HENRY MILLER

 
 
        It is difficult to remain neutral about Henry Miller,(1891-1980) whether considering his life or his writing, one is sure to find ardent supporters and vociferous critics.

        What is strange then, is the relative lack of critical discussion surrounding the large body of his writing, particulary in the prevailing culture which fetes the Beats so heartily.

        Some twenty years prior to the "Beats" Miller, raised in Brooklyn, was already producing provocative and shockingly sensual imagery, although it would not be published in the United States until 1961 (legend has it copies were smuggled through United States customs with dustcovers marked Jane Eyre), when Grove Press published Tropic of Cancer (France,1934) sparking a series of obscenity trials, (often compared with those concerning D.H.Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover culminating in a supreme court decision that inadvertantly cleared Lenny Bruce of obscenity Charges as well. Censorship in America was changed forever as a result, a debt which many following Miller have neglected to acknowledge.

        Miller's style is reminiscent of the so called American "romantics", his acknowledged debts to Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson mingled with shades of Edgar Allan Poe, among others. Like many of the transcendentalists, Miller had a taste for Eastern philosophy which colored much of his later writing.

        Perhaps the most fascinating literary  connection is his relationship with the writing of D.H.Lawrence, which began in Paris as a pre-Cancer publishing project for Jack Kahane's Obelisk press to be modelled after a similar project completed by friend and lover Anais Nin.

        What was meant to be a short essay became the longest project of Miller's life, culminating with the publication of World of Lawrence (1980), a book that he never intended expend so much energy, let alone publish in book length.

        Lawrence's late writing, particularly his frenetic Fantasia of the Subconscious fascinated and confused Miller. Despite the obvious parallels with frank, often disturbing sexual depictions, the two writers share a similar real for the living impulse, a connection which seems particularly strong when compared to Whitman.