Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 20:39:48 -0500 From: Eric Yost <103423.421-AT-CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: PLC: Henry Miller and the Academy Who Doesn't Read Him Among the shards of his prissy Yuletide invective, Stirling offers some worthwhile comments. As if to demonstrate " self-absorbed ranting," Mr. Newberry decries " Miller's evasion of responsibility, Miller's desire to talk about how great he is, and how there is a weight from the past that bears down on him, Miller's rage and invective." It was good of him to provide an example. When he writes about "the difference between a first rate thinker, and first rate writer, of Nietszche's caliber," he shines. Although nothing I said invited a comprison, that Stirling injected one here serves to illustrate how few writers would do well by the comparison. Proust, Djuna Barnes, Sherwood Anderson, etc. ... all simpleminded compared to mad Fred. Stirling warns that "If Miller is your idea of combining these two facets, then you have got to be pretty shallow. He rants, he rails, he exults, he rages, he lathers. He rinses it down with booze. He repeats." He also had the discipline to write daily, and conduct rather formal exercises with his writing. In the sketched outline for Tropic of Cancer, Miller indicated his narrative models, and gives some idea of the difficulty of his project. Stirling also persists in touting the image of Miller as drinker. Miller's drinking is marginal in the way Nietzsche's laudanum addiction is marginal. Must be confusing him with Charles Bukowski, huh? Stirling asks: " If Miller's liberation is so personal - then why is it so common and tawdry and obvious?" Gee, Stirling, because it is populist? Yes it is perhaps born in a stable, but so are most people's. Perhaps we should seek a world where everyone's struggle toward salvation is as intellectually sublime as young JS Mill's spiritual crisis, but it's fraud to ignore life as it is lived. Most interesting seemed the point raised about sexism. In most of his narratives, Miller is a macho pig, too self-concerned to see most women as anything but a means to his gratification. I'm not up on the Erica Jong/femcrit dialogue, but it may become an academic cottage industry. Would a reflex charge of sexism in Genet be valid? Regards, Eric Yost --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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