We’re not dumb, Bloom: you’re crotchety

Harold Bloom thinks Americans are getting dumber.

Bloom, an eloquent and occasionally… Harold Bloom thinks Americans are getting dumber.

Bloom, an eloquent and occasionally grandiloquent literary critic, addressed what he considered the recent “dumbing down” of American readers, in a Sept. 24 column printed in the Los Angels Times.

He decried J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and Danielle Steele – writers of children’s literature, horror fiction and romance novels, respectively – as purveyors of this ignorance of the classics and abandonment of the canon – or, rather, his canon, as he wrote “The Western Canon,” an homage to Western civilization’s greatest works.

Universities, because they stand at the tricky crossroads between democratic interests and academic ones, are always among the first casualties whenever crotchety cultural critics decide that civilization is in decline. Inherent is the question: Can the populist notion of universal education mesh with the creation of a learned elite?

College should be a necessary celebration of this canon – in the words of my advisor, “It’s time to get canonized.”

And college students are often discussed as examples of the best and worst readers. Short-story writer Steve Almond wrote a biting response to Bloom’s piece, a well-done critique of what’s wrong with literary elitism.

Still, Almond voiced his horror at dealing with students who think that “Hamlet” is “a really cool movie starring Ethan Hawke.” But this is the problem – even someone who thinks that literature should be accessible mocks those who cannot, for one reason or another, get into it.

Should that student be a literature major, then fie on him – it’s his responsibility to be well versed in historical literature, and have at least a cursory knowledge of canonical, as well as non-canonical, books.

But for the rest of us, as the unwashed, vaguely literate masses, is it better to have a passing acquaintance with Shakespeare than an in-depth knowledge of King?

Bloom and Almond are railing against the wrong thing. Rather than saying that we are reading the wrong books, they should be saying that we are reading them the wrong way.

You can’t cure intellectual sloth with Middlemarch or with any of the so-called great books. The real problem, it seems, is not that people are reading shallow things, but that they are reading them shallowly.

Instead of criticizing students for their ignorance, bemoan the fact that they are not taught the proper methodology from the first.

I am a reader, a bibliophile – my bookshelves sag and threaten to collapse each time I rifle through them. I’ve been known to clutch Chekhov in my arms and chant, “my precious, my precious.”

As such, I’m qualified to say that to read well should be to read ecstatically. It means poring over every line, as if each word could bring destruction or salvation. When I look into books, I see – or at least strive to see – a reflection of the human experience, and myself, vividly portrayed. It is a visceral experience, as well as an intellectual one, one that sends my emotions churning and minds atwitter.

Similarly, kids should be taught to bring the love – and in doing so, pursue what they love, be it science fiction or Shakespeare.

Rather than drawing an intractable line between literature and pulp, draw it between those willing to bring the love, and those only stringing along for a grade. Now that’s something for Harold Bloom to get flustered over.

Sydney Bergman wants “Great Books” and the entire “Milton the Cat” series for her birthday. E-mail her at sbergman@pittnews.com.