When William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac were boys, Henry Miller was living in Paris, sleeping with Anaïs Nin, and writing Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1934). As the rest of these American characters slowly kicked into gear, Miller left Europe and its Nazi menace, returned to his native United States, and then painted and wrote many more books, including The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945), one of my favorite of his many skewerings of modern America.
Henry Miller doesn't quite fit into any categories. He wrote about whatever he felt compelled to write about, blending fiction, memoir, visual art, poésie and musings much like many of today's bloggers.
Married five times and doing mostly whatever he wanted to, it's no wonder one of his biographies is called The Happiest Man Alive (Mary V. Dearborn, 1991).
In addition to enjoying himself along the way, Miller and his work broke new ground in American letters and law. Though Tropic of Cancer had been published in France in the 1930s, it had been treated in the USA as underground literature; when Grove Press published it in 1961, it became a cause célèbre pitting obscenity laws vs. artistic value. In this case, literature won and Puritanism lost.
1964 loosened up the publishing industry and worked in tandem with the free speech movement, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and, subsequently the women's rights movement, the environmental movement, and the gay rights movement. I'm sure the editors of Playboy, etc., didn't cry over the results, either.
What Miller shared with Hank Bukowski was belief in himself and his abilities. Or as a Ukrainian friend of mine put it a couple of years ago about what other people thought of her or her writing, "Could give-shit." Or put yet another way: Write on. In the long run a wise philosophy, indeed.
Today's Rune: Growth.
Viva Henry Valentine Miller (12/26/1891-6/7/1980)!
6 comments:
Growing up in the Bible Belt, I never heard of Miller or Nin. I don't believe I even heard their names during my undergraduate years, but discovered them while I was in graduate school. Unfortunately, grad school didn't leave me much time for reading fiction and my knowledge about these and similar writers, such as Burroughs and Bukowski, is still deplorably sketchy. Much more I need to read.
Btw, I deleted my previous entry because I had some glitch that copied part of the message over.
Nin's husband, her West Coast husband died recently.
I made a promise to myself to read more fiction. I should add some Miller to my booklist.
Knew little about him at all. Had a look over at wikip and found a decent site which has his Reading List. Lots of gems on there...
http://www.literarycritic.com/miller.htm
It's Miller time! Tastes great!--Less filling!
Thanks all, for the comments! Charles, grad. school's a good a time as any, right? Although too much going on usually, exciting new things to absorb always.
Johnny, interesting -- even more will be revealed, no doubt, about Ms. Nin ;)
Danny, good list. Thanks for the link.
John, enjoy that. I'd rather drink a Yuengling if I'm drinking beer. Although the new "spage age" Iron City bottles are groovy and it tastes better than in days of olde.
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