regarding How to Read and Why
Nov. 21st, 2004 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iceinyourmusicidea for short story:
A sinister project involving time travel is underway at Yale University Theoretical Physics department. Through a series of comical mishaps, the point-of-view character, one Professor Harold Bloom (of Humanities) ends up in the time machine and is consequently transported to a place outside time as we know it. Here he chances to meet William Shakespeare (the William Shakespeare; note: this must be made very clear), and despite initial awkwardnesses, the two men soon find themselves in an amorous relationship which appears mutually satisfying despite Professor Bloom's continuing insistence on always bottoming. We follow, in minute detail, the development of Bloom's feelings through deceptively banal everyday activities (Bloom & Shakespeare go grocery shopping; Bloom & Shakespeare argue over toothpaste; Bloom & Shakespeare act out their favourite Dickinson poems in a heated game of literary charades, etc.) into a final certainty that their somewhat unconventional relationship is the true embodiment of the universal ideal of love. At this point, the point of view expands to omniscient, and it is revealed to the reader that, all the while, Shakespeare has just been fucking with Bloom's head, and is presently planning to dump him on his sorry ass. Not long after, the plan is put into action, and Shakespeare exits to the left with a final, flippantly delivered, remark: "And you never understood me at all!" The scene closes on the sobbing huddle of Bloom stranded alone in an existential void outside the time-space continuum.
But the final joke is on the reader/author/reader: in the Epilogue, Bloom cleverly breaks through the diegetic barriers and informs the writer that this is precisely the reaction he intended to get from us.
To be done in style of Wordsworth meets Hemingway. (Possibilities of movie adaptation?)
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Also, I would hope that little Nick in the rain would be proud to know that he eventually made it into the definitive cavalcade of snapshots of queer characters/moments/icons in movies and television. As did Buffy and Faith and oh how I miss s3 of BtVS. I'm sure there might be some logical arguments for why early seasons of Buffy were not the absolutely best thing that ever happened to television or me, but I don't want to hear them right now. wwaaaah.
Thank you. and. good night.
A sinister project involving time travel is underway at Yale University Theoretical Physics department. Through a series of comical mishaps, the point-of-view character, one Professor Harold Bloom (of Humanities) ends up in the time machine and is consequently transported to a place outside time as we know it. Here he chances to meet William Shakespeare (the William Shakespeare; note: this must be made very clear), and despite initial awkwardnesses, the two men soon find themselves in an amorous relationship which appears mutually satisfying despite Professor Bloom's continuing insistence on always bottoming. We follow, in minute detail, the development of Bloom's feelings through deceptively banal everyday activities (Bloom & Shakespeare go grocery shopping; Bloom & Shakespeare argue over toothpaste; Bloom & Shakespeare act out their favourite Dickinson poems in a heated game of literary charades, etc.) into a final certainty that their somewhat unconventional relationship is the true embodiment of the universal ideal of love. At this point, the point of view expands to omniscient, and it is revealed to the reader that, all the while, Shakespeare has just been fucking with Bloom's head, and is presently planning to dump him on his sorry ass. Not long after, the plan is put into action, and Shakespeare exits to the left with a final, flippantly delivered, remark: "And you never understood me at all!" The scene closes on the sobbing huddle of Bloom stranded alone in an existential void outside the time-space continuum.
But the final joke is on the reader/author/reader: in the Epilogue, Bloom cleverly breaks through the diegetic barriers and informs the writer that this is precisely the reaction he intended to get from us.
To be done in style of Wordsworth meets Hemingway. (Possibilities of movie adaptation?)
-
Also, I would hope that little Nick in the rain would be proud to know that he eventually made it into the definitive cavalcade of snapshots of queer characters/moments/icons in movies and television. As did Buffy and Faith and oh how I miss s3 of BtVS. I'm sure there might be some logical arguments for why early seasons of Buffy were not the absolutely best thing that ever happened to television or me, but I don't want to hear them right now. wwaaaah.
Thank you. and. good night.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-20 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-20 09:36 pm (UTC)The best part is that I'm right in the middle of a major paper on criticism...and I have Bloom's Notes open right next to me. And I was JUST getting annoyed at how the man pretends to know every damn thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 05:26 am (UTC)grr.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-20 11:49 pm (UTC)I love it!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 05:53 am (UTC)and it's funny, the way that (this far) I haven't met anyone into lit crit that doesn't hate that man's guts, yet he's like the most powerful person in our field.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 06:07 am (UTC)cause and effect? effect and cause? ;) (anyhoo, lit crit peeps sure love to hate, don't
wethey?)i agree that he writes very nice and fluent and coherent comprehensible, which is more than you can say about some people in the field, but. i think his cleverest trick is in basing his whole argument on such assumptions that anything you try to say against him just proves his point. don't think his big white male perspective of universality is correct? just goes to show how modern crit has ruined your ability to think. :P
(gr. grr.)
:-)
Date: 2004-11-21 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 05:30 am (UTC)i tried, but, god, the thing that haunts my dreams at night is that i'm absolutely certain he knows i hate him and laughs in my face about it. (tho', i'm thinking, in the sequel, shakespeare reveals that whatever bloom said in epilogue was bloom's own funny little delusion, and then shakespeare goes and gets krycek pregnant. better?)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-22 09:31 am (UTC)