WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?

Name: WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND?
Author: Harold Bloom
ISBN: 1-57322-284-4

by Harold Bloom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2004

Another work of uncompromised literary analysis, thought, and feeling, from the mind of Bloom: towering, real, invaluable.

bookshelf

The latest from the venerable Bloom (Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, 2003, etc.) may not always be easy going, but it’s invariably rewarding and rich.

There are “only three criteria,” says Bloom, that determine the books he’ll continue “reading and teaching”: “aesthetic splendor, intellectual power, wisdom.” But this isn’t wisdom you can put in your pocket and take home. Not only will this kind not make you feel better—“I have not found that wisdom literature is a comfort”—but you may not even be able to figure out what it is: “The Book of Job offers wisdom, but it is not anything we can comprehend.” Still, it’s there, in its own power, significance, and insistence (wisdom writing “must be rich”). This literature “teaches us to accept natural limits,” Bloom says at one moment, then reverses, saying that “Job could not console Herman Melville and his Captain Ahab, but provoked them to furious response.” Perfect consistency is too small a concept for this kind of wisdom, as Bloom argues that the drama form was too small for Hamlet. In any case, with the unflagging curiosity and the associative powers of one who seems to have read all books written, Bloom takes us through studies in pairings, of Job paired with Ecclesiastes, Plato with Homer (the battle between philosophy and poetry), Cervantes, and Shakespeare. Declaring that “Thoughts are events,” he gives us Montaigne and Bacon, Johnson and Goethe, Emerson and Nietzsche, and at last Freud and Proust, in a pairing as fascinating as any here. In closing, he touches on the Gospel of Thomas and on Augustine’s “invention” of reading, adding that “Reading alone will not save us or make us wise, but without it we will lapse into the death-in-life of the dumbing-down in which America now leads the world, as in all other matters.”

Another work of uncompromised literary analysis, thought, and feeling, from the mind of Bloom: towering, real, invaluable.

Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2004

ISBN: 1-57322-284-4

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BRIGHT BOOK OF LIFE
by Harold Bloom

- BOOK REVIEW
TAKE ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES
by Harold Bloom

- BOOK REVIEW
THE AMERICAN CANON
by Harold Bloom ; edited by David Mikics

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.