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Bloom's Reviews: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 146 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A towering, very important American classic 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

For whatever reasons, I'm one of those who, over the years, never gave "Uncle Tom's Cabin" much thought. I'm afraid I dismissed the book based on the derogatory cliche of describing a complacent black man as an Uncle Tom. What a pleasure to find how wrong I was.

Although the style of narration, the punctuation style of the day and the evolution of contractions, compound words and other bits of syntax show this book to be from the mid 1800s, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a modern novel. It is largely without the stifling level of detail offered in other books of the time, and it pushes the concept of omniscient narrator (perhaps along the lines of Vonnegut in "Breakfast of Champions") to a level that would likely be absurd in another story and purpose.

And Harriet Beecher Stowe did have a purpose - a daring, countervailing, completely forward-thinking challenge to the complacency of the day. The action of the story concludes in the second-to-last chapter. In the last chapter, called simply "Concluding Remarks," Stowe, referring to herself in third person, explains how she came to write the book, and in so doing pulls the reader beyond the realm of fiction in order to cap off her sermon. And a 500-page sermon is exactly what "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was and is.

To quote Stowe from the last chapter, "For many years of her life, the author avoided all reading upon or allusion to the subject of slavery, considering it as too painful to be inquired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would certainly live down. But, since the legislative act of 1850, when she heard, with perfect surprise and consternation, Christian and humane people actually recommending the remanding escaped fugitives into slavery, as a duty binding on good citizens,- when she heard, on all hands, from kind compassionate and estimable people, in the free states of the North, deliberation and discussions as to what Christian duty could be on his head,- she could only think, These men and Christians cannot know what slavery is; if they did, such a question could never be open for discussion. And from this arose a desire to exhibit it in a LIVING DRAMATIC REALITY [emphasis the author's]. She has endeavored to show it fairly, in the best and worst phases. In its BEST [emphasis the author's] aspect, she has, perhaps, been successful; but, oh! Who shall say what yet remains untold in that valley and shadow of death, that lies the other side?"


Within the narrative arts can be found a gray area between complete fiction and straightforwrad documenting. Within this area itself is a fine line of storytelling that sheds the fluff factor of fiction and the yawn factor of documentation. A story told along this line is not only compelling but offers to the receiver of the story a glimpse of what a life in the world depicted by the story must have been like. Or at the very least might have been like. This glimpse, whatever else it is, will be visceral, allowing the reader an actual emotional link. Finding this line is hard, staying on it harder and pulling off a finished work while remaining true to the line harder still. This is what Stowe did, a century before such a point of view emerged again in Americam media.

As such, Stowe explains that many of the characters are based on real people - yes, there really was a man as horrible as Simon Legree - and that most of the events in the book were based on true events known to her personally or through trusted reporting. This novelizing of reality was so compelling the book would be translated into twenty-two languages.


It would be relatively easy to take sentences and paragraphs out of context and reach the conclusion that Stowe decried slavery while holding the black race paternalistically. It's very possible to find any number of passages and label them as apologetic and paternalistic. There is, in fact, paternalism throughout the story, but this is a reflection of America ten years before the Civil War; and by the end of Stowe's "Concluding Remarks" this paternalism is gone.

I would describe the main apologist, St. Clare, who is keenly aware of the state of his own culture, as more of a rationalist. By making this character so, Stowe is able to open our eyes, as she opened many eyes of the day, to the subtler forms of defacto slavry - not at all to excuse slavery in general as some kind of natural order, but to bear witness to those toiling in other forms of captured work.

In 1851 the scullery maid of an English country home was not a slave, of course. Her employment was voluntary, after all, and at the end of a year she would have a few schillings to her name. But economically, perhaps even geographically, her freedom was largely unavailable to her, and so while not a slave under the law, the other side of her employment was the delivery of herself to twelve- or fifteen-hour days of scrubbing pots and pans. The delivery of herself to, at the end of any of those days, climbing three or four flights of a rear stairs to a garret; to a social life limited to the kitchen staff, which itself was a hierarchy that lorded over her; to little hope of marriage, if that's what she wanted, or to any sort of a life she might call her own. Why? To keep from starving to death.

