[The above video is mostly a
reading of the text below, with an occasional aside thrown in for good measure
as they strike me as relevant. I welcome
questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this video.]
You can’t accuse James Wood of lacking range. These essays run the gamut from Harold Bloom’s influence on Shakespeare studies to the “theology” of George Steiner to the lasting (though indirect) impact of Ernst Renan. Unfortunately, had I not taken notes as I read these two dozen or so essays, I would have quickly forgotten most of the arguments presented herein. At their worst, they are uncontroversial and too subtle perhaps to make an impression. There are a few, though, that are fascinating and thought-provoking enough to make you reconsider the topic at hand – but they are the exception in an otherwise relatively pedestrian set of essays.
Wood has the odd habit of writing something vaguely resembling a book review which in reality is just an opportunity for him to get on a soapbox concerning the subject at hand. This is precisely what he does what the aforementioned essay, titled “Shakespeare in Bloom.” It purports to be a review of Bloom’s “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.” In a sixteen-page-long review, he mentions the book perhaps two or three times, choosing to spend most of his time wrapped up in discussion of the place of ontology in artistic creativity: namely, did we invent Shakespeare (that is, his place in the literary canon), or did he invent us? His answers to these questions draw much more from Hazlitt, Coleridge, and other twentieth century critics than they do from the book being considered, and therefore Bloom’s book, no matter your opinion of it, seems to come off as a cipher, an empty vessel upon which Wood can expatiate as he sees fit. His review of Peter Ackroyd’s “The Life of Thomas More” and the Melville essay, “The All and The If: God and Metaphor in Melville” (mostly a review of Hershel Parker’s biography of Melville), are similar in that they are really more polemical in nature, but still operate under the conceit of a book review.
First the lame and the bland. Do we really need another piece on how Jane Austen created successively female characters with more actively interior lives, and therefore was at least in part responsible for bringing the fore the private, internal lives and thoughts of these characters? And what use is it to have Virginia Woolf described for the 72nd time as “mystical”? Or another retelling of how DeLillo’s conspiracy-laden fiction weakens his writing instead of strengthens it? As for the first two observations, they have been fully fleshed out elsewhere and now seem droll and unimaginative. I even happen to agree with the last point, but I certainly don’t want to read another essay about it; it seems to stand on its own merits for anyone who has read almost anything he has written.
There are some pieces of moderate interest, including one on T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism (another cipher of a book review, this time of Anthony Julius’ “Anti-Semitism and Literary Form”). I haven’t read Julius’ book, but it sounds like he goes hopping from poem to poem in Eliot’s oeuvre anxious to kind anti-Jewish sentiment wherever he can find it. Wood rightly take the effort to point out that being a bad person (or having prejudices that today seem less-than-fashionable) doesn’t make you a bad poet.
But I wouldn’t want to leave someone with the impression that the whole book is like this; it has its moments. In the essay on George Steiner’s idea of literature and meaning (mostly as presented in Steiner’s “Real Presences”), Wood accuses Steiner of being “theological.” He suggests Steiner says anything can be said about anything and therefore runs the risk – one could liken it to Pascal’s Wager – that meaning even really exists. He also attacks Steiner’s suggestion that American lacks great art because of its liberal, democratic government. I read one of the essays in “Real Presences” for my undergraduate thesis which is why I was particularly interested in Wood’s assessment, but I don’t remember the anti-Americanism in it.
This is my first collection by Wood, supposedly one of the better literary critics writing today, but didn’t really see what much of the ado was about. I would suggest that, instead of sitting down to read these all at once, you read them topically as you make your way through the authors themselves. That might provide you with a reading that’s more lasting and memorable than most of the ones I walked away with. Despite my experience here, I’m sure the soi-disant literary critic in me will have me coming back for more James Wood in the future.
Wood has the odd habit of writing something vaguely resembling a book review which in reality is just an opportunity for him to get on a soapbox concerning the subject at hand. This is precisely what he does what the aforementioned essay, titled “Shakespeare in Bloom.” It purports to be a review of Bloom’s “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.” In a sixteen-page-long review, he mentions the book perhaps two or three times, choosing to spend most of his time wrapped up in discussion of the place of ontology in artistic creativity: namely, did we invent Shakespeare (that is, his place in the literary canon), or did he invent us? His answers to these questions draw much more from Hazlitt, Coleridge, and other twentieth century critics than they do from the book being considered, and therefore Bloom’s book, no matter your opinion of it, seems to come off as a cipher, an empty vessel upon which Wood can expatiate as he sees fit. His review of Peter Ackroyd’s “The Life of Thomas More” and the Melville essay, “The All and The If: God and Metaphor in Melville” (mostly a review of Hershel Parker’s biography of Melville), are similar in that they are really more polemical in nature, but still operate under the conceit of a book review.
First the lame and the bland. Do we really need another piece on how Jane Austen created successively female characters with more actively interior lives, and therefore was at least in part responsible for bringing the fore the private, internal lives and thoughts of these characters? And what use is it to have Virginia Woolf described for the 72nd time as “mystical”? Or another retelling of how DeLillo’s conspiracy-laden fiction weakens his writing instead of strengthens it? As for the first two observations, they have been fully fleshed out elsewhere and now seem droll and unimaginative. I even happen to agree with the last point, but I certainly don’t want to read another essay about it; it seems to stand on its own merits for anyone who has read almost anything he has written.
There are some pieces of moderate interest, including one on T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism (another cipher of a book review, this time of Anthony Julius’ “Anti-Semitism and Literary Form”). I haven’t read Julius’ book, but it sounds like he goes hopping from poem to poem in Eliot’s oeuvre anxious to kind anti-Jewish sentiment wherever he can find it. Wood rightly take the effort to point out that being a bad person (or having prejudices that today seem less-than-fashionable) doesn’t make you a bad poet.
But I wouldn’t want to leave someone with the impression that the whole book is like this; it has its moments. In the essay on George Steiner’s idea of literature and meaning (mostly as presented in Steiner’s “Real Presences”), Wood accuses Steiner of being “theological.” He suggests Steiner says anything can be said about anything and therefore runs the risk – one could liken it to Pascal’s Wager – that meaning even really exists. He also attacks Steiner’s suggestion that American lacks great art because of its liberal, democratic government. I read one of the essays in “Real Presences” for my undergraduate thesis which is why I was particularly interested in Wood’s assessment, but I don’t remember the anti-Americanism in it.
This is my first collection by Wood, supposedly one of the better literary critics writing today, but didn’t really see what much of the ado was about. I would suggest that, instead of sitting down to read these all at once, you read them topically as you make your way through the authors themselves. That might provide you with a reading that’s more lasting and memorable than most of the ones I walked away with. Despite my experience here, I’m sure the soi-disant literary critic in me will have me coming back for more James Wood in the future.
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