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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Finally finished, and an introduction to a whole new set of artists/authors I've never read (or knew of) and now must keep my eye peeled for...
- Ephraim Doner (Artist, friend of H. Miller)
- Bezalel Schatz (painter, sculptor, friend of H. Miller)
- Moise Kisling (French Painter)
- Charles-Albert Cingria (Author)
- Sir Godfrey Higgins (author)
- Oscar Vladislav De L. Milosz (Author, Milasius)
- Restif de la Bretonne (author, rival of De Sade, foot-fetishist)
- Lawrence Lipton (Journalist, author "The Holy Barbarians")
- Balzac (Author, "Seraphita")
- Jaime de Angulo - (Neighbor, novelist, ethnomusicologist, outsized reputation-major character of the era)
- Jakob Wassermann - "The Maurizius Case"
Many of the above were acquainted with Henry Miller, through correspondence, travel, or neighbors, for a time, at Big Sur.
It makes me curious as to what other books/artists he'd recommend, and - as luck would have it there is in fact a list:
The final chapter - some 100 odd pages of the book, deal with a character that comes to stay with Miller in Big Sur. His name is Conrad Moricund, a Swiss-French Astrologer who Anais Nin passed off on Miller when he proved to be too troublesome. Now, Miller has some issues with this guest over the three month visit, and over the course of 100 pages paints the most damnable picture of him - by turns laughable, outrageous, all things, foolish, sage, impotent, pornographer... - ...
And I'm laughing and laughing because I know him, or enough of his type, and laughing, laughing painfully because - in certain degrees he is as well me. It's like being shown a grotesque mirror of both everyone you know, but yourself included. It's funny, but it makes me aware - well, I was always aware, reminds perhaps is a better way of putting it, me of my own failings.
Anyways, finally finished that one up with enough notes to inform my reading for a year or two, should I so choose...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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Of all the Henry Miller Novels I'm enjoying this the most. Because it's him on writing, living, in Big Sur California, at the height of the 1950's counterculture.
A lot less raucous sex (so far) and a lot more of the living the values I can relate to.
It reminds me of Nelson, as it was perhaps 10, 20 years ago. It is somewhat the same now, but real estate, rent, the "buying-in" has gotten exorbitant, ridiculous, and the titled hippies, now millionaires, barons, baronesses, counts, countesses, they've been corrupted, eccentricity when poor becomes despotism when they think they're rich.
So, Big Sur, I mean, everyone went there - Steinbeck, Pynchon, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, Ginsberg, everyone went for a while, their time in the wilderness.
Few stayed, I'm not sure that Miller did for long beyond the scope of this book (I haven't finished it yet), but - it seems a place I should definitely visit.
Anyways, This, more autobiographical than his other books, more in the tradition of a writer on writing - and as such he comes off much better than he does say in "Tropic of Cancer" & "Tropic of Capricorn". Those - autobiographical to an extent, but also largely novels. This is him settled down, writing about more human relationships with wives and neighbors. And he has some pretty good neighbors.
It is a treat when a good book refers you to another good book you should read, that you haven't yet, and you make a note - the convenience of the internet is that whatever I don't know I can find out. And so note after note...
Like: Henry Miller's Watercolors (I didn't know he painted....), Artist Abe Rattner (neighbor), Ecce Homo by George Grosz, (funny, in that a painting by that name was infamously restored a few years ago, to art-lovers dismay and internet trolls delight...you know the painting...)
And for Authors: Arabia Deserta - Charles Montagu Doughty, Lillian Bos Ross, Robinson Jeffers, Rimbaud, "The House of Certain Death" by Albert Cossery, some of whom were Miller's neighbors, others people he knew through correspondence, and those he merely read and admired.
And - by this point, early 50's, he's well admired throughout the world. He wants - as always, only for cash, everyone knows his name but for some reason (the war) his royalties from France are slow to arrive. But he talks of his fame, people showing up unannounced to look at his pictures, see the writer, the sacks of mail, the hippies and drop outs and drop ins that frequent the Big Sur area, so, in almost every way a very relatable book...
Still another half to go, a little thicker than I'm used to reading, but enjoyable every inch of the way...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
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A selection of his real life essays, on everything from his father's murder, to making "Fight Club" to interviewing Marilyn Manson.
All in his voice.
Actually, I think I enjoyed this more than his fiction...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A selection from the lectures Nabokov gave at Harvard on Cervantes's "Don Quixote".
He was never a fan of the novel, and fulfilled these lectures as a requirement, or debt to Harvard and American Academics.
Now, really, I should have given it (Cervantes's "Don Quixote") a quick reread before reading this. But - that said, there are enough quotes embedded in the notes to the lectures that I already feel I've reread it, and can give it a few more years yet.
Nabokov is certainly one of my favorite authors, and I've a fine appreciation/remembrance of "Don Quixote", so - while it might seem like a bit of a dry read it isn't.
And while I respect and admire a lot of what Nabokov brings to the table, I can't say I entirely agree. There are many things I never thought of, and others I surely recognized but overlooked in service of enjoying the story, and a great many of his observations I took for granted. Nabokov's dissection, a little drier, more academic, and - as always with Nabokov - not necessarily sincere - the inventive force undoubtedly informs and reforms his lectures as much as it does his writing.
Nonetheless it forces me to reconsider my own views and reminds me to perhaps revisit it in it's entirety and not just scraps and quotes.
Which is a good thing, and while I'm enjoying this one-sided argument, it would have been something to sit in on these lectures in person, wouldn't it have?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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A curious book, interesting in the beginning, and in the end. An easy read suited somewhat to my temper at the moment.