Why Harold Bloom Hated Infinite Jest

[@WriteConscious]

🚀 Do you want help finishing Infinite Jest? Or want a complete guide to follow while reading? Join my Infinite Jest Course and Book Club here: writeconscious.substack.com 📚 Explore over 400 of Wallace’s favorite books in my free guide to his favorite books Access here: writeconscious.ck.page/8956ce90fc 📖 Want to WRITE better? Join my free writing school: www.skool.com/writeconscious Insta: instagram.com/writeconscious 📕My Best Books of All-Time List: writeconscious.ck.page/355619345e 🔥Want to READ my wife’s fire poetry? Go here: marigoldeclipse.substack.com 🤔David Foster Wallace’s Favorite Book on Writing amzn.to/4eVmjAI

[@eglspl425]

You know Bloom was still teaching classes in the weeks immediately prior to his death? Love him or hate him, the man gave his life wholly to literature.

[@JoshuaOkwuosa]

Exactly!!!

[@Richardwestwood-dp5wr]

​@@JoshuaOkwuosaHarold Bloom was the last defense we had for authentic literature, a true giant.

[@Budgiebird4068]

I love him. Admire him greatly. He was so intelligent that most of the time he looked as if his intellect was giving him crippling pain. Like the body itself was struggling to contain such a mind.

[@MrUndersolo]

Why did he hate "Infinite Jest"? Because he read it.

[@IbrahimDarCo]

an impossible task, I'm told

[@MrUndersolo]

​@@IbrahimDarCo Bloom could do it.

[@paulryan2128]

​@@IbrahimDarCo True so far, it's been on my shelf for years.

[@IbrahimDarCo]

@@paulryan2128 I believe it is used as shelf decor more often than as reading material.

[@MrUndersolo]

​@@IbrahimDarCoCorrect.

[@NameRequiredSoHere]

Internet addiction has destroyed my ability to read anything.

[@TonyMichaels166]

I deleted all my social media because I felt the same way. For what it’s worth it helped me.

[@johnradovich8809]

Boy do I hear you. I find myself jumping from book to book a lot of them unfinished. Too much in front of me, kindle and physical books. Same with music streaming. Someone described it as a high pressure faucet. I don’t use social media at all but have a problem getting off KZbin!

[@ThomasMann85643]

Yes this is a problem. I read an awful lot of books, but I’m a computer programmer. So I have my entire life on my smartphone, but no social media. Im addicted to read the news. So is everyone else addicted to their phones. except people too oldor without enough knowledge to put, say, their calendar or finances there. Yes I fear for the future because what these devices have done to us. They’re dangerous, like the video of Jolene made by James Incandeza in IJ. So Wallace was ahead of his time when he talked about internet addiction when there wasn’t much internet.

[@matt11shawty]

You guys have willpower problems

[@NathanDias0520]

18:09 Wow, that was insanely painful to read. I can see what HB meant when he said DFW(rip) can’t read or write.

[@mikelpelaez]

11:13 I haven't read them, but umberto eco's the name of the rose and margarite yourcenar's memories of Hadrian are considered classics despite covering historical events hundreds of years before those books were written. (the name of the rose is about the middle ages and memories of Hadrian is about a roman emperor)

[@dcal6365]

You say, "Someone who has never written or published trying to act like they have opinions is crazy." You're arguing that a person has to be a writer to critique writing. This argument invalidates all of art. If I have to be painter in order to critique paintings, then why should anyone who is NOT a painter go to the Louvre or any other art museum? That argument puts all the power in the hands of the artist to TELL the public what is good and what isn't. So I just have to sit back and wait for another painter to tell me the Mona Lisa is good? I can't have my own opinion? I'm not smart enough to have my own critiques? I can't read Shakespeare and decide what speaks to me about it? I can't appreciate literature and its symbolisms and allegories and layered meanings on my own? While we're at it, why not have authors write a chapter at the end of every book they write in which they explain exactly what is important in their book and exactly how I'm supposed to interpret it. Congratulations, you just killed art. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "once you put your art out into the world, it belongs to the people." That means that every consumer of said art has the right to critique it and interpret it, regardless of whether that person is also an artist. This video is so one sided against Bloom in favor of Wallace, that it honestly sounds like you are such a Wallace fan that you had to come up with a ridiculous argument (like only artists can critique art) in order to paint Bloom as the bad guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. I don't even know much about Bloom, but my impressions of him are that he's kind of a pompous windbag. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to critique literature, or that he hasn't done so to great intelligence at one point or another. Just saying.

[@dcal6365]

Also, "move away from academia?" And replace it with what? Most young people today slept through their high school lit classes and would rather read harry potter than cormac mccarthy. Can professors be overrated windbags? Sure. But at least they are teaching literature with passion. Should we instead only be listening to artists to tell is what is good and how to interpret it? That sounds equally classist. Except now we would be putting the artist in the elitist class. Power to the people I say. And everyone's opinion and critique matters. Academia is just there to get the juices flowing by teaching critiques and interpretations that are widely recognized as meaningful. Doesn't mean we can't have our own. But I see the alternative, a world without literature education, as a dim place where everyone just reads harry potter and 50 shades of gray.

