Bloom in the Car

Magnificent Extraordinary Harold

I told you. I knew it. Just 45 minutes of listening to Harold, in the car, radically enhanced the Othello experience for me.

A few years ago, I bought online a set of Bloom CDs from a collection called the Portable Professor. It is a Barnes & Noble production that is out of print (that is probably the wrong term for CDs). Actually, let me backtrack. A few years before that, my sister gave my husband a set of Portable Professor CDs by Professor Lependorf that taught you how to understand classical music. She could have given him lunar rocks, he could not figure out what to do with them, so I "inherited" them (ok, I took them without asking and kept them in my car ever since.) After that pleasant experience, I purchased Bloom's course. Aptly subtitled The Seven Great Tragedies. Because with Bloom, this is how it goes. He makes the most categoric statements and you have to accept them as holy communion. And everyone is happy. It just works.

Well The Seven Great Tragedies has long resided in my car next to Professor Lependorf's Masterpieces of Western Music. Except I was only able to listen, again and again, to the Bloom lectures on the few plays I had actually read. When the Shakespeare Now or Never project launched, I knew these CDs would come handy.

For Antony and Cleopatra and King Lear, Annabelle and I went on long drives just to listen to Professor Bloom, or Harold, as we like to call him. It is hard to explain how powerful his lectures are. There is something about the human voice that is fascinating and charming and soothing and stimulating. I have the Bloom book on Shakespeare, and this is a million times better. Unfortunately, it is only seven lectures, for the seven plays that he has decided are THE seven GREAT tragedies. There are lots of all caps in his speech. Lots of superlatives. Would love to have Bloom lecture me on every subject under the sun. In CD format only, please.

Sooooo.... On my way to meet clients this morning, I popped in the first lecture on Othello and now I feel as though I have to re-read the first act again, because I missed much of the magnificence I should have caught on to. It will take me many many listens to unpack most of the extraordinary insight I was made a party to. I'll go little by little and share it with you.