And think about this today. Are you watching a 27" color TV with full remote that cost $199? Do you honestly think that set could have been made, boxed, shipped to a port in Asia, shipped by boat to the US, shipped by train and truck to your local StuffMart and sold to you profitably for one or two day's wages while every worker along the way was treated fairly? Do you care?


For the vast majority of those reading this review slavery is an abstracted and distant topic. It is a practice from a long ago past that might be given two meetings in a high school American History class, a cursory survey from which students might understand the concept of the economics of buying, selling and breeding human beings, from which they might be encouraged to imagine the suffering implicit to such practices.

Stowe's great achievment in writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was to belie the nuts and bolts, the mere logistics and schematics of slavery. She established for the reader the point of view of the slave, of a human life set against the legally sanctioned bureaucracy of slavery. She successfully depicted a person - an individual, a human being - sold as a product, warehoused as a product, transported as a product, and then set to use as an organic machine that was discarded and replaced when it broke. More to the point, she allows us glimpses into the inner lives, thoughts and prayers of those sold, warehoused, transported and used up while their ties to family and place, while their smallest hopes, are given credence only as an afterthought that may never coalesce. Only if, after having purchased a brother or a mother, there should be enough money remaining to buy the sister or the child. Only if it should be convenient and expedient for the planter to do so, only if it should strike that planter's fancy one particular afternoon but
not another.

This book is as meaningful today, in new ways, as it was in 1851, and that is wholly remarkable.

Editorial Review:

Bloom's Reviews are a acclaimed advancement to the standard chapter-by-chapter plot summaries provided by most study guides. Each Review saves a student time by presenting the latest research, from noted literary scholars, in a practical and lucid format, enabling students to concentrate on improving their knowledge and understanding of the work in question.

I Capture the Castle (Bodley Bookshelf)

Dodie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 232 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A wonderful story 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I just loved I Capture The Castle. What a charming book!

Set in the 1930s in a rural English town, the novel tells the story of Cassandra Mortmain, a seventeen year old girl living with her family in a run-down castle. Cassandra's family is highly eccentric. Her father is a tortured writer, her stepmother a free spirit and great beauty and her sister Rose is her imaginative best friend and confidante. The story revolves around the love triangle that ensues when two wealthy American brothers move into a nearby estate and begin courting the Mortmain sisters.

Smith's writing style is languid and lushly romantic. The novel is a pleasure to read. While Rose and Cassandra's romances are very much mired in old fashioned conventions, the emotions involved are quite accessible to modern readers. Cassandra comes across as a vivid and believable character and it's easy to care for her.

I have to say that I was disappointed in the ending. Not because it didn't work, but because I'd been hoping for a different outcome. I actually thought about it for days. That's the power of a good story!

Alaska

James A. Michener

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Michenerholism - Craving a rich tapestry of history and tales 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

First, let me announce my bias: I was born and raised in Alaska.

When I saw this novel on the bookshelves when it first came out, I promised myself I'd read it even tho I had never read anything by Michener. Well, some 20 years later, I finally read it. And -- boy! -- do I wish I hadn't waited so long. It's a long book (close to 1,000 pages) and I was so engrossed that I almost lost sight of the real world for the duration.

Of course, being from Alaska helps. I could orient myself geographically with little trouble. I had the broad outlines of the history already. And the historical names were almost all familiar to me if not the details of their lives.

But what Michener did which I most appreciate about his novel is painlessly impart the details of history by interweaving it so tightly with his colorful fiction that it was hard for me during the reading to separate the two. Yet I'm sure I know what is historical and what isn't. It's a contradiction, I know. And a compliment to this man's storytelling skill.

I let out a satisfied "whew!" when I closed the book a final time and returned to reality. Then I suffered withdrawal symptoms for days, maybe weeks. I found myself gazing wistfully at some of his other large works in the bookstores. Did you know there's no Michenerholics Anonymous? I've just begun reading THE SOURCE. I couldn't help myself.