[@OfJaggedRisings]

Ive got to admit, nothing I’ve ever heard about infinite jest makes me want to read it.

[@NameRequiredSoHere]

It is a very difficult read. I'm one of the millions that started it, but didn't finish.

[@OfJaggedRisings]

@@NameRequiredSoHere it sounds awful 🤣

[@jamesarkanovi9038]

It's actually really really good. It's not nearly as difficult as it seems. I'd reccomend listening to the first chapter with the Spotify audiobook first and then diving in

[@Groove838]

​@@jamesarkanovi9038 I started reading infinite jest 7 months ago and stopped at page 90. Any tips to how I come back reading it?

[@jamesarkanovi9038]

@@Groove838 at page 90 all the plot lines are still being introduced so it might not make sense at first. But I can assure u it pays off! I would recommend listening to the audiobook for the first few chapters and don’t be discouraged if some stuff goes over ur head. It’s really a funny and enjoyable book

[@lukehardin9]

I don’t fully agree with Bloom’s assessment of Wallace, but to turn the tables a bit, I think it’s a bit inane for you to say that Bloom himself was incapable of writing. His fiction was of course a mess, but there has hardly been a more eloquent and compelling literary critic in the past half century. I suppose you can quarrel with the notion of criticism being a form of high art, but I would wager that the works of Johnson, Hazlitt, and Ruskin are in themselves major aesthetic accomplishments, to name just a few.

[@michaelyeiser1565]

People forget about Bloom's early work, which involved more thinking and less ex cathedra pronouncing.

[@ChengManChing]

I was actually impressed that Bloom could write a competent novel, albeit some kind of odd fantasy thing (I barely remember it). Most critics couldn’t begin to write fiction.

[@Postmailer]

I caught the ‘Bloom influenza’ reference in Infinite Jest. Does that mean Wallace started the beef?

[@ThomasMann85643]

Im almost at the end. For me the best way to look at this novel and not get frustrated about hopping from one thread to another is to read it as a bunch of short stories. Yes there are long tedious parts you have to grind through. But most of it are these vignettes. And some are so beautifully written they grab you are hold your attention in that special way. Call it nirvana when you get so lost in the plot where the distractions of your cell phone for example you forget about. One of these is particularly long but it’s like a Mozart symphony where in Amadeus where he says it’s perfect and no he could not cut a few notes. It’s not a spoiler to say that that section is about a fight. Another is a short piece, very Kafkasque in its brevity but strangeness, like The Hunger Artist. Call that the bureaucrat. Now it’s been decades since I wrestled with Harold Bloom but I recall The Western Human, The Invention of the Human, and some others I picked up I had no idea what the very long winded blowhard was talking about.

[@Pemulis1]

I kinda like Bloom, and sometimes he demonstrates genuine insight, but he's the stuffy professor admiring the works accepted as great because they are accepted as great. He was attracted to the title of 'genius' without really grasping that a person is not 'a genious' - only the work can be genius (which is why the ad hominem fallacy is a fallacy). He's the ass-kisser thinking his acquired rather than organic erudition entitles him to push to the head of the line to kiss that super-admired ass. He's the kind of person Baum was mocking when the scarecrow was pursuing his 'brain'. Of course he didn't like Wallace - Wallace probably would have thought him a pompous wannabe. Somtimes I come across truly great minds in literature, like Pynchon, Eliot or McCarthy, all clearly supremely talented, but Wallace seemed like he might be in another class entirely - like the bipolar lovechild of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky with a bit of Gogol mixed in. I don't much like his short stories, The Broom of the System is tedious. some of his essays are great. A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again is genius. But when you've written an Infinite Jest, it doesn't matter what else you've done. Your legacy is secure. The only book of that length that as I've neared the end I get bummed out as I run out of pages. I've read it half a dozen times and I'll read it many more.

[@Sabinowitz]

I think Bloom was myopic in his tastes, but your criticism of him as a follower of popular standards of greatness is way off-base. He was a lifelong reader and voraciously consumed books in his early life; it can't be said that he was beholden to anyone else's canon then, and later in his academic career he continued to read widely and compliment widely. That point made, I don't think parsing Wallace was in his wheelhouse, just like it wasn't in Joyce Carol Oates' who described Wallace and IJ in equally or perhaps exceedingly brutal and dismissive terms. I do think these comments the two made are deplorable, but at the same time I struggle to conceive what it is about my own similarity to Wallace (I am also a White man, maybe one generation below him) that makes me more apt to understand and sympathize with Wallace's writing, because I do believe there's something. While blatantly unjust, I do think there is something good too to seeing these hatchet job critiques from the august elders of the writing biz, as it's exactly the level of hate from haters that we all must serenely thrust forth despite, regardless of whether we're writers or Don Gately-esque factota. I also think that Bloom may be projecting and exemplifying another literary anxiety, the anxiety of the critic, which he may have overlooked behind the bridge of his glasses. Cheers

[@duffypratt]

When Bloom dismisses an author, his opinions tend to be content free, lacking anything in the way of argument. And as he got older, he seemed more and more to think that he could argue from authority, with himself as the voice of authority. His estimation of Wallace seems to fall into both categories. I would be very surprised if there was any evidence that Bloom ever read a complete novel by King (or Wallace).

