Word: readers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...HENRY MILLER READER (397 pp.)-Edited by Lawrence Durrell-New Directions...
...Readers who know Henry Miller only by his reputation as the bogeyman of the U.S. Bureau of Customs generally are surprised to discover that in many ways the man is as moralistic as Cotton Mather, and not much more interested in writing fiction. He seems incapable of composing more than half a dozen pages of narrative without dribbling off into the cosmic. In the present collection-largely a sampling of the literary glue that holds together the naughty passages of such works as Tropic of Cancer, Sexus, and Plexus-he interrupts a reasonably interesting travel piece to proclaim that...
...sentence from one of Miller's most mailable literary essays is typical: "Joyce, the mad baboon, herein gives the works to the patient antlike industry of man which has accumulated about him like an iron ring of dead learning." In a collection of aphorisms, the reader learns that "in life's ledger, there is no such thing as frozen assets." If the sage of Big Sur were to be judged from this book alone, it would be hard to justify Editor Durrell's prophecy that Miller may one day be classed with Whitman and Blake...
...gathering wood for the fire," the father improvises shakily. "He had nothing on but his bearskin, and the flies were driving him mad ..." The son objects contemptuously: "I don't like the way he tells it, he's all mixed up." Determinedly, the father plows on. The reader may reflect that for a Henry Miller heroine, Goldilocks gets off easily. She is eaten by the three bears...
...course, virtuous Moon Lady is restored to her riches and reunited with her son. But as the author probably intended, what the reader remembers is more likely to be the song of the low-living and unrepentant beggar Ying...