When Henry Miller died in 1980 at the age of 88 he had over 40 books published. On Wikipedia it was written that Miller “was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of ‘novel’ that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also fictional.”
His work was praised by George Orwell and an inspiration to Jack Kerouac. He is the Harry in the 1990 movie Henry & June. Like many artists he was a controversial character who in his youth was active in the Socialist Party and whose book Tropic of Cancer when published in the US in 1961 lead to obscenity trials. But it is not his politics or his writings that I want you to look at today, but the process in which he became a writer of influence.
“I begin in absolute chaos and darkness, in a bog or swamp of ideas and experiences. Even now I do not consider myself a writer, in the ordinary sense of the word. I am a man telling the story of his life, a process which appears more and more inexhaustible as I go on….
I began assiduously examining the style and technique of those whom I once admired and worshiped: Nietzsche, Dostoievski, Hamsun, even Thomas Mann…I imitated every style in hope of finding the clue to the gnawing secret of how to write. Finally I came to a dead end, to a despair and desperation which few men have known, because there was no divorce between myself as writer and myself as a man: to fail as a writer was to fail as a man. And I failed. I realized that I was nothing—less than nothing—a minus quality. It was at this point, in the midst of the dead Sargasso Sea, so to speak, that I really began to write. I began from scratch, throwing everything overboard, even those things I loved. Immediately, I heard my own voice I was enchanted; the fact that it was a separate, distinct, unique voice sustained me. It didn’t matter to me if what I wrote should be considered bad. Good or bad dropped out of my vocabulary. “
Henry Miller
Reflections on Writing
[…] When Henry Miller died in 1980 at the age of 88 he had over 40 books published. On Wikipedia it was written that Miller “was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of ‘novel’ that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, […] Original Source… […]
I don’t know if I read all 40, but I’ve read a bunch of them – more than anyone else I know. Fascinating writing. Incredibly emotional. And inspiring. I’ve often said you can pick up one of Henry Miller’s books, close your eyes and open it to any page, read the first thing your eyes discover, and you’ve got a gem.
The definitive quote of this blog.