[@brettk7221]

This was my first thought too. I’d be surprised if he read more than few pages based on this quote

[@jakfan09]

I honestly can’t stand Bloom. Not liking Infinite Jest or DFW is one thing but to say Wallace can’t write or even think is absurd.

[@natbrownizzle1387]

hahah, imagine someone says you can't think ^^

[@MrUndersolo]

Life is absurd.

[@jakfan09]

@@MrUndersolo True

[@bookaufman9643]

World War II wasn't called the Great War. That was World War I.

[@alexandervargas5304]

100% correct

[@ainslie187]

Have you read William Gaddis’ _The Recognitions_ ? I just ordered a copy, everything I’ve heard about it indicates it’s a daunting book but it sounds fascinating. Apparently it had an influence on DeLillo, Pynchon, DFW, and Jonathan Franzen (published in 1955). Curious about your thoughts on it?

[@WriteConscious]

Loved it! Got turned onto it by Wallace way back!

[@ypaisley]

Bloom LOVED Pynchon. Someone to whom Wallace is often compared.

[@Theomite]

What did Bloom have to say about Gaddis?

[@Issacson]

​@@TheomiteThe Recognitions made his Western Canon list. Just that one book though.

[@MrUndersolo]

Nobody's perfe t.

[@DWS205]

Makes sense. DFW often made bad attempts to write like Pynchon. Pynchon’s writing was effective, in part because of its uniqueness of the time. DFW tried to be one of the Postmodern writers (Barth, Barthelme, Delillo, and Pynchon) but he was 30 years late.

[@michaelyeiser1565]

@@Theomite He liked his The Recognitions quite a bit, considered it the best American novel of the fifties. Of course, he disliked Saul Bellow, who was actually the best novelist of the fifties.

[@unodos149]

Whenever I see Harold Bloom, I stress about needing to save Leia from being chained to his flotation device lol. As for the dissing, it's funny how Wallace sh*t on Stephen King in a similar way to how Bloom sh*t on Wallace lol

[@R.L.Kramer]

Waiting for the beef between you and Ben McEvoy. He’s got IJ on his list for the summer

[@giammiz77]

Over time I came to believe that a book like Infinite jest would have not been relevant if it wasn't written by a native English speaker. I feel like quality non Americans, non British fictions is quite often overlooked

[@thepagecollective]

It's about class. Finally, someone said it. When i was writing lit fic it was made very clear to me that I was unwelcome because I was not from the correct background, and if anything I'd have been more welcome if I were a minority. That said, marketing and writing are two different jobs. Great writing comes from a place of great self-doubt, and you are asking someone with great self-doubt to turn around and self-promote.

[@jasonsmith1155]

Would you ever consider a video on Graham Greene?

[@MoeShinola1]

That would be awesome.

[@jamescareyyatesIII]

I hated Infinite Jest, but disagree that DFW was a bad writer. He was a brilliant writer.

[@karlstengel2134]

“The Great War” is a reference to World War I, not World War II. It was called "The Great War" because of the sheer scale and magnitude of the conflict, involving major powers from across the globe, making it one of the largest wars the world had ever seen at the time, signifying its widespread impact and devastation. Recommended book: “The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman. 🤔

[@t7eenehkofta868]

def with Bloom on this one

[@kentjensen4504]

People take for granted that progressive is a good thing. Look at St. Peter’s Basilica. It doesn’t need progress. It needs to be protected so it will last as long as possible.

[@warmjets45]

u cant compare the complex workings of the world and history with a fucking building. come tf on dude

[@kentjensen4504]

@@warmjets45 Have you had this attitude long? Your whole life?

[@jasonmorgan5004]

DFW focused on super awkward, clumsy details when he wrote. Over and over and over again. That's why Bloom compared his writing to his thinking.

[@malazkarar1171]

What do you mean by clumsy details?

[@jasonmorgan5004]

@@malazkarar1171 One example. These chairs were molded orange plastic; three of them down the row were occupied by different people. Why do we care that the seats were made out of molded plastic? Why is this writing so passive? And usually three occupied chairs are filled with you guessed it...three people.

[@malazkarar1171]

@@jasonmorgan5004 I see. Why do you think such a verbose style is praised? Because I'm certain DFW chose his prose; why would he do that?

