[Moon Farmer]
Harold Bloom interviewed. Incredibly fascinating on Hamlet.
[H]ow could we possibly get round Hamlet when he is, in fact, a lot smarter than we are?
And on the furor he roused when he wrote a very negative review of the first Harry Potter book:
of course, the Harry Potter series is rubbish. Like all rubbish, it will eventually be rubbed down. Time will obliterate it. What can one say?
There was a letter published in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, criticizing a movie critic's listing of the ten best movies of the year so far for not "considering their ability to entertain a mass audience" as a criterion for quality. Now, it's not necessarily so that, as LaSalle states, "popularity makes a thing bad," but quality doesn't really have anything to do with popularity. A thing might be popular because it captures a moment, but its quality might not be lasting, when the times pass. I disagree with Bloom on the Harry Potter books (yes, they are filled with cliche) but at the same time they are engaging reads. Potter is not, as Hamet is, smarter than we are, in fact he's quite stupid. His author isn't smarter than we are either, but she writes an entertaining (yes, for the moment) tale.
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