Editorial Review:

The high points in the story of Alaska since the American acquisition are brought vividly to life through more than 100 characters, real and fictional.

Asterix the Gaul (Classic Asterix hardbacks)

"Goscinny", "Uderzo"

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Gauls Getafix 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Asterix lives in the Gaulish part of the Roman Empire. Doesn't he? Not quite, his village resists the Romans thanks to a magic potion. The Romans want some of this potion for themselves...

"Asterix the Gaul" was the first Asterix comic, published in 1961. Rene Goscinny made the words and Albert Udzero did the pictures. It's a pretty good way to start the series though the sequel "Asterix and the Golden Sickle" (1962) sets up the vibe the other comics enjoy.

Asterix and Obelix 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Thanks to the magic potion of the resident druid, Getafix, Asterix and Obelix triumphantly defend the borders of their village against Caesar's legions, to the legions' great dismay ("I hate those Gauls"). My personal favorite is "Asterix and Cleopatra" where they travel to Egypt to help Getafix's buddy Edifis win an architectural contest between Ceasar and Cleopatra. Oh, and the Sphinx's nose? Obelix did that.

In this graphic novel series there is great storytelling, superb drawing, awful puns, wonderful sound effects (yes, really), and sneakily, insidiously, while you're laughing, you're learning.

Editorial Review:

When Roman Centurion Crismus Bonus finds out about Getafix’s magic potion, he kidnaps the druid to force him to reveal the recipe. So Asterix joins his friend in captivity and together they two plan to whip up a surprise with truly hair-raising effects.

Poetry Speaks to Children (Book & CD) (Read & Hear)

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Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the tradition of Poetry Speaks, the anthology named a Best Book of 2002 by School Library Journal, and praised by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as "a volume to delight longtime lovers of poetry and to spark new love for poetry, especially among the young," Sourcebooks MediaFusion is proud to introduce the joy of the written and spoken word in Poetry Speaks to Children.

Parents, educators, librarians, and poetry enthusiasts have wondered for years how to get children really interested in poetry. Until now, there hasn't been a collection of poems and poets that spoke directly to that elusive audience. Poetry Speaks to Children cracks through that barrier by packaging the best poems by the best authors along with a CD-making the engrossing and often mischievous verses come alive in the voices of many of the creators.

Poetry Speaks to Children reaches into the world of poetry and pulls out the elements children love: rhyme, rhythm, fun and, every once in a while, a little mischief.

More than 90 poems, for children ages six and up, celebrate the written word and feature a star-studded lineup of beloved poets, including: Roald Dahl; J. R. R. Tolkien; Robert Frost; Gwendolyn Brooks; Ogden Nash; John Ciardi; Langston Hughes; Sonia Sanchez; Seamus Heaney; Canada's best-loved children's poet, Dennis Lee; Rita Dove; Billy Collins; Nikki Giovanni and X. J. Kennedy.

On the accompanying CD, 52 of the poems are brought to life-most read by the poets themselves-allow the reader to hear the words as the poets intended.

Hear Gwendolyn Brooks growl her rhyming verse poem "The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves, or, What You Are You Are" with verve and inflection-relaying the story of the striped cat who "rushed to the jungle fair for something fine to wear," much to the hoots of his jungle peers. Amid jeers, sneers and sighs, the tiger eventually learns to be comfortable in his own striped skin! (or fur as it were!).

Follow Ogden Nash as he tells of the brave little Isabel, who "didn't worry, didn't scream or scurry" when confronted with a ravenous bear, a one-eyed giant or a troublesome doctor. Her clever solutions to problems ("She turned the witch into milk and drank her") will keep even the most reluctant readers interested.

Listen to James Berry, who quells a little girl's anxieties about her color by celebrating the marriage of "night and light," emphasizing how all colors are necessary in nature, in "Okay, Brown Girl, Okay."

Turn the page and tune in . . . kids won't be the only ones hooked!

Fables

Arnold Lobel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fun Change 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Middle elementary school.

I cannot remember a single one of these fables, which is because Lobel created them. They are fun with unexpected twists and wonderful morals.

