt some children who would otherwise have spent their lives playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on their games console have been rescued from zombiedom by the gripping tales of Voldemort and Hogwarts.
>But the second part doesn't hold water. Harry Potter will not lead children on to Swallows and Amazons, the Just So Stories, Wind in the Willows or Alice through The Looking Glass. What it will do, as Professor Bloom declared, is train them to read Stephen King. (Not, one gathers, a writer he admires greatly.) Certainly, in my own experience, the craze for Harry Potter books was a peer group thing for children, not unrelated to wearing the right brand of trainers. They were bought as status symbols and then languished, a quarter read, for years under the bed. How many of those 325 million copies failed to change the trajectory of the modern TV-raised child who, tragically, does not read for pleasure and probably never will? More than a few, I suspect.

[Anonymous No.4980924]

He's just mad because he would be a slytherin

[Anonymous No.4980953]

>>4980921
I started with Harry Potter and just finished Pynchon.

This guy's full of shit.

[Anonymous No.4980956]

>>4980953

exception to the rule

[Anonymous No.4980966]

>>4980953

Some of my friends that began reading with harry potter are now reading john green and GRRM. Most who did don't even read outside of college textbooks for class.

[Anonymous No.4980989]

>>4979843
It's a story for kids under 13
If this guy honestly is commenting and complaining on children stories he sounds more like an idiot than an accomplished author

[Anonymous No.4981001]

>>4980206
Thank you for addressing that, I almost didn't recognize him.

[Feminister !!F9QVQ82MjmE No.4981026]

I would argue that Rowling's books, though intended for children, has more constructive intellectual content than Bloom's works do.

[Anonymous No.4981072]

>>4981026

[Anonymous No.4981082]

>>4980989
>If this guy honestly is commenting and complaining on children stories he sounds more like an idiot than an accomplished author

Don't you know a literary critic has to eat to?

[Anonymous No.4981100]

>>4980989

He was motivated to complain because of its sacred cow status among adult fans.

[Anonymous No.4981105]

Is Bloom the most patrician man alive?

[Anonymous No.4981110]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/

STEPHEN KING GETTIN BTFO

[Anonymous No.4981119]

>>4980003

What a bitter shithead. What a pretentious asshole. I'm not even mad, just amazed that he's a respected "intellectual".

>reading something you enjoy doesn't encourage you to read more

Yeah okay. I'm a little sorry for him, does he even get enjoyment out of reading or is feeling smart and superior the only fun part?

[Anonymous No.4981151]

>>4981119
I don't think I've ever seen Bloom look genuinely happy. OP's picture of him looks staged. He's always slouched, moping and poorly dressed.

[Anonymous No.4981157]

>>4980966
I read textbooks outside of those for classes too.

[Anonymous No.4981170]

>>4981151
lol it kind of looks like he's in terrible pain in OP's pic

[Anonymous No.4981172]

>>4981119
what you consider "reading" is actually just plot-tracing, you idiotic pleb piece of shit.

this anti-intellectualism has got to stop.

[Anonymous No.4981179]

[Anonymous No.4981186]

>>4981172
And what you consider reading is subversion of the self. "Oh this author says things that I now agree with!" What a farce.

[Anonymous No.4981198]

he's read blood meridian 30 times

[Anonymous No.4981200]

>>4981119
>does he even get enjoyment out of reading or is feeling smart and superior the only fun part
Every picture of him looks like he's about to cry

[Anonymous No.4981228]

Shouldn't stories attempt to be universal and ageless?
Wouldn't Harry Potter's value be diminished for being for kids mostly?

[Anonymous No.4981286]

Trust this fat k*ke!

[Anonymous No.4981293]

>>4981286
Be ed*y on the internet!

[Anonymous No.4981306]

>>4981172
Nah man I consider reading understanding written language with my eyes. Thanks for asking my own opinion about literature instead of trying to magically gleam it from a post where I didn't give one.

I think praising kids for reading anything at all is silly. It bothers me when I see some baby boomers legitimately impressed that their eleven year old grandson is reading some shitty fantasy. Especially if that kid takes all his ignorant elders praise to heart. But of course I'm not mad that the kid is enjoying a shitty book, only a bitter old asshole who overvalues his own interests would do that.

Reading is a different medium than film, vidyas or music, and there are aspects of fiction someone can enjoy that exist outside of literature's artistic value. I see nothing wrong with this. If some kid's are reading novels purely for entertainment, cool, maybe their enjoyment of reading those books will inspire them to give the books in school a chance, and maybe they'll start to find enjoyment in the more artful elements of literature and follow that path. That's what happened to me, and it happens to a lot of people.

If someone started saying that my mind was deadened by listening to Jimi Hendrix and I am a fool trying to avoid actual thoughtful music, I'd think that person was a pretentious faggot. I'm listening to some music I enjoy, despite the fact that I don't want to compose symphonies.

[Anonymous No.4981309]

>>4981306
>gleam it

I think you mean glean.

[Anonymous No.4981310]

>>4981306
>>4981309

shit. yeah that's what I meant.

