Charlie Rose with John Updike; Tom Stoppard; Harold Bloom

A rebroadcast of a conversation with writer John Updike on his 19th novel, Gertrude and Claudius, which tells the story of the king and queen of Denmark before and leading into Shakespeare's Hamlet. This segment originally aired on April 4, 2000.||Then, a rebroadcast of a conversation with screenwriter and playwright Tom Stoppard on his latest screenplay, co-written with Marc Norman, Shakespeare in Love, which stars Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow. This segment originally aired on December 3, 1998.||Finally, a rebroadcast of a conversation with literary critic Harold Bloom on his new book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, which examines the works of the English playwright and has been nominated for a National Book Award. This segment originally aired on November 2, 1998.

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Bloom's definition of the distinct greatness of Shakespeare

The first segment is John Updike talking about his 'Shakespearean'novel. Updike is a virtuoso who has written on many different subjects but the heart of his accomplishment is in the American set writings, most notably the Rabbit novels. Stoppard was somehow strained in speech and I did not really give him a good hearing. It was difficult to know what Charlie Rose wanted from him, and whether he wanted anything from anybody except perhaps to torment them with his English.
Bloom was wonderful. His explanation of Shakespeare's defining of the human may not convince completely, but does reveal an essential side of Shakespeare. Bloom says that Shakespeare focused on the 'selfsame' the persistence of identity in character 'through vicissitudes and changes'. He says more than plot, and action the creation of character and personality is the heart of Shakepeare. Not any ideology is central but the creation of characters, Falstaff, Hamlet, Lear, Iago, and many others who are in Samuel Johnson's words 'distincts'. They are different in some way including their speech from all others. Bloom speaks about Shakespeare as being beyond our understanding and explanation, as transcending the categories we apply to other writers, even great writers.
Rose also asks Bloom about his not very great health and there is a certain warmth and friendliness in the dialogue absent from the other segments. One may think of Bloom as posing a bit , a Bronx boy who took on the manners of a very refined English scholar- but that is all cancelled by Bloom's great passion for literature, his intensity in discussing it and the 'largeness of soul' and generosity of spirit which radiates from him. He concludes the interview after being thanked by Charlie Rose with a 'Bless you' which seems to radiate back and give the tone to their whole discussion. October 28, 2007

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