Activity

… and part 3 of the post on Walker Percy ….

What did you think of Bloom’s book?

I just finished Bloom’s book about two weeks ago. I was curious about this book, which was extremely popular —a one-million bestseller. I thought it would be something like Will Durant, a history of Western thought. It was instead a very heavy book, very formidable, and very mysterious. I’m still not sure what he’s getting at. He’s certainly not suggesting a Christian or Jewish solution. He covers his tracks very well. I suspect he is a nihilist.

What in the world made it a bestseller?

I think the title has a lot to do with it. You go to a bookstore in a small town in Louisiana and you see the damned thing piled up. It turns out that a lot of parents are buying it for their kids in college. It struck a nerve with parents who think that those damn professors are screwing up their kids.

There may be something to that.

I didn’t say there wasn’t. [laughter]

Apparently the publisher concocted that title. Bloom’s original title was Soul without Longing. Father James Schall quips that it ought to have been called Longing without Soul. There ‘s a paradox: many souls now go along without any natural longings, but if you do see someone brimful of longing, it’s probably a housewife who’s into EST.
Yes [laughter]. Of course, publishers probably know more than we do about what works. My publisher asked what I was working on, and I said another collection of essays. He said, What’s the title? I said, Contra Gentiles. He laughed and said it’ll be read as being about the contras in Nicaragua, and not just any old contras but gentile contras. Who knows; maybe that will work.