[Anonymous No.4981323]

>>4979843
>[Rowling's] prose style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers

pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[Anonymous No.4981372]

>>4981306
> I don't know much about art, but i know what i like
Confirmed peasant

[Anonymous No.4981400]

>>4981306

This is morally wrong. You are allowing deliberare ignorance. Ignorance is the cause of half the misfortune in this world. Ignorance is what allows the exploitation of third world countries. Ignorance is what allows animals to suffer in factories. Ignorance is what allows Sarah Palin and the Terminator to be governor. Deliberate ignorance is one of the worst evil there is and apathy to it is as bad.

[Anonymous No.4981445]

His argument is completely stupid and wrong. I started reading the books when I was 6 years old and I loved them. I didn't fucking know what cliches were. How was my mind deadened by them? It doesn't become a cliche until you've seen it over and over again and this comes with experience.
Also, it did encourage me to read because I discovered how much I enjoyed it and moved onto different books.

[Anonymous No.4981494]

>>4981445

>I didn't fucking know what cliches were
>It doesn't become a cliche until you've seen it over and over again

Thats perceptual bias. A cliche is a cliche whether you, personally, know it or not. Thats why you're suppose to read a lot; to know whats a cliche and whats creative. It deadend your mind by making you believe that spouting this cliches, whether you are aware of their status as such, is acceptable. However, any harm reading HP can do is corrigible.

[Anonymous No.4981541]

>>4981372
Good, fuck you noble assholes, the peasantry are throwing a party at the tavern tonight while you're being married to your thirteen year old sister for political reasons.

How do you know I don't know much about art? It's true I don't know too much, but I study literature and know a bit about that. It's not like my relative ignorance to art in general is worse than the many people who come on /lit/ to dress up in Wikipedia articles and play intellectual for a while.

>>4981400
So me not having a problem with people enjoying Harry Potter is apathy to one of the worst evils there is?

I don't entirely disagree with what you've said. Deliberate ignorance is probably the biggest reason people don't try to educate themselves or do things beyond what's required and expected of them, and by extension the biggest obstacle in the way of humanity achieving our ideals.

But realistically I don't think ignorance is going away anytime soon. And I'm sorry but I only have a handful of decades to enjoy life, so I'll try to teach people what I know when they're willing to learn, but I'm not dedicating my life to scolding people for having simple pleasures.

[Anonymous No.4981554]

>>4981494
>It deadend your mind by making you believe that spouting this cliches, whether you are aware of their status as such, is acceptable.

That's cliche.

[Anonymous No.4981556]

>>4981541
>But realistically I don't think ignorance is going away anytime soon. And I'm sorry but I only have a handful of decades to enjoy life, so I'll try to teach people what I know when they're willing to learn, but I'm not dedicating my life to scolding people for having simple pleasures.

You dont have to. However, at least dont advocate or defend it.

[Anonymous No.4981566]

>Harry Potter has the biggest fan fiction community out of all media
>somehow they don't inspire kids to write or enjoy literature

Sounds like a bitter old man.

[Anonymous No.4981575]

>>4981400
I'd rather him be ignorant than learn anything from you.

[Anonymous No.4981593]

>>4981575
Why? Cause I care about the world and the people living in it far too much to take wrong doing and injustice passively?

[Anonymous No.4981598]

>>4981400
>Ignorance is the cause of half the misfortune in this world.
No doubt, yeah.

>Ignorance is what allows the exploitation of third world countries.
There are several factors to it but it's mainly ignorance.

>Ignorance is what allows animals to suffer in factories.
Go cut off your legs and shove them up your anus, you fucking frivolous, decadent piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.4981605]

>>4981598

If people had first hand experience in that field, they wouldnt eat meat made by large companies. I have no problem with the abstract concept of eating meat. For me, the problem is merely on how they are treated. It needlessly cruel and repulsive.

[Anonymous No.4981612]

>>4981605
>needlessly cruel
assuming it is possible to be cruel against animals at all

[Anonymous No.4981621]

>>4981612

Yes, you can. Animals have feelings (some more complicated than others). Hence, one can be cruel to an animal by causing tremendous amount of needless pain to it.

[Anonymous No.4981628]

>>4981593
>Cause I care about the world and the people living in it far too much to take wrong doing and injustice passively?

Yes actually, exactly that. You will inevitably cause more harm than good, but unlike the other anon who can pass it off in ignorance, you will pass it off as success.

[Anonymous No.4981631]

>>4981621
Having "feelings" isn't enough to qualify as a moral object.

[Anonymous No.4981650]

>>4981628

What great justification for apathy. Please, explain how I will cause harm by merely recomending more challeging and thought provoking books to my friends that love harry potter, and trying to demostrate to them what they have been missing by wasting time with YA. How will I cause the world to stop spining by not eating food with meat at restaurants? Tell me, how will the masses suffer by participating at shelters and poverty relieve?

