Harold Bloom in Silicon Valley - by Henry Oliver

I’m pleased to share this guest essay from Henry Oliver, who writes The Common Reader here on Substack. I am particularly interested in work that grapples with what I have called the Three City Problem—and this piece serves the wonderful dual-purpose of being a mini profile and introduction of Harold Bloom. Enjoy! —Luke I sometimes have a strange vision, almost dithyrambic, of the late literary critic Harold Bloom descending through the lonely air of Silicon Valley. He would have hated it there, having called the internet the great grey ocean into which we were all falling like lemmings. For Bloom, the discovery and sustenance of the inner self came through solitary reading of the literary canon; he was aghast at all the passive screen-gaping and internet rambling he saw creeping over our lives like a numbing frost. His life was dedicated to advocating for the great works of the past: Shakespeare, Proust, Dante, Montaigne. The works of Silicon Valley, he thought, were inimical to his p

I’m pleased to share this guest essay from Henry Oliver, who writes The Common Reader here on Substack. I am particularly interested in work that grapples with what I have called the Three City Problem—and this piece serves the wonderful dual-purpose of being a mini profile and introduction of Harold Bloom. Enjoy! —Luke I sometimes have a strange vision, almost dithyrambic, of the late literary critic Harold Bloom descending through the lonely air of Silicon Valley. He would have hated it there, having called the internet the great grey ocean into which we were all falling like lemmings. For B