it could be in any of his books. helpful, what? :) i have a New Directions publication entitled HENRY MILLER ON WRITING, and as the title suggests it is a selection taken from his many books. it's SOMEWHERE in there but i can't seem to locate it!
have you heard of a book by Powys entitled THE INMATES.
As I'm living overseas at the time I can't check any of this out, but I'm sure you're right about it at least being in one of Miller's "Big Sur" books, or at least I'm guessing it wouldn't be in any of the NY books. I only say this because it was Powys The Lecturer that Miller found initially. Miller talks about it in Sexus, Nexus, or Plexus (helpful, what?); how he happened upon a Nietzsche lecture that was being given by JCP while on tour in the states. Miller talks about JCP's strange whirling dervish sort of mannerisms and how he seemingly forgot the crowd and wasn't merely talking about Nietzsche, but conjuring his spirit. The Jim Morrison of literature, so to speak. Anyway, it would be Powys the essayist he was primarily turned onto. The novels came later. At least this is my guess.
No,I haven't heard of The Inmates, but I found this on Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (A site I visit at least 38 times a day....what?!)
In a prefatory and explanatory note, John Cowper Powys rejects as not 'equivalent to reality' Matthew Arnold's famous Greek 'word for it', spoudaios, 'having the utmost seriousness'. Actually, that is exactly what his new novel has. It is wholly serious, in the French (or Greek) sense. And often very funny, in any sense, or none. For in it he sets out 'to defend the crazy ideas of mad people"”in so far, of course, as they don't run to homicide or cruelty"”against the conventional ideas of sane people'. Why the 'of course' proscription of homicide and cruelty? Children, primitive people, and the insane are all naturally cruel because their experience cannot comprehend the 'other' person or thing: there
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I'd read it. Is it as good as it sounds?
