September 26, 2003
I Love Harold Bloom
Legendary stuffed shirt Harold Bloom, who is constantly running around saying that the sky is falling because people read African American literature and Harry Potter, weeps openly because the National Book Foundation gave its distinguished contribution award to novelist Stephen King.
I ordinarily just laugh at people like him, who bemoan the sorry state of literature when the greats like Alexandre Dumas, Shakespeare, or Charles Dickens are forgotten. What he forgets, or perhaps never stopped to consider, is that many of his "great authors" were little more than the pulp novelists that he accuses Stephen King of being. What was Shakespeare writing that wasn't just popular entertainment that appealed to commoners and educated people alike? I'm not saying that King is on par with Shakespeare, but dismissing him as a writer of "penny dreadfuls" is completely missing the point. Think of all the great "penny dreadfuls" history has given us... The Fall of the House of Usher, Frankenstein, etc.
I like what the critic Leslie Fielder said: "Look, let's be frank with each other: When all of us are forgotten, people will still be remembering Stephen King."
Posted by mike, September 26, 2003 1:35 PM