sam buntz

"Nature is a language." writer: The Dispatch, Real Clear Books, The Critic, First Things

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

Boschian Belle pops into the Buntzcast to discuss Thomas Mann’s epochal novel of ideas, The Magic Mountain.

We follow Hans Castorp as he experiences “the intoxication of ideas and the lure of eros.” (Some spoilers in 2nd half). You don’t want to miss this one. Link below 👇

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@sclv Yeah, it's weird because Bloom likes Baldwin, Ellison, Morrison, Hurston, and has written about them at length. They're in his Western Canon list along with others (Richard Wright, Thylias Moss...) I feel like he's thinking of the Left more in terms of the early 20th C. Old Left.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

Harold Bloom said that America lacks a great writer on the Left, claiming Steinbeck doesn't make the cut. But someone in the replies told me he's forgetting Theodore Dreiser. What do you think?

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@sclv I need to read him. Seems like he's fallen off the radar for some reason.

[Alina Stefanescu @aliner]

How many selves have you?

- D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literatute

[Luke Burgis @lukeburgis]

Interesting! I wonder why? That’s the question to be asking…

Ted’s essay is one of the best things written on this question in the past 3 years, and he says far better than I have been able to why Anthropic is perhaps the most dangerous AI company — not because of the technology they are producing, but the anthropology they are butchering.

Pay attention to who hates the essay, and what their incentives might be for doing so. They’re not certainly not on the basis of reasoning.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@minimamalortia Yeah, I agree. I liked "Miss Lonelyhearts." "Day of the Locust" was good too.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@fxxfy Lol... I'm a Ween fan. (37.)

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@vanderoritchie Aside from Morrison and maybe Doctorow, I don't think you could class those writers as Leftist. Particularly not Hawthorne, who was pretty conservative. The others are too multi-vocal and multi-dimensional to clearly serve one political orientation.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@hebreworphan Yeah, but aside from For Whom the Bell Tolls, his work doesn't really have a strong Leftist orientation. He could sound like a libertarian sometimes:

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@books_rum Like he said once in an interview that the only major Irish-American writer was Eugene O'Neill, completely forgetting Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy, both of whom Bloom loves and considers to possess genius.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@books_rum He included Ellison in "Genius: A Mosaic of 100 Exemplary Creative Minds," so that's a good point. Slipped his mind maybe. Bloom would randomly forget things.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@Augustineill3 He says Baldwin is a permanent essayist but doesn't comment on the fiction:

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@books_rum I feel like it's not the best tendency. I love Bloom, but he's always ranking. It's not particularly helpful in terms of just appreciating/understanding a writer's work.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

“Where do stories come from?” is a deep question. “Where does music come from?” is maybe a deeper question. You play the same seven notes starting with C and it sounds happy, start with A and it sounds sad/serious. And this can be experienced cross-culturally. Much to consider.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@Jirinrx @consanguinityhc Yeah, Bloom for example didn't like him. Feels like Europeans dig him more.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@JorgeRogeli Maybe more 2016 Bernie

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@theseanze Bloom is focused more squarely on aesthetics, so that's why he leans towards the more ambivalent works you mentioned.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@JoyceCarolOates It's like the people who get a 60 word summary of a book from ChatGPT and think that means they've read it. Absolute brain damage.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@Jirinrx In the poetry he includes African Americans in the democratic vision but, yeah, I guess not in all of his public utterances.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@posta_octavian @jusderaisingroy I feel like I'd say something like "All appearances are already implicit in the reality that underlies them but do not exhaust that reality." Something like that. Feels more to the point.

[sam buntz @SamBuntz]

@Jirinrx @consanguinityhc I really need to read Wolfe.