Henry Miller

I think Henry Miller influenced me when I found him:

"Since he eschews any importance at all to political movements, Miller feels free to say nearly anything in the way of criticizing the system. Many of his comments appear irresponsible. When he meets an ex-con on a train, Miller and his traveling companion later track him down to see if they can be of help to him. Miller fulminates that we are all as guilty as the ex-con, who has a heart after all, and that prisons only develop the criminal skills of his inhabitants. This is typical Miller: he does point out some of the worst aspects of the criminal justice system (as he does in other books), but of course cannot offer any practical alternative. He has only the idealists’ wish that war and crime would go away, and he apportions blame to society for causing these evils, and using naked force to maintain a corrupt society."

It's Dan Geddes critiquing Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, one of my favorites in Miller's great canon. Like most young American males, I absorbed as much of Miller's rarefied prose as I could when I discovered him. I admired his chainsaw dissection of everything, his energy and crisp, straight-ahead style.

Put him in the hero column of my table of Heroes and Villains.

Miller ground it out, in the best sense of the word.

I knew many women loathed Miller, so I was pleased to see Erica Jong embrace him years ago. She became his great friend and protector. Of course, many women thought Miller a misogynist, but I never understood that, and neither did Jong. I think she opened a lot of minds about Miller over time. She knew he worshipped women.

His provocative writing was designed to cut off the heads of the moralists, of which America has always had plenty. That's why he loved Europe in the thirties. He was free there, to write and say what he wanted without worrying about what others believed.

Naturally, his early books were banned in his own country.

Many people still only know Miller as the dirty book-writer. Sexus has, er, a lot of sex, it's true. It's great imaginative sex, too. The sex only a few lucky people (a few million) ever witness or indulge in. Most people have Milleresque fantasies, but they take them into confession and cleanse them, or hide them behind veils of propriety. We're strange creatures, annihilating our animal instincts.

Well, some of us. You never know about someone until you know. Clinton can't say it, but you just know Monica gave good head.

Jesus, Bill. We'll never forget you.

All that aside, Miller's best books weren't always lectures on sexuality. The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is a a stunning travelogue of America, a place that hasn't changed in its mental recesses since Miller wrote the book, in 1945. The Colossus of Maroussi is another travel book, on Greece. Neither book is your run-of-the-mill travelogue, because Miller was a combustible writer. His ideas sprawled in every direction, but his control was masterful in the end.

But my absolute favorite? Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, a very personal book about marriage, family, and friendship, given in the spirit of a gift to his readers.

I revisit Miller all the time. He never grows old.

Here is a nice essay on Colossus.


TS