Per usual, Lobel has superb, interesting, expressive, and fun illustrations. There is one illustration for each fable.

One of my FAVORITE books as a child 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm 21, going on 22 in April, but this was always one of my favorite books (next to Shel Silverstein's Where The Sidewalk Ends). My favorite was Cat and His Visions. My mother would read it slowly and deliberately, licking her chops like the cat would. I noticed that there was also a note in the discussions area that someone's child had nightmares - I ALWAYS had nightmares, but THIS BOOK MADE ME WANT TO FALL ASLEEP BECAUSE I LAUGHED SO HARD that it made me sleepy! I wish I had been able to dream about the cat and his fish - but then again, we had two cats at my house. We actually had a house fire and our two cats died in '98 or '99, but I still have great memories of laying on my bed with my mom, sister, and our kitties, reading fables. And I honestly think I'm a better person because of the lessons that are taught - I always was read Aesop's fables in school to the point where I was almost sick of them, so having this and Shel's book were wonderful, wonderful.
And for any of you parents out there, YES, IT DOES MATTER IF YOU ARE DRAMATIC with the reading. You may be too embarrassed now, and you may be again when your kids are older, but from the time they're born to the time they are about 12, go for the gushy stuff - yes, it's crazy to think of MY mother acting like THAT, or hugging me or anything, but deep down it makes me so happy. Just don't suffocate the kids! ;)

Donde Viven Los Monstruos (Historias Para Dormir) (Spanish Edition)

Maurice Sendak

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

disappointing 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I bought this online guided by the good reviews, but the book proved dissapointing. Though pictures are very good, the story of a boy that gets sent to bed for bad behavior and travels to an island where mosters live, and where he reigns as his king, has absolutely no soul nor magic. Story starts with the boy mother calling the boy "a monster". I know raising a boy is challenging, but I felt uneasy about that language from a mother to his son. In short, the very short story seems focused on the boy getting away with everything he does: no moral, no tenderness, no warmth. AND my kids found the pictures alluring but the book boring. I bought three books, read all of them to the kids and asked them to choose their favourites to keep, and this one was last.

Editorial Review:

Maurice Sendak's beloved Where the Wild Things Are, winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal, is now available in a newly revised Spanish edition exclusive to Harper Arco Iris. Spanish speakers and listeners will now be able to join Max as he sets sail and becomes king of all Wild Things.

The Art of Fiction

John Gardner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Target Audience: Literary Writers, But Genre Can Gain Too 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

John Gardner let's you know in his preface that he is writing this book for the serious writer (who he defines as the literary writer), so my fellow sci fi and fantasy writers (genre), we are not his target audience. However, that does not mean we can not learn from him.

I do not recommend this to the writer who is beginning their journey. By beginning, I mean who has never written a novel-length manuscript (unpublished of course) or at least a novella. I think Gardner presents too much detail and too much content, and at this point in your journey you will probably be overwhelmed. I simply refer to the other reviewer comments who provide suitable alternatives for an introductory to fiction writing.

I have rated this book as highly as I did because if you can wade through the loquacious prose, the elongated tangential didactics,--which by page 50 gets to be annoying--the obvious pedagogical diction and the references to Faulkner, Melville, Gaas, and plenty other writers whom I've not read (out of cognizant choice--though they are clearly renown for a reason) there is so much to learn from his book. (This paragraph was meant as an example--and I'm being generous).

Take heart, he does reference more "popular" fiction: Spider Man, early comic books, and Sam Delaney (although briefly), so it's not a complete rebuff of fiction that sells.

Why I rec'd this book:
1) Because after writing a few manuscripts, I was able to see through Gardner's examples some of the mistakes that I make in my writing--this enough is worth the price of the book in my opinion.

2) Also, because I have reinterpreted his "serious" writer to mean someone who is dedicated to improving their writing skills. Simply put. If you are serious, then you are willing--albeit begrudgingly--to come out of your comfort zone and learn even from those who have a tendency to look down their nose at you (at least it's not in your face).

