Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American w… Read Full Bio ↴Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer and painter. He is known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.
Neurotics Surrealists and Obsessives
Henry Miller Lyrics
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Here I Go You know that you're the kinda girl who likes the…
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DISCOGOTHTHEJAZZFAN
"There is a great undercarriage that is society, that so many intellectuals ride on. It's easy to disregard it. They probably would not ever have made their voice heard had they not had this to carry them, no matter how important what they had to say was."
This was terribly true of the postWar boom that produced and nurtured the "Beats" and the "Hippies," but Miller came along when money was quite tight, even for the supposedly "middle class"... recall that June, Henry's then-wife, brought in money, to fund Henry's writing, by milking sugar-daddies; remember she "danced" (among other things) for money. So I believe it can be said that Miller's audacity despite poverty... turning poverty into a kind of "advantage" (having "nothing to lose" can be liberating)... can take more of the credit for his work and subsequent fame than "society," which considered penniless Bohemians, like Miller and his ilk, to be scum.
The take-away being, perhaps, that no era will make it easy to live outside the laws of its ordering principles... one must be Bold and impose oneself on the conservative Zeitgeist....
(speaking of which, I have a Lit Blog written from the perspective of a slightly sex-obsessed straight male in his later middle age... I enjoy any and all close-reading and articulate visitors, whatever the ideology ....
https://berlin8berlin.wordpress.com/
DISCOGOTHTHEJAZZFAN
Someone in the comments wrote, interestingly: "There is a great undercarriage that is society, that so many intellectuals ride on. It's easy to disregard it. They probably would not ever have made their voice heard had they not had this to carry them, no matter how important what they had to say was."
This was terribly true of the postWar boom that produced and nurtured the "Beats" and the "Hippies," but Miller came along when money was quite tight, even for the supposedly "middle class"... recall that June, Henry's then-wife, brought in money, to fund Henry's writing, by milking sugar-daddies; remember she "danced" (among other things) for money. So I believe it can be said that Miller's audacity despite poverty... turning poverty into a kind of "advantage" (having "nothing to lose" can be liberating)... can take more of the credit for his work and subsequent fame than "society," which considered penniless Bohemians, like Miller and his ilk, to be scum.
The take-away being, perhaps, that no era will make it easy to live outside the laws of its ordering principles... one must be Bold and impose oneself on the conservative Zeitgeist....
(speaking of which, I have a Lit Blog written from the perspective of a slightly sex-obsessed straight male in his later middle age... I enjoy any and all close-reading and articulate visitors, whatever the ideology ....
https://berlin8berlin.wordpress.com/
apemant
Yes, "cushion" that we all float on. Yes, "they" could do greater things. We all have it in us. But no, we wouldn't get that "dirty work" done in some other way. Not through sitting around waiting for it. We can have a contemplative world, but it will only happen through technology. AI. And that doesn't happen by people being lazy. It has a cost. Contemplation is a luxury. Never forget that we are animals.
The lillies in the field neither toil nor spin? We create work? Survival is a real issue for men on Earth. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to survive. I could go on. We do not know how to swim on the river of life? There is no current to carry us along gratis. We live and still exist because we will it. And if we didn't, we wouldn't. We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
Yes so, God said unto us, that we shall toil... sweat of our brow etc, I don't know the English translation. The price of knowledge. The lillies don't have to pay this price. Nor do the pandas or the tigers or the chimps. But look at them now. They pay the price of ignorance. Which is doom, unless we will it. Pandora's box was opened and now we have the potential of gods.
Nothing good that you see around you has come of inactivity. A high price has been paid.
As for the lillies, I suppose they will bide their time awaiting world domination. Though I doubt the concept of domination even exists in a vegetative state of mind. Or any concept at all.
InOmniaParatus83
He's such an inspirational figure, a true colossus. I count him the greatest of my teachers. I have a picture of him over my bed. Tropic of Capricorn is one my sacred texts, along with Plato's Phaedrus. Greetings from Greece to all Millerites!
andreas tsirikos
Γεια σου Ελλαδαρα ......φαν του Μιλλερ εδω.......το πρωτο βιβλιο που διαβασα στη ζωη μου και οχι ολοκληρο τοτε ηταν ο τροπικος του αιγοκερω.....μονο αργοτερα καταλαβα τι διαβαζα.......
Warrior Poet
InOmniaParatus83 that's wonderful you saying that. I picked up Miller on Syros in 1980. The year he died. What happened to me can only be described as a spiritual awakening. I walked around like a somnambulist in bliss for days. I have never forgotten the feeling. It was like I was suddenly made free. He changed my life. He made me want to be a writer.which I have been for 30 years. I too keep a picture of him prominently where I see him every day. To me he was the greatest human being to ever influence me.
MrBeaux
The only novel of his I've read is The Air Conditioned Nightmare, but that book is amazing. Some of it is dated, but it's incredible how spot on his observations are, talk about a man who was ahead of his time!
Gordon Flowers
The greatest author America has ever produced. he writes the truth and it scares people.
Lance Ash
@kelman727 "lazy?" Odd opinion.
kelman727
Gordon Flowers
Lazy writer that burned out after one book.
SCREAMIN' SKULL PRESS
Yes, couldn't agree more, no better writer than miller!
Macintheus
Great to hear old Henry -- what a life he had -- and what a mind! Love the photographs too. Thanks for uploading.
Vidoculer
Fascinating interview with one of the outsized personalities of the twentieth century. What's interesting to note is that at the time of this interview (1956), the two works by which Miller was (and still is) perhaps best known to the general public -- Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn -- were still legally banned in the U.S.