SOURCE: "Critical Commentary on 'Only the Dead Know Brooklyn'," in Thomas Wolfe: Three Decades of Criticism, edited by Leslie A. Field, New York University Press, 1968, pp. 269-72.

In the following essay, originally published in 1964, Bloom focuses on mood, tone, and theme in "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, " contending that the story tells us that "to cease striving, to endure the atrophy of the sense of wonder and inquiry . . . is to perish. "

Until the concluding paragraphs, the story ["Only the Dead Know Brooklyn"] has what might be taken for a clear enough literal meaning. That is, we read a rather amusing account of an experience in Brooklyn, a well-tried subject. But the literal, we discover, does not carry us very far. What does simple paraphrase reveal? A stranger in Brooklyn looking for a location asks some natives for directions. None can agree on the location or a way of...