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July 24, 2009
America's Henry Miller
My people were entirely Nordic, which is to say they were idiots. Every wrong idea which has ever been expounded was theirs. Never once had they opened the door that leads to the soul; never once did they dream of taking a blind leap into the dark.
--Henry Miller (1891–1980), Tropic of Capricorn (Grove Press, 1961)
Even when writing about his own tribe of northern Europeans, he was funny, profound and painfully on target. Born in Manhattan and, interestingly, of German-Catholic parents, Henry Miller, novelist and painter, lived in Paris, Big Sur, Pacific Palisades, and many places in between. An inspiration to more than a few Beat poets and writers, he was a generation older than them--and beat most of them to it. He lent an angry but insightful, hilarious and bawdy voice to the sentiment that Americans were too desperately conformist and unwittingly sterile to live real life. Despite his often tiresome overtures of extreme existential dread, Miller was, and is, way fun to read. He knew how to write about women in any profession, culture or walk of life. Deep down, Miller loved them all--especially when he ranted against them.
"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race."
Posted by JD Hull at July 24, 2009 03:08 PM
Comments
Sounds like an interesting author. And the book you mentioned here, "Tropic of Capricorn" sounds so witty.
Posted by: Joe Marchelewski at July 24, 2009 12:04 PM