Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 17:47:40 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Henry Miller and the Academy Who Doesn't Read Him


At 11:20 PM 12/29/97 +0200, you wrote:
>I have written about a tack around the windward marker in a race, ten
>seconds of action at length, my first take off with a hang glider and
>its pursuant landing in the thorns, a simple breakfast of toasted bread
>and cheese and tea one early summer morning, the first time I had to
>make my son cry as I got him to admit he has lied, the time I had to
>spend a whole party night up in a bedroom reading stupid magazines
>because I felt depressed that night, and so on about many other personal
>experiences which have no uniqueness to them other than the fact that it
>was my turn at experiencing them.
>
>Nevertheless, whatever I do, I have no desire to be the next Henry
>Miller.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Metin Aktay
>

Here's a bit from quite near the end of the first "Bloom" episode in Joyce's
_Ulysses_, namely episode 4. When Pound had this published serially in 1918,
he had a number of cut out without asking Joyce, to avoid obscenity charges.
Anyway, I think this passage speaks to a number of issues on the Miller
thread: obscenity in liter.; personal and intimate experience, and
autobiography, in liter.; etc. Bloom is at the foot of his back yard
relieving himself in the outhouse after breakfast, while reading a story in
a cheap periodical, about 8:40 AM on Th. 16 June 1904. He also thinks about
his own ambitions maybe to write something and make a little money:

     Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages 
over on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it
a bit. Our prize titbit: Matcham's Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip
Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a
column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three.
Three pounds, thirteen and six. 
     Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but
resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed
his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently that
slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring on
piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive. One tabloid of cascara sagrada. 
Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick
and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above
his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the
masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and
ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had 
read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy
who had written it and received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.
     Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story
for some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what
she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting 
her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did
Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What
possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A
speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot: rubbing smartly in turn
each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning after the bazaar dance when 
May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the hours. Explain that: morning
hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth.
That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that
Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell
off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of 
music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass
briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it.
Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
     Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with
daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then 
black. Still, true to life also. Day: then the night.
     He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled
back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into
the air.


Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu



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