[@jasonmorgan5004]

@@malazkarar1171 I can only guess. I think Pynchon is verbose but he has a lush rhythm to his prose and most of it is insightful and doesn't have as many clinical mundane observations. I think DFW was writing in an original way. I reckon he had a big brain and a big voice and he wanted to break away from tradition. Kudos for that. He wrote the odd great line too. But it sounds too forced. In every clunky line I read, I see the frustration of his mind reeling over grasping for more complexity thinking complexity equals depth. Which comes off sounding a bit...avant-garde, amateur, frustrated and juvenile. In a word, overwrought.

[@malazkarar1171]

@@jasonmorgan5004 Would you say his preoccupation with novelty handicapped his narrative? I'll tell you man, I'm starting to resent avant-garde and the worship of novelty. I'm not reading another House of Leaves. I'm not saying that such experiments shouldn't exist, but the idea that novelty trumps sound structure is harmful to the trajectory of craft. What do you think?

[@thefantasynuttwork]

Danaher would be a pretty good example. Never really hit the highest level of comps himself but insanely good coach and has changed the game a lot. I’m not even the biggest fan of his stuff but undeniably effective. Enjoyed the video

[@flame85246]

Thank good for this video, I was looking everywhere for this answer. I’d watch Harold bloom content until I die

[@Daveye663]

I agree. It’s not about race, it’s entirely about class.

[@kentjensen4504]

I'll eventually read Infinitie Jest, but I can tell you that in spite of your admiration I'm not expecting much. The reason for this is that I really dislike Wallace in the interviews I've seen. First of all I've rarely seen someone more fascinated by himself, and it seems to me Wallace was pretentious and moved exclusively in safe zones. I hate how in interviews he gets asked a very basic queston and he makes this show of really chewing it over and then delivers some kind obviousism like "people don't have time for silence any more, things move so fast." Gee, ya think? A wasp with no stinger, is my impression.

[@WriteConscious]

You should try out the first 36 pages! I am dropping a breakdown of that section today. See if you like it. Shouldn't take too long to read!

[@kentjensen4504]

@@WriteConscious I will certainly do that.

[@rishwiz9]

What you described is exactly what Infinite Jest is😂😂😂. Reading it is like reading the transcripts of 1000 such interviews. Go ahead if you have the stamina.

[@kentjensen4504]

@@rishwiz9 I didn't see your comment until now. LOL thanks for confirming my suspicion. However, I am curious when very smart people are on either side of the love/hate divide regading this guy, so I'll summon the stamina one of these days. I read the beginning and liked it.

[@Zythryl]

You don’t think that stems from anxiety? Frankly, it’s a good thing when someone takes a basic question seriously. I don’t think “fascinated with himself” could be further from the truth, that kind of sentiment comes across as dismissive at best. I hope I’m wrong about you here.

[@Charles3x7]

Bloom also didn’t like The Crossing, which is my favorite Mccarthy novel, so I take everything Bloom says with a grain of salt.

[@roberthockett270]

On the other hand, Bloom called McC's 'Blood Meridian' the greatest novel ever written. So there's that. ;)

[@seanisnotjohn]

​@@roberthockett270He's said that about a few books lmao

[@NJGuy1973]

I didn't know who DFW was until i read Walter Kirn's review of IJ in New York magazine.

[@ummon995]

Not a fan of Infinite Jest but DFW is a writer of pretty good caliber. Infinite Jest is a flash in the pan as with a lot of postmodern fiction, in my opinion. I think people today are getting tired of slick, self-congratulatory irony in fiction. I don't think it'll hold up over time compared to the amount of killer fiction out there it's competing with. Addiction, postmodern stylizing, experimental form, sex, mental illness...I'll take Burroughs over Wallace any day. Wallace reminded me of the gateway writer who got bros into fiction in my college days. I agree with Bloom. The canon is necessary and works well as a bar for good literature given the historical context. Today we lack context for better or worse, which makes it much easier to criticize and relativize standards. Bloom was being Bloom in comparing Stephen King with Wallace. A nice insult that's lost to us these days.

[@roberthockett270]

Just so. Every word of this.

[@enriccoc7794]

I'm into Literary Criticism so Bloom is interesting to me, but from what little I know he does seem prone to hyperbole. It's also worth considering that maybe DFW self terminated because he didn't want to turn into Bloom as he got older. Maybe if you are looking for new video ideas you could put DFW life ending in context with the rash of other people that did it like Cobain and others. There might be a more unified idea happening at a culture level than seems on the surface.

[@Federico1685]

The Infinite Wisdom of Harold Bloom. 'Infinite Jest' is to literary fiction what Homeopathy is to real science.

[@malazkarar1171]

Can you please elaborate?

[@kentjensen4504]

If I hear a writer is being "pushed" and "branded" my interest drops to zero.

