TOW #13 - How to Read and Why (IRB 2.1)

I chose my IRB, How to Read and Why, because I am very interested in literature. It is a field I may want to go into when I get older. However, as I’ve discovered this year, I am not the best at analyzing the texts that I read – or at least fully illustrating my thoughts on paper. So, I chose this book. The writer, Harold Bloom, looks to take his reader beyond pure summary and analysis and provide the ability to apply a text to the real world. In his piece, How to Read and Why, Bloom uses a repeated rhetorical question and exemplification to attempt to explain to the reader the true purpose of reading in the modern day.

In the very beginning of section “Short Stories,” Harold Bloom introduces the rhetorical question, “How does one read a short story?” (31). He claims that he will go on to answer it through the use of many famous literary examples. This question, in theory, should serve as the foundation of his entire piece. However, in my opinion, Bloom did not take advantage of the original question. He sort of just left it. He goes on to identify multiple world-renowned authors. One by one, Bloom lists the authors, while highlighting some of his favorite pieces. Bloom summarizes each piece of work, which would be okay as long as he went on to give a more general approach the reader could take. But after analyzing, Bloom gives his own analysis of the text. My issue with this is that the reader is not necessarily being given a lesson on how to analyze, but is rather shown some examples of analysis with no guidance. Ultimately, I think that Bloom attempts to teach the reader his lesson through rhetorical question and exemplification, but it is to no avail (as of now).

At least to this point, I don’t think that Harold Bloom has been successful in answering his original question about why we should read. This seems to be more of an analysis than an argument – beyond that, an analysis on texts that I have never read (or even heard of). At the moment, I am not particularly enjoying How to Read and Why, but hopefully that changes in the second half of the book!