File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9712, message 108


Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 16:36:59 -0500
From: Eric Yost <103423.421-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: PLC: Henry Miller and the Academy


Quoth Sterling, "This is subversive?"

What makes it subversive is that it is actually lived.  I mean, what if
people actually did some of the things literature recommends?  What if --
instead of a track to law school, teaching, or journalism -- literature
were actually meant to be lived?  What if people put all their career plans
(aka comfort strategies) aside until they had dealt with core existential
issues?

That's subversive!  And unlike beatnik felon Herbert Huncke (that the guy,
Reg?) Miller actually dropped his drawers and went out into the unknown. 
There may be none of Nabokov's sublime touch or Mann's consistent play of
ideas, but there's a spirit in Miller that, to me at least, elevates his
work's obvious shortcomings.

Courage is very subversive.  Because he seems to be mostly about courage,
Miller should be taught more widely. 


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