[@roberthockett270]

This dopey and pretentious book's title not only names the book, but also describes the book. It also describes this seemingly interminable video-clip, which has virtually nothing of Messrs. Wallace and Bloom in it, but is instead almost entirely given over to the host's seldom relevant digressions.

[@erickLguzman]

That was not “literally branding” which would involve hot metal pressed against the skin

[@cyrusvandergreft2293]

I finished Infinite Jest.... on audio while working. 😂

[@muratisik6956]

How was the experience? Did you understand it, as in: did you get what it was about?

[@danieljosephleo]

I've been promoting my literary fiction via blogging and social media since 2007, and my novels still only barely make me cigarette money! 😆

[@sonaschmidt-harris7416]

You're an honest person 😊

[@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd]

as you said bloom disliked stephen king too though he thought he was a better writer than wallace. What bloom never acknowledged is that king has gotten more young people interested in reading than if bloom himself ever would even if he'd lived a thousand years. Having said that I still recognize bloom's brilliance has a critic and his love of blood meridian as a great american novel'⚛😀♥

[@sartavin]

That's what is so frustrating about these elites and their dismissal of popular or pulp fiction. I love literature now, but there is no way I would have worked up to it without developing a love of reading across my childhood, which of course included works by King and pulp fantasy. It's just typical blinkered east-coast classism in its purest form.

[@SRpachulin]

Maybe his novels are not his best, but he was a great writer. For sure. Ive read oblivion and his books with articles and chronicles and those are most definately great reads.

[@phasespace4700]

Most fans of DFW just haven't read any great modern fiction. They think his entirely pedestrian and derivative bs is something daring and new. Try Julio Cortazar HOPSCOTCH. (1963). Try ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET: In the Labyrinth or The Voyeur. (1955) and on and on. DFW just doesn't rise to the level of a writer to be taken seriously.

[@reubencohen8838]

I like your video, but Sean Strickland didn't get an industry push... quite the reverse if anything.

[@mikelpelaez]

12:12 Wallace is way closer to Cervantes than King, because Wallace at least tried to invent a way of doing literature, like Cervantes did (although not as much, I think I can say Cervantes was quite more influential than Wallace). Meanwhile King uses commonly used techniques, he doesn't want to reinvent the wheel. (which isn't bad, that's important to clear up)

[@alexu297]

Completely true. Cervantes joked about the literature of his time, which is exactly what DFW did.

[@URInTheVillage]

To say DFW "can't think" immediately disqualifies someone from meriting any addition attention. Harvard must have thought Wallace could think or he wouldn't have been accepted into a PhD program on modal logic, a subject about which Bloom clearly knew nothing. DFW wrote a very user-friendly nonfiction work (for example) on the mathematics of Infinity (Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity), which displays his understanding of a very complicated mathematical subject. I've lost all respect for Bloom. I wonder what his problem really was? Maybe his idea was that the Canon stopped with Bloom, and nothing worthwhile would ever be written again.

[@KitCalder]

DFW was a highly talented and skilled writer but perhaps never quite got the chance to fully mature as a novelist.

[@adrijanleverkin]

You are literally saying that he didn't know how to write or how to think.

[@mondoenterprises6710]

I'll pick up a 5 lb weight but not a 5 lb. novel unless it is something great. Have not found one of those in a long time. Really don't live in that kind of a world anymore. Was DFW created by marketing hype? I think so. Can he write? Probably.

[@johnryan3913]

Bloom is wrong about IJ, but he is also a brilliant critic with a long career. You set him up as a straw man here, a "mere" academic, offering no real understanding of his passion, aesthetics, and contribution.

[@MacSmithVideo]

Long novels are information hazards.

[@kyleyoung7980]

People like bloom have their rightful place in literary World

[@kxkxkxkx]

Forever on the side lines, like all critics 🎉

[@kyleyoung7980]

@kxkxkxkx he's written like 50+ books 😭

[@user-xd1xf9rp5p]

DFW is a fantastic writer. Bloom is smoking crack

[@kxkxkxkx]

Clearly Bloom couldn't understand it, which explains his frustrated and petulant tone

[@keomgranger695]

Where do you get your shirts?

[@WriteConscious]

writeconscious.com/

[@naturalfluency2315]

@@WriteConsciousyou should make Faulkner street wear too or foster Wallace.

[@chriswilloughby48]

DFW's David Letterman story was classic.

[@bacht4799]

If it’s okay to ask.. then what are your opinion on Bret Easton Ellis.. it’s maybe an annoying question I apologize but just curious in that regard…!

[@geordiejones5618]

I think DFW is an all time elite short fiction writer and essayist, but I cannot appreciate him as a novelist. I was bored to tears trying to get into Infinite Jest. I guess it's just not for me. Pynchon and Dellilo seem like good alternatives.

[@muratisik6956]

His short fiction isn’t that great either. But the essays, they are something special! He was a better essay writer than a fiction writer, in my opinion.

