So, I finished this book last week sometime, but kept forgetting to post about it. It's by Harold Bloom, and was the academic/dense part of my dad's lovely "complete reading experience" Christmas present to me.
It's basically a compendium of Bloom's ideas and impressions of various wisdom writings he has encountered over time, and I found it quite fascinating. His voice is fascinating because it's so erudite and so willing to judge... I always feel a combination of interest and trepidation when reading him, wondering if I could ever stand up to his appraisal. But at the same time, he presents a very human picture of himself, inside this strong mind, looking with the strength of his mind for something that will answer an even deeper part of himself. I can certainly identify with that. And, though it's not a focus of this book, he talks about Hamlet a bit, and I find it accords very strongly with my impressions of Hamlet after seeing it on stage the summer before I started college. In general, he just has such a defined perspective. Bloom, I mean, not Hamlet, and I am interested in that, too.
More than anything, the book left me with a desire to read many of these works that I have not read, like Nietzche, and the Gospel of Thomas. I'm sure that would please Bloom, and perhaps can serve as my commentary on this book until I've thought it through some more. :)
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