[Harold] Brodkey produced fiction that was epic too, but chiefly in its elaboration of human intimacy. To read his prose is to be incarcerated in the situations of his characters; indeed, it is to be very nearly overwhelmed by them. ... Brodkey moved forward with new forms for rendering human consciousness. His protagonist was, almost always, "a mind shaped like a person." The action consisted of that mind discovering its thoughts. [more inside]
posted by Trurl on Aug 23, 2011 - 11 comments

In 1982, the young Barack Obama published two poems in a literary magazine while an undergraduate at Occidental College. Many years later, political and literary commentators looking for insight into the leader's inner workings unearthed the poems: The New Yorker gave readers Harold Bloom's mixed reaction, Ian McMillan assessed the juvenile work in The Guardian, the Times (UK) tried to place the poems within the context of American presidents who published poems, and even Huffington Post took a crack at figuring what the poems tell us about the politician. A little later, the Blue Rose Arts Collective used the text of the poem "Underground" in a short video piece. Obama maintains his interest in poetry: also in 2008 the president was photographed holding a copy of Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott's Collected Poems. (U.S. Presidents and poetry more generally, previously.)
posted by aught on Feb 18, 2011 - 26 comments

"The next thing I knew, his heavy, boneless hand was hot on my thigh." That's the money shot from this article in which Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth" and former adviser to Al Gore on alpha male matters, decides 20 years later to accuse ailing Harold Bloom of sexually harassing her at Yale, when she was a senior. Why now? A stunt to put herself in the news? Or perhaps to breathe new life into a moribund city magazine. (While I'm at it, here's Google on the phrase: "boneless hand." Not alpha male at all).
posted by Slagman on Feb 24, 2004 - 73 comments

Stephen King, literary genius? "That they could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy," says Harold Bloom. Mr. King to be awarded an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement, joining the likes of Roth, Updike, and Bellow.
posted by _sirmissalot_ on Sep 16, 2003 - 81 comments