[@autofocus4556]

Pynchon gets too silly you can’t even take anything seriously. It’s like watching a cartoon with no stakes.

[@jonasStinziano]

Where did you get that awesome shirt ?

[@WriteConscious]

writeconscious.com/

[@JungianMonkey69]

Damnnn that marketing transition at 3:15 was clean 🔥🔥

[@philtheo]

I like DFW's IJ, and literary critics, especially Bloom, often bloviate, but Bloom has a point about IJ. IJ is good, but overrated. IJ could've been a better book if a good editor combed through it and worked their editorial magic on it. It's kind of like how the Star Wars prequels had tremendous thematic potential with the Anakin-to-Vader arc, a story that could've been retitled the Tragedy of Skywalker (a la the Tragedy of Hamlet or Macbeth) if only Lucas had good editorial oversight. Still, the prequels weren't bad, all things considered, and better than the sequels! 😅

[@muratisik6956]

I agree: IJ had the potential to be a much better book. There is so much that you can delete without ruining the story.

[@mattgillick32]

Kendrick’s a lyrical master. Not a plant. Drake: plant but talented hit-maker.

[@jaysonnott9544]

Thank you! Yea I was thinking the same thing. Kendrick’s dope. His lyrics can be absolutely stunning.

[@WriteConscious]

Naw, the media, politicians, and celebrities have elevated him to suit their political/cultural needs. Ab-Soul, another rapper in Black Hippy, is way better lyrically than Kendrick. Why isn't he the face of all their marketing? Because he is too big of a free thinker, he would cause too much polarization. Kendrick can appeal to Christians, Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, normies, housewives, and everyone else. He keeps you within the political, interpersonal, and spiritual kennel we are trapped in while making you feel like you're free. There are also 100+ rappers who are better than Kendrick or Ab-Soul and don't fit the mold for mass market consumption. People get uncomfortable listening to them because to actually absorb their music requires change. However, Kendrick is a great rapper!

[@mattgillick32]

@@WriteConscious Eh, Ab Soul is fine. I dig his stuff, but being a free thinker and skill in the booth are different things. He’s unique but Kendrick is recognized by his peers more so than the mainstream/casual listener. Sure figureheads try to co-sign, but all of that came after the fact of his establishing lyrical and linguistic prowess. They just hitched their wagon to him because he was edgy, thoughtful, and cool. The most Kendrick says these days is on the tracks, so his endorsement from the industry comes as an anomaly because the genre is infested with garbage without lyrical focus. Distilling Kendrick into a media construct is anachronistic.

[@MrUndersolo]

Drake rhymes with Fake.

[@sartavin]

@@WriteConscious Plant doesn't mean popular or overrated, it is where the industry attempts to create a career for an artist who hasn't put the work in / established buzz based on talent. I'm not even a big fan of rap and can say that Lamar by and large earned his pedigree.

[@sbnwnc]

Who cares what some old man thought? Yeah he was a famous Yale professor. But so what?

[@davidlee6720]

Young-Dudes pretty good. But authors often write better with age and experience. People with no experience are often very arrogant and produce juvenilia without first taking the time to develop and hone their talent. Instead of just rushing into print with the first draught, writers ought to take a break (years sometimes,), instead of then looking back and feeling embarrassed; just standing up for a bit of experience. Nothing wrong with that! g

[@sbnwnc]

@@davidlee6720 Sure. But it's still just Bloom's opinion. Some opinions are better informed than others, and chorus of well-informed opinions is worth something. But at this point it's really just Bloom.

[@davidlee6720]

@@sbnwnc Am not really talking about Bloom, Just talking in general. he had his favourites -mainly old school - stood the test of time - but I love a young rebel as well -although something to be said for experience too - got to be intelligent to be on here so I think you probably agree, Peace.

[@theodoreconstantini2548]

I tried to read Wallace, and I will give him another go, though I don't think writers like him and Pynchon are really my cup of tea though I think Blooms judgement seems harsh, could he really be that bad. Anyway I think in the end if readers get something out of a writer that makes his writing valid, and a positive contribution to the arts and society, and Wallace has a cult following so I think he has connected with people. Not everybody will like him and that's okay.

[@rishwiz9]

Pynchon is a much more enjoyable writer. Don’t club him Wallace, who is totally different. I think you started at the wrong place. Start with Pynchon’s later novels, Against the Day or BE. He is a writer who does not deserve to be ignored, can’t say the same about Wallace though. Wallace is more similar to Gaddis ( both seemed to aim at giving their readers more pain than pleasure).

[@theodoreconstantini2548]

@@rishwiz9 Thanks I will.

[@theodoreconstantini2548]

@@rishwiz9 I will give a go for sure.

[@johnradovich8809]

Same here. Check out Vollman.

[@theodoreconstantini2548]

@@johnradovich8809 I will.

