When I saw the literary critic Harold Bloom last Wednesday, on the morning of Yom Kippur, something was different: For the first time, he did not mention death. His moods have long tended to the morbid. Twenty years ago, I wrote him a note and said he would be welcome to visit my college in the California desert. “When next I am in the vicinity of Death Valley,” he replied, “it will be metaphoric, as I approach farewell.” He was 69 and healthy. At Yale, where he taught for more than 60 years, he greeted another student’s friendly “How are you, professor?” with “I am born unto death.” (He was standing at a urinal at the time.) I live near his house, and when I would stop in to say hello, he would note the great writers who had died since our last conversation: Sam Shepard, Philip Roth, Ursula Le Guin.
