poetlizard
Founding member
Would like to see this come to light
:DDCharles Bukowski said:Henry Miller Lives in Pacific Palisades and I Live on Skid Row, Still Writing about Sex
Years ago I bought Nexus, Sexus and Plexus in French along the banks of the Seine. The books had been read but in excellent condition, the covers still wrapped in plastic. Has anyone here read these books?
...I have read Nights of Love & Laughter more than once, so I'll stand behind that one as a good selection.
Same here - Miller is my favorite writer, can't get enough of him. I Like Buk too, but he never quite reached the level of Miller - for me - never thought he quite had the diversity and growth that Miller had in his career. If you read Miller's first book, then his last, you can't even believe it's the same writer - and I mean that in the best sense possible. Buk doesn't really have that one legendary book, that universally acclaimed classic, masterpiece, that book that changed writing forever. Tropic of Cancer is that book - On the Road is that book - The Sun Also Rises is that book - Ulysses is that book, know what I mean? I've always liked Buk, but never quite put him on the same level as Miller, or the other writers that wrote these books. But all the power to him, the o'l boy certainly gave me a lot of good times and interesting reads in my lifetime.Would like to see this come to light
just always found that Bukowski had a solid body of works, but no single piece that ever, historically speaking, could be considered history-changing.
I was just about to post something very similar. Post Office and Ham on Rye (and possibly Women) are probably his best-known works but I wouldn't hold those up to the greats of literature. I come back to not just his body of work, but that it covered the novel, the short story and the poem. Let's face it, in the 20th or 21st century, no poet is going to receive the same status as a great novelist or short story writer.I have to agree with you to some extent, but it's the "body of work" part where I do think he is historic...
Yes - I recommend "A life" by Robert Ferguson, great, great work - and also, if you want a tender, affectionate and beautiful telling of his final years, check out, "What dontcha know about Henry MIller" (I think I got the title right), by Twinka Theibaud - beautiful, quite touching and nails everything that made Miller great - his endlessly interested mind and his refusal to let the pains of old age and approaching death interfere with it. Exactly what Bukowski said bothered him about MIller ( that he "strayed" from street-writing, so to speak) is what I find so damn interesting about the man and the writer.Never heard of that title before by Miller, will keep an eye out for that one.
I've spotted a biography of Henry Miller in my local library: "The Happiest Man Alive" by Mary Dearborn, and I'm not sure what this one is like but can anybody recommend a really good biography of Henry Miller?.