[@damiangustavorepetto6377]

Debo ser un tonto, pero todo lo negativo que marcan acerca de la escritura de DFW es lo que más me gusta de ella.

[@KieranM22]

the ufc gave sean strickland a push??? did you mean sean o'malley? the ufc used strickland to give alex peirera a push, was extremely hesistent to give him the title shot, made him make a quick turn around in hopes they could get ddp vs adesanya for 300. anyway writing this is distracting me from the video so got to go

[@WriteConscious]

No, Sean Strickland lol. Before he became champ, they didn't, but as of recently when they realized he's the representation of the Just Bleed archetypal fan they've doubled down on promoting him

[@RobertaTMS_]

I’ve never read David Foster Wallace, but I trust Harold Bloom’s judgement. For example, The Greatest Author of my Country is Machado de Assis, he saw the influence of Laurence Sterne also said beside that he was an original author. An author has to have an influence, makes sense. Trying to be original from “nothing” brings no originality whatsoever. That’s a good subject for an essay or article, to be honest. Now, a fan of author doesn’t accept the opinion of an academic just because doesn’t like your favourite author is quite a childish thing to do. And I personally think this also is another great subject for another essay or article.

[@Lissentewmi]

"Stephen King is Cervantes compared with David Foster Wallace" christ... I mean I literally do not disagree personally but thats brutal lol oh and its Gresham's law :p

[@9750939]

All critics have blind spots.

[@alanjarrar]

Yeah, it seems to me that Bloom was already pretty senile when he made those quotes.

[@michaelv8757]

I dont know why im here but i feel like the bee girl from no rain.

[@amorpaz1]

Kendrick isn’t an industry plant

[@FourEyedFrenchman]

DFW was a much better essayist than novelist, if you ask me. Infinite Jest had me contemplating lobotomy at some points, but stuff like "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" was a great read. Bloom got pretty far up his own ass in his twilight years, but he dedicated his life to his craft, and I don't think anyone can dismiss him because of his snooty, elitist attitude. If Bloom taught me anything, it's to not waste time on books that just don't cut your mustard. Life's too short for bullshit, and all that.

[@a.hardin620]

I’d dismiss Foer, Eggers, and nearly all MFA(a joke of a degree) writers too. But not DFW. He was different.

[@spurious]

Bloom was right on every word. Wallace couldn’t think in the way necessary for fiction writing, his essays are good at their occasional best, which is in exactly the ones this channel called “too avant-garde.” But largely, they were plugs of platitude and “what about this” thinking, shallow and broad. Infinite Jest is the absolute worst book of its kind, and its popularity can be attributed to the massive advertising campaign that heralded it. One has to have never read a decent long, involved systems novel to have the patience for IJ. The “flatness” described in this video goes deeper than that. IJ is such that you can read and think about absolutely anything, frequently dissociating from the book itself, eventually coming back, and finding that you have lost absolutely nothing by forgetting your “reading” for a few minutes. A book worth its weight doesn’t do that. If you remove the prestige and credibility that comes with *finishing a long book* there would be no reason to ever touch this bloated piece of trash, and if it weren’t for the sheer simplicity of the book - ignoring everything is just as good!- no miserably poor reader would ever get through it. Alas! There is value, for some, in glancing at every word and taking credit for it. Real, difficult, meaningful books abound, some within years of IJ. Underworld and The Tunnel are obvious examples. These will never be read, unlike IJ, for the same reason one knows about 50 Shades of Grey but has never heard of literati’s.com. A halfwit advertiser did his job, and one miserable, accessible, substandard example stands in for the concept in the popular imagination. This channel needs to stop advertising this trite piece of crap. If it really gave a shit about good, long, difficult books, rather than the ones popular enough for some money to be made, they’d be making a guide, course, and videos for them. Instead, we have plugs for paid material, and quoting a man in a personal interview, treating his conversation like a written argument. Bloom never wrote sharp criticism on Infinite Jest, barring the thing he wrote for Chelsea house’ edition on it, and never explained why IJ is bad. This is because he didn’t need to as far as his audience is concerned. Having read literally anything else of worth in the same category, one would see through IJ in a dozen pages. To have read this thing is a waste of time, to make the case for it is to join the cult of the invisible clothing. The emperor is naked, and you are as good as lying.

[@Head_Turnah]

TDE was a home grown label way before Kendrick blew up on his own. Such pretentious nonsense, then again that's probably par for the course on this channel.

[@WriteConscious]

Lol, Kendrick is the Taylor Swift of rap. Time to go deeper and support independent artists that are better. Kendrick is still a great rapper, though!

[@seanmalczewski1998]

OF COURSE you like Kendrick

[@NealDurando]

A major part of talent is knowing what not to write. Wallace fails terribly in this regard. Team Bloom!

[@muratisik6956]

I am not team Bloom but team DFW, but I do agree with you: Wallace didn’t know what not to write. Especially in fiction.

