SLSL "TSR" Love and Sleep

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In a message dated 12/4/02 6:30:22 PM, fqmorris at yahoo.com writes:

<< Thanks for the quote.  What is the rest of Bloom's book like?

David Morris
 >>

I'm early on- trying to simultaneously devour:

    "On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic
    Concepts in the Kabbalah," Gershom Scholem

If you've ever heard or seen Bloom, in person, you know how
delightfully arrogant he can be. "Genius" is copyrighted by:

    Harold Bloom Limited Liability Company

Needless to say, Pynchon's pointer to "Gershom" in M&D began
my interest in this area. It's been fruitful. Scholem is a fascinating
and controversial figure. 

    In employing a Kabbalistic grid or paradigm in the arrangement
    of this book, I rely upon Gershom Scholem's conviction that
    Kabbalah is the genius of religion in Jewish tradition. My one
    hundred different figures, from Shakespeare through the late
    Ralph Ellison, represents perhaps a hundred different stances
    toward spirituality, covering the full range from Saint Paul and
    Augustine to the secularism of Proust and Calvino. But Kabbalah
    in my view, provides an anatomy of genius, both of women and
    of men; as also of their merging in "Ein Sof," the endlessness of
    God. Here I want to use Kabbalah as a starting-point in my own
    personal vision of the name and nature of genius. ("Genius" Intro.)

I'll get back... when I've gotten further along.

respecfully