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Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds
Binding: Paperback
Author: Harold Bloom
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Features:
Average Rating: 3.5
Total Customer Reviews: 38
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $14.96
Sales Rank: 184865
Product Description
America's most prominent and bestselling literary critic takes an enlightening look at the concept of genius through the ages in a celebration of the greatest creative writers of all time.A monumental achievement of scholarship, GENIUS examines 100 of the most creative and literary minds in history. From the Bible to Socrates, through the transcendent achievements of Shakespeare and Dante, down through the ages to Hemingway, Faulkner, and Ralph Ellison, Bloom discusses the numerous influences of his chosen geniuses and the kinships among them over the centuries. He also offers revealing excerpts from their works that continue to surprise, enchant, and move the reader time after time. Bloom's insightful analyses of the poetry of Milton, Shelley, and Whitman; the drama of Ibsen and Tennessee Williams; and the narratives of Melville and Tolstoy, among many others, will illuminate and expand readers' understanding and appreciation of these great works of art. A wide-ranging study that enriches as it informs, GENIUS is a book to treasure.
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Users Product Reviews: |
Product Review Summary: i love this book i love this book, its as simple as that.
i'v never understood peoples negative feelings towards mr. bloom, this is the guy who got me into reading beyond my usual diet of histories and non fiction.
i read this book over and over again...he is funny, lucid and very enjoyable to listen to.
Product Review Summary: Excellent discoveries... Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002) - Harold Bloom
I will admit right now that I found this book to be rather difficult. There is no doubt that Mr. Bloom has a tremendous amount of learning, but what happens oftentimes, unfortunately, is that Mr. Bloom writes with the assumption that we have had the same amount of learning. This is especially true when it comes to speaking of particular beliefs and movements (such as Gnosticism, Post-Romanticism, etc.) However, I still enjoyed this book very much. The reviewer that stated that this book is not actually about the true genius of each individual is absolutely correct: Mr. Bloom oftentimes just throws out a general statement to describe the genius without ever truly elucidating the statement. For example, I believe one Genius was the "genius of nightmare", yet if I remember correctly, it was never explained exactly how he was the genius of nightmare, or what that really even means.
What this book is really about is Mr. Bloom's tremendous passion for literature because it really shows in his writing. And what's great is the huge amount of new material that lovers of literature (such as myself) can now search through to find more great works that they will love in te future. There are so many writers in here that I had never even heard of before that it is a little ridiculous. For example, I found the poetry of Gerard de Nerval to be amazing, yet this man did not even exist to me before Mr. Bloom pointed him out.
It is true that Mr. Bloom is arrogant, and that he goes on tangents, and that he often contradicts himself, and that he often makes no sense, and yes, this can get a little annoying, but really, all that does not matter when we truly look at the tiny drawbacks and compare them to Mr. Bloom's tremendous positives. Therefore, overall, I would highly recommend this piece of work. The love and passion put into it is clearly felt.
Product Review Summary: Has Bloom actually said anything? Before getting on good professor's case, let me say something upfront - as
a reference book, it is worth having. Bloom's taste is generally good; and
because of his wide erudition, he can suggest authors that dilettantes (speaking strictly for myself) would not have heard otherwise. Now, Blooms explanations as to why this or other book is great are mostly vacuous. He has a couple of fixed concepts - gnosticism, agon, etc (not too much of etc) which he almost arbitrarily pattern-matches to a given author. One could probably write an artificial intelligence program which
would churn out Bloom-like reviews - and possibly pass Turing test (assuming the human on the other end is Professor Bloom).
In addition, Bloom's pretentiousness is not even funny. Most people at least pick up the tone when they write about things (or people) they do not like. Bloom does not even do that - his barbs have very dull teeth. As for Kabbalah - let's not even get started...
To summarize - the reader can mostly trust Bloom's instincts in picking good writers, but his justifications can be largely ignored - or the time is better spent to read the books themselves.
Product Review Summary: thought-provoking, passionate, brilliant your view on this book will track with your appetite for erudition, academia and intellectual challenge. the criticisms that this book is "ivory tower" & arrogant are right!
Having said that, I enjoy the challenge, entertainment and new ideas Bloom always brings to the table. Some of his more esoteric trappings -- such as the Kabbalah-based framework for the book -- I simply ignore. But I think his love of the classics and belief in deep reading as a source of humanity are thought-provoking and much needed.
if you love literature and are willing to work a little, this is great book to read slowly and savor.
Product Review Summary: Two and a half stars Try and imagine you are a write for a sketch comedy along the lines of "Saturday Night Live." You are trying to come up with a skit parodying snooty intellectuals. No matter how talented you are, you would be unable to create a fictional satire as effective as the real live Harold Bloom.
Bloom is certainly pretty proud of himself here. He gives us his insight into what makes these geniuses so brilliant. It gets laughable at times. For example, Bloom argues that Dostoyevsky's genius is typified in his tedious portrayal of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov, while he lacks any notable religious or philosophical genius because he was an anti-semite. Yes Bloom, being anti-semitic is really bad, but believe it or not, a person can have some extremely warped (or even evil) views and still make outstanding contributions to our religious and philosophical make up. Abraham Lincoln said some nasty racist stuff during his lifetime, but still laid out the idea of an American Civil Religion beautifully in the Gettysburg Adress. I certainly find the way Socrates comported himself with young boys more than a bit disturbing in works such as Plato's "Charmides," but that hardly detracts from his apology. Likewise, Dostoyevsky was in fact a religious philosophical genius, despite being an anti-semite. You'd think an Ivy League Professor would demonstrate some understanding of the fact that people need not be morally one dimensional.
Then there's Bloom's treatment of "The Yawhist." I think that there are few areas of literary criticism that better reveal one's character than forays into Biblical analysis. You're a self described radical who loves to foist your utopian political opinions on everyone you meet. You decide to study the bible and what do you know, you discover Jesus & St. Paul were really radicals who really wanted to stick it to the Roman empire. You're an rigid, uptight moralist. You read the Bible and wow! you find that God is really all about rules and regulations, that the people you resent aren't living up to. Your primary interest is buisness, you read the bible and you discover Jesus was the best salesman that ever lived, and really encourages capitalism (investing talents and all that). You're Harold Bloom and you read the Torah and discover...Surprise! The Yawhist was a pretentious, snooty intellectual who loved irony. Even more sexy and intriguing, she was a sophisticated lady of the royal court. No doubt one who would be charmed by Harold Bloom's brilliant conversation, and sharp insights into her writing.
This book wavers between Bloom being painfully self-satisfied, and Bloom being so self-satisfied he's hilarious. Thankfully, there's more of the latter.
I can understand that some people might want to give this book higher marks, because regardless of what it says about these geniuses, he has good taste. Really though, stop and think about that arguement. How hard is it to compile a list of geniuses that would be pretty acceptable to anyone in the know? I'm pretty sure anyone with literature and classics course catalogs from a few universities could patch together something comparable simply by cutting and pasting.
All that said, Bloom's writing is good, even if ludicrously pretentious. I can't really knock him for stating his opinions. Ater all, I have zero credentials, and write reviews on amazon.
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