Tag Archives: Henry Miller

First Encounters: Miller, Dostoevsky, Deleuze and Guattari

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Lee

“Such a day it may be when first you encounter Dostoevsky. You remember the smell of the tablecloth on which the book rests; you look at the clock and it is only five minutes from eternity; you count the objects … Continue reading →

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Henry Miller Goes Into the Nightlife

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Lee

(Page numbers refer to the edition of Henry Miller’s Black Spring published by Alma Classics in 2012) There’s a chapter in Henry Miller’s Black Spring called “Into the Nightlife. . .” It’s about “this mad thing called sleep”, and describes … Continue reading →

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Henry Miller’s Certitude in Black Spring

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Lee

(Page numbers refer to the edition of Henry Miller’s Black Spring published by Alma Classics in 2012) In the chapter of Black Spring called “The Angel is my Watermark”, we get to watch Henry Miller as he creates a work … Continue reading →

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Spiral Form in Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Lee

(Page numbers refer to Henry Miller and Narrative Form: Constructing the Self, Rejecting Modernity by James M Decker. Routledge, 2005) Henry Miller rejected linear narrative, creating instead something he called “spiral form”. (4) “I . . . have chosen to … Continue reading →

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Notes on James M Decker’s Concept of “Spiral Form”: An Essay Review

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Lee

Page numbers refer to “‘The agonizing gutter of my past’: Henry Miller, Conversion, and the Trauma of the Modern” by James M Decker, in Henry Miller: New Perspectives, ed. James M. Decker and Indrek Männiste (Bloomsbury, 2015) pp. 21-31 Abandoned … Continue reading →

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Notes on Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Episode 7: Hopelessness and Endurance

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Lee

“Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.” Giving up belief in miracles means giving up hope, giving up any reason to … Continue reading →

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Henry Miller and Being in the Moment

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Lee

(Some notes on the text and related thoughts as I read Indrek Männiste’s Henry Miller: The Inhuman Artist Chapter 3. Where I write about Zen I’m recalling – however imperfectly – something from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. … Continue reading →

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Notes on Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Episode 2: “The Last Book”

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Lee

These madmen, Henry and Boris, want to write “The Last Book”. It will be the last because it will break everything apart. “Not one of us is intact, and yet we have in us all the continents and the seas … Continue reading →

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Essay review: “Henry Miller’s Inhuman Philosophy” by Indrek Männiste (in Henry Miller: New Perspectives, Bloomsbury 2015, pp. 9-20)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Lee

Miller is a writer, not a philosopher. So he “has” a philosophy, he doesn’t “do” philosophy, says Indrek Männiste. A philosophy, in the sense that Miller has one, is something “intuitive” that affects how one lives one’s life “day to … Continue reading →

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Notes on Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer Episode 1: “Behind the Word is Chaos”

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Lee

Quotations are from Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (Harper, 2005) Misfortune Henry Miller is uncomfortable in Boris’s clean, orderly house. Even though the house is spotless, Boris manages to get lice. The cleanliness of the house can’t protect these … Continue reading →

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