[@deirdre108]

Bloom only wished he could have composed any work as iconic as IJ.

[@SerWhiskeyfeet]

Lol Bloom’s contributions will far outlive DFW’s

[@deirdre108]

@@SerWhiskeyfeetBloom never had any creative ability-his attempt at actually writing a novel was universally derided. Reference if you will T Roosevelt’s Man In The Arena.

[@labradax]

It’s weird, Just discovered Bloom yesterday, to find your take today. Bloom has some interesting points to make on reading. He is an academic and we have to keep that in mind. He has to follow a certain creed and doctrine. Keep up the good work!

[@danielmaryanovsky6946]

Hilariously silly comment, in a very obscure way

[@Braxant]

Bloom was an anti-establishment critic. He coined the term School of Resentment for the current strain of criticism which dominates universities lol

[@jorgesuarez7073]

I don´t see why anyone should resent Blooms´s criticism of Wallace. He didn´t like his work and thought him a mediocre writer. I believe Bloom as a literary critic has a well earned reputation and so his opinion carries some weight. More than many dilettante's. In this case I agree with Bloom. Wallace is a writer of endless wordy pompous boring crap.

[@markbloch5237]

You think this is engaging in the good side of social media?

[@autofocus4556]

Seemed like he just had disdain for a generation younger than him. Like old people saying music today will never live up to the music from my generation and before.

[@petercollinson8039]

You can learn things by reading Bloom even if he is pretty consistently annoying. It's just tough to take him seriously when he goes on about modern authors. Stephen King probably kept more people reading prose than anyone except maybe JK Rowling. You can jab King critically in any number of ways, but Bloom said he had no imagination. No imagination. Sure.

[@Braxant]

Is he all that wrong? How many novels did King write with a boy-man duo and a precocious kid who likes to read?

[@natbrownizzle1387]

3:00 jokes on you, I am very much a stupid guy :) "You are not as smart as him." Is not really an argument ^^ calm down, "Consider the Lobster" was just a well written stupid thing that was written, Wallace only proved that you can write dumb infantile crap whilst making it sound smart, because of the form.

[@martinsFILMS13]

Wallace was just an obnoxious writer

[@elihyland4781]

i love literary drama

[@christopherhamilton3621]

Why should I care what Bloom thinks? He just sounds jealous & resentful.

[@dumpster_fiyah]

"Fake upliftment of certain groups of people through diversity..." What the hell, dude? This is a more diverse country than it used to be. Authors have gotten more diverse as well. There's nothing wrong with that.

[@WriteConscious]

Of course not, but I am talking about diversity quotas in publishing houses, MFA programs, and government endowments for artists. Art should be a meritocracy. What did Yeats say? I know what wages beauty gives, how hard a life her sevant lives, yet praise the winters gone: there is not a fool can call me friend. And I may dine at journey's end with Landor and with Donne

[@dumpster_fiyah]

@@WriteConscious You're implying a couple things that aren't true. 1) There was at some point, something called a meritocracy that functioned as advertised, and not just an old boys club. There wasn't. 2) There's a decline in the quality of fiction. There isn't. There's shit now, there was shit before. There's diamonds in the rough now, and there were diamonds in the rough before. 3) That somehow, this is the fault of nonwhite authors. Since this is based on faulty assumptions, it is wrong. But even if those assumptions were right, this point would still be wrong.

[@martinjohn9904]

Infinite Jest is great. I loved Blooms book, The Western Canon. Infinite Jest is not an easy read but it is chock full of great comic ideas.

[@pje8462]

I could never finish Infinite Jest. Part brilliant, part post -modern trash.

[@munch314]

Yeah, its a boring book

[@magicalife3]

subscribed 2 seconds in

[@mariaradulovic3203]

Bloom was right.

[@joejohnson6327]

Definitivno.

[@rishwiz9]

I always thought of DFW as the Cobain/ Nirvana of literature. Very appealing to a certain section and so massively overblown and worshipped by them to an extent that it seeps into the mainstream consciousness.

[@Carvaka]

Not really

[@erickLguzman]

The plural for forum is fora

[@joejohnson6327]

"Forums" is preferred to the Latin plural in normal English usage.

[@erickLguzman]

Fine, but DFW would totally prefer fora

[@seanwoods5943]

Drake is objectively better than lemar.

[@kittraverse9871]

How dare he have a slightly negative opinion on a well beloved work by a well beloved writer. Preposterous, off with his head!!!

[@EubulusKane3259]

…Cos it’s long and boring!

[@Tuxedo_Ma5k]

It’s pronounced tur-jid

[@MichaelLisk]

Bloom was right about Wallace. Wallace, like Pynchon, is a favorite of pseudo intellectuals.

[@camiloordonez4906]

But Bloom loved Pynchon

[@MichaelLisk]

@@camiloordonez4906 I was referring to the readers of both authors not their relative value.