how good is henry miiler?

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i read somewhere that he wanted to write bible for modern man? where did his obsession with jews stem from? where was he during world war two? and favorite book of his? anyone?

― sidney essen, Monday, 2 January 2006 06:21 (nineteen years ago)

what are you talking about?

― Freud Junior, Third Cousin to Chuck Norris (Freud Junior), Monday, 2 January 2006 08:30 (nineteen years ago)

he isnt

― anthony easton (anthony), Monday, 2 January 2006 08:51 (nineteen years ago)

"the air-conditioned nightmare" is pretty good. he's kind of a sloppy writer, a cut-rate dh lawrence, but he has his moments.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 2 January 2006 09:04 (nineteen years ago)

where did his obsession with jews stem from?

His father was raped by a large Jewish man when Henry was just four. Henry said this was the event that made him a writer.

― alk, Monday, 2 January 2006 11:05 (nineteen years ago)

Ah who cares? Henry Miiler sucks anyway.

― Josh Miner, Monday, 2 January 2006 11:06 (nineteen years ago)

enrique to thread!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 2 January 2006 11:07 (nineteen years ago)

Henry's ai'ght. Air-Conditioned Nightmare's funny when he gets on a roll. Chunks of everything he wrote are quite lovely, but he apes the wrong bits of Joyce and all that slobbery snobbery gets wearing after a while. Comparing him to Lawrence seems unfair, on account of how Miller could actually write.

― I Am Sexless and I Am Foul (noodle vague), Monday, 2 January 2006 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

And anti-Semitism was the hip literary prejudice for aspiring intellectuals of his generation. See also Messrs Eliot und Pound.

― I Am Sexless and I Am Foul (noodle vague), Monday, 2 January 2006 13:22 (nineteen years ago)

like a lot of writers, he's great when you are 18 and think you are a genius. having said that, he turned me on to tons of other fine writers: knut hamsun, jean giono, john cowper powys, jiddu krisnamurti, and others. i could never really get into his boyhood faves, Henty and Haggard. The very first love of Miller's life was my cousin Cora! He writes about her a lot in his books when he gets nostalgic for his youth. Like Bukowski and the Beats and Thomas Wolfe, I just don't read him anymore. But I thank all those dudes for the inspiration they gave me.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 2 January 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

like dh lawrence miller was a groundbreaker whose work was subsequently surpassed and rendered irrelevant/dated/awkard.

his descriptions of Brooklyn in Tropic of Capricorn really spoke to me when first arrived in NY fifty years later.

on my honemoon (!) we stumbled across his place in Big Sur.

haven't read him in years and can't imagine he's aged well. but he's an enormously important figure, all kinds of important stuff may not have happened w/o his trailblazing (even ego-mad N Mailer says so).

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 2 January 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

he's awful.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

It's instructive to read Orwell's review of Tropic of Cancer, to see what it was Orwell appreciated about him. Ditto what everyone else said about his good writing coming in streaks and spurts with a lot of dreadful crap tossed in that amounts to self-parody.

When I boil him down, I look at him as another Whitman-type figure, but with a big dollop of cynicism and more sense of humor.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 2 January 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

i agree on the air-conditioned nightmare, it's the only miller i've had any use for.

― gear (gear), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

henri miiler

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

discus

― gear (gear), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:16 (nineteen years ago)

I went off Henry Miller because of the cod philosophising, though I still like some passages from 'The Rosy Crucifiction' trilogy (Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus) - particularly in Plexus.

From what I've read, I'd be really shocked to hear that Miller is anti-semitic. He seems fascinated and interested by the Jewish way of life (in Plexus he moves into a Jewish neighbourhood).

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Monday, 2 January 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

what's with this lawrence bashing? i've never gotten through any of his novels but studies in classic american literature might be the single best work of criticism EVER, certainly light-years ahead of any miller i've read.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't read Lawrence's criticism. I kind of like some of his poetry. I find his fiction utterly unbearable clunky shite.

― I Am Sexless and I Am Foul (noodle vague), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:08 (nineteen years ago)

the rocking horse winner is a winner.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:10 (nineteen years ago)

Do People Still Read D.H. Lawrence?

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 2 January 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

he fucking sucks.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

I owe a debt to Miller because I read practically no fiction from about 11-16, mainly because I associated it with school, and it was Miller who got me started again - a couple of his own books first and then the writers he was most enthusiastic about, Dostoevsky, Lawrence, Nietzsche. I find him unreadable now, but he was the right thing at the right time for me.

― frankiemachine, Tuesday, 3 January 2006 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

Air Conditioned Nightmare is great

― TRG (TRG), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

I have pretty much the same experience of Miller as what some of you lot described upthread. Immersed myself in as many of his books as I could find in my teens, and he turned me on to loads of great stuff (Isaac Bashevis Singer, Strindberg, Giono, Blaise Cendrars etc also even Edgard Varese. Oh yeah and Rimbaud too). Probably couldn't get through much of it now, but I do seem to recall that The Colossus of Maroussi was pretty good and maybe I'll read that again someday (like Lawrence, I suppose some of his best stuff is what you could loosely call travel writing). Think I enjoyed Quiet Days in Clichy a lot too, but I do get confused as to what's in what book.

Favourite book when I was younger was probably Tropic of Capricorn. Heavy Celine influence going on in that if I remember properly. Never really got on with any of the more overt porno stuff though.

― NickB (NickB), Wednesday, 4 January 2006 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

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