[Anonymous No.4981666]

>>4981631

Of course not, if you lack empathy. Do you lack empathy, anon? It is only natural to feel sorry for those who suffer. And its only self-serving, after all. We pity others not because of the abstract idea that THEY are suffering, but because we put ourselves into their circumstance and think: what if it were ME? What if it were you, anon? If you were the one cramed in a small facility with thousands of other paranoid, brain damaged and insane people running around in your own feces and pest? Wouldn't you want someone to fight for your right to live?

[Anonymous No.4981682]

>>4981666
Animals aren't moral objects since they lack selfhood.

[Anonymous No.4981685]

We should post this on some Harry Potter facebook pages and fluster some foxes.

[Anonymous No.4981698]

>>4981682

But we don't. An animal might not see itself in others for it lacks a self indentity. But we can see ourselves in them. We feel pain when they do. Most who see their pain, feel pain too. To avoid this pain, we must free them from theirs.

[Anonymous No.4981705]

>>4981698
It is irrelevant. Animal suffering is of different order than human suffering and those who empathise with it are deluded.

[Anonymous No.4981722]

>>4981705

My suffering is from a different order from yours. Does that mean empathising with you is deluded? Empathy is adapting others pain and suffering to you; not transfering it. You can easily adapt an animals pain to your own understading.

[Anonymous No.4981729]

>>4981722
>My suffering is from a different order from yours
No, it's not, it's the same.
>You can easily adapt an animals pain to your own understading.
It is completely, fundamentally impossible for me to understand it since animals have no self and I do. There is no way self can conceive of itself not existing.

[Anonymous No.4981750]

>>4981729
>No, it's not, it's the same.
How would it be? Describe my pain to me. You can't. All we can do is interpret others pain through our own experiences. You will never know my pain and I yours. Even if you were inside my mind, you would feel pain through your filter. Our feelings are unknowable to each other as they are to us.

>It is completely, fundamentally impossible for me to understand it since animals have no self and I do

You perceive their pain as if they did.

[Anonymous No.4981783]

>>4981729

Well, I've been putting off sleep on account of this conversation. Thank you for it. But I have to go sleep now.

[Anonymous No.4982294]

>>4981494

>A cliche is a cliche whether you, personally, know it or not.

Then why does Bloom list the Bible in his canon? Surely that's as cliche as it comes. Just because most people read about Moses before they read about Gilgamesh doesn't make it acceptable.

[Anonymous No.4982325]

>>4980966
I was this way. Eventually, it was sci-fi that pulled me out of this.

The foundation trilogy and the Hyperion Cantos saved me from that.

[Anonymous No.4982368]

>>4982294
You realize that when he says cliche he's specifically talking about overused expressions right?

[Anonymous No.4982393]

>>4982294

The Bible might be unoriginal or derivative in some parts, buts its sure as hell mantains a huge influence in literary history. Its part of the canon. Whether its good or bad is another discussion. Plus, I dont think you know what a cliche is. A whole book cant be cliche. The plot might be, or the phrasing or the characters, but not a whole book.
Especially one made out of several books.

[Whelp ... No.4982425]

Rowling: "Imma write me a big book of clichés."

Bloom: "This be a big book clichés."

[Harold Bloom No.4982436]

>>4982425

Thus proving those who read Rowling are condemned to fail at writing dialogue forever more.

[Anonymous No.4982529]

>>4981666
I hope you're trolling.

[Anonymous No.4982538]

>>4982529

Why?

[Anonymous No.4983032]

>>4982538
Don't mind the some kid from /b/ and this whatever that answered. You are right in what you wrote, but you shouldn't eat seafood similarly kept or any other food, they are part of nature that is living and differs only ways of reaction and survival. You feel suffering to entertain the some idea, being not conscious about it you either put some animal above others or you are ignorant of those others, what is highly unlikely.

[Anonymous No.4983042]

>>4983032
I see I didn't check what I was writing.

You put value of the same life above other only to entertain Your thought.

[Anonymous No.4983043]

he knows what's up with blood meridian so there's that, but HP is pretty fucking good for what it is.

[Anonymous No.4983277]

>>4981682
I'm not being sarcastic, but if you could, please try to define or describe what selfhood is as rigorously as you can.

And a couple of questions:
How do you know animals don't have it?
Why exactly this is it the criteria for deciding whether it is or isn't morally acceptable to cause suffering to an animal?

[Anonymous No.4983307]

>>4980363
this is the sad part. HP had so much potential, but the damn HP fans ruined it for everyone.

Like, i read it in 3rd grade... but i fucking moved on from it into other books. I didn't re-read the same damn series over and over again, trying to memorize the most boring details of the story.

[Anonymous No.4983308]

So /lit/ is full of bitter, wannabe intellectuals, huh?

God forbid reading anything that will not broaden one's knowledge of the vast intricacies of the world's workings, theoretical or otherwise. Why would I bother wasting my energy enjoying myself when I could be developing a sense of critical analysis over the plebeian mechanisms of humankind, or the rich philosophy of what it truly is to be.

Feel free to discuss my insightful post, and engage one another in rhetoric over the subtle undertones I have used, which no doubt you can see with practiced clarity.