Examples of what I've learned:

1) Tales vs. Yarn vs. Realistic (and what voices are more commonly linked to each type of fictional story).
2) The importance of rhythm.
3) That a character's internal obstacles must be as compelling as his external ones (might seem like a no-brainer, but I guess not for me).
4) The vocab list that you get from reading his writing.

Lastly, while yes you can get most of the above from some of the other books on writing, you won't get the seriousness (dare I say abrasive truths) of what it means to be a writer and then what it takes to write well. This is not meant to be "inspiring" (so you won't be uplifted and told repeatedly throughout that "yes, you can write that novel"); it is meant to be eye-opening.

Editorial Review:

"John Gardner was famous for his generosity to young writers, and (this book) is his . . . gift to them. The Art of Fiction will fascinate anyone interested in how fiction gets put together. For the young writer, it will become a necessary handbook, a stern judge, an encouraging friend."--The New York Times Book Review.

T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land (Modern Critical Interpretations)

Harold Bloom

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Edition Brings More to Wasteland 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Norton Critcal did it right with this edition. With enough essays and criticism to help anyone get a deeper understanding of Elliot's poem, this edition is a must have. Rainey's essay on the publishing of the poem is particulary interesting.

Expand your understanding.... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I'm not really qualified to review TS Eliot. First of all, I couldn't be impartial---I made a special trip while in Somerset to visit the man's grave (actually a little plaque). Secondly, the corpus of his work represents one of the greatest pinnacles of the English language. I'll let Oxford dons review Waste Land.
This book of essays, however, was extremely helpful to me as I studied this poem, this monument to our decaying culture. I really think that it was instrumental in allowing me to reach a certain level of understanding, a level of comfort, with one of the most dense poems in English. However, it's not cheap, and no easy read in itself. You have to want it!
If you are serious about your Eliot, pull out the VISA and go to town. If you are just passing through, your local library has a copy you could check out before spending the money.

Editorial Review:

Harold Bloom suggests The Waste Land is an American self-elegy masking as a mythological romance, a Romantic crisis poem pretending to be an exercise in Christian irony. Eight other critical views of Eliot's text are offered here.

The title, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on T.S. Eliot, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University.

Macbeth (Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages)

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Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Deception and Treachery 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a dramatist whose genius is universally acknowledged, with a reputation as an actor, playwright and poet. He lived in an age of vast and significant changes characterised by the rise of the middle class and of a centralised government and the disappearance of medieval religious beliefs. England was transforming into a modern state. This was a time when self-realisation, self-respect and boldness of thought and action was idealised. Shakespeare's drama merely reflected the dramatic times of the age.

Shakespeare's genius can be reflected by the variety of his productions, where out of the 36 plays he has left, no two are alike and he managed to articulate the diverse subjects with exceptional expertise, handling both tragedies and comedies with ease.

Macbeth is a tragedy, intended to teach us a lesson about the human condition. The play is a tragedy about a wealthy Scottish noble called Macbeth who kills his king to gain the throne. During Shakespeare's time, this was a terrible thing to do, and from then on, Macbeth was doomed to die a tragic death.

The play starts with three witches confronting the great Scottish general Macbeth on his victorious return from a war between Scotland and Norway. The witches predict that he will one day become king. They also predict that another General called Banquo will be the father of kings, although he will not ascend the throne himself. The Scottish king, Duncan, decides that he will confer the title of the traitorous Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth. Macbeth, with the urging of his evil and ambitious wife murder King Duncan and ascends to the throne of Scotland.

Macbeth and his evil wife begin to do strange things, partly because of what they have done and also because they never get a whole night's sleep. Macbeth thinks he has to kill two of his former friends because he believes that they threaten his new throne. His efforts fail and he is eventually killed.

Editorial Review:

"Macbeth" is Shakespeare's stark tale of a tormented nobleman driven into a murderous plot by his ambition to assume the throne of Scotland. This invaluable new study guide to one of Shakespeare's greatest plays contains a selection of the finest criticism through the centuries on "Macbeth". Students will also benefit from the additional features included in this volume, such as an introduction by Harold Bloom, an accessible summary, analysis of key passages, a comprehensive list of characters, a biography of Shakespeare, and more.