Customer Reviews

The Devil at Large: Erica Jonge on Henry Miller

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Henry Miller has been one of my favorite writers for my entire adult life. I also am a fan of Erica Jong (who was onced facetiously tagged with the moniker of female Henry Miller) That made this book doubly alluring. I have always had to renconcile the raw bluntness of Miller with my own philosophical positions. A lot of Millers writing is extremely sexist on the surface and even on some deeper levels. I like the way Jong is able to point out how supportive Miller was of female writers like Marie Corelli and Emma Goldman and Helena Blavatsky. (all writers I read because of Miller) She also cites his support of her own career. Miller was a child of the Teddy Roosevelt era but he sought to overcome all these obstacles. Most of his writing was an attempt to transcend these weaknesses. Did Miller fear women as Jong suggests? She certainly presents a strong argument to that end. This is a touching elegy to a writer that influenced and aided Jong in her own literary ascension. As to the criticism that this book is really about Erica Jong, I would state that The Time of the Assassins is really about Henry Miller and Anais Nins book on D.H. Lawrence is largely about Anais Nin. These are artists writing about other writers and not critics presenting literary criticism. It should be read as a salute and not as objective analysis. And I state it does succeed quite well at that.

Jong tackles Miller's wide-ranging life from the perspectives of friend and fellow writer. She also takes the nearly unheard-of fresh angle of looking at Miller as a human being, warts and all. As linear biography, the book doesn't work; this is fortunate, as it is intended -- and works -- as a romp through someone's life.

In a fine mesh of poetry, prose, research, experience and playfulness, Erica Jong succeeds in giving one an idea of what Miller might have been like if one had met him. This is far more valuable than any diatribes or rants regarding the often alleged "obscenity" of Henry Miller's work. Readers also can find here a more concrete analysis of Miller's many facets: supporter of woman writers, conqueror of his own Oedipal complex, father, lover, dirty old man, intellectual, rover.

If you like Henry Miller, read it and learn more. If you hate Henry Miller, make an effort to understand him. You still might not like his writing, but you'll at least have one hype-free view of his work and life -- and Erica Jong's writing is as fresh and funny as ever.

Erica Jong gives us some of the most personal and heartfelt analysis of Henry Miller. The two places where she fails is her Freudian psychoanalysis in portraying Henry as someone trying to kill his mother and in feminist waffling. When feminists argue with each other it seems that the rule is a mush-mouthed wimpy code word kind of argument for fear of betraying the "sisterhood" as if women can't argue without being victims of the PATRIARCHY. Jong engages in some of the worst handwringing for writing in praise of an author whose favorite word is c-nt.

For most of the book she takes turns writing about herself and trying to emulate Miller's prose. This would be unpardonable with another author, but Miller is known for writing one of the best books about Rimbaud ever by writing about Henry Miller, so Jong knows her subject.

The only other false note is the preaching to choir portions where she claims that no one reads Henry Miller these days. Of course, the only people who are going to read a book about Miller are people who already read Miller. Besides after Henry & June the movie, that is a dated statement.

Maybe no one could write better prose about an author like Erica Jong could about Henry Miller. Both writers broke down barriers and social taboos through their writings about sex. Both were liberators to genders and both saw sex as a sense of freedom and expression.
Henry Miller's life didn't begin when he came to Paris, it exploded. Jong tackles so many issuses of a man that was at times a Devil at Large. This is one of the finest biographies I have ever read.

My take on this...

And so, it is.

Everyone has somehow come to the notion that their generation, their time is "the one" and that there is nothing new under the sun unless their generation creates it or is savvy enough about adapting it as their own. Also, something construed as 'challenging to' our accepted notions should be outright condemned. Case in point is when Jong published "Fear Of Flying" groups everywhere labelled as way too provocative. Jong's reply: "I had imagined that everyone knew Chaucer, Rabelais, Lawrence and Joyce were full of sex, so why all the fuss?"

"The Devil at Large" is about liberators, necromancers, artists and writers--about writers Jong and Miller, about how similar they were and how they came to be fast friends and about this blindsidedness of the public I spoke of above. It is for those of us searching for answers, it is about, to flip-flop paraphrase the great psychedelic bluesband Funkadelic, "freeing your a**, and your mind will follow". Who better than Isadora Wing herself should do a work on the Dirty Ol' Man of Letters? This is, my friends, a great book with great ideals.

And so, it is.

To many, Miller is a rabid misogynist who doesn't deserve a second glancing. His use of language is dense and unappealing and obscure and he goes deep, deep into what we cultured folks would call unmentionable..like the section on French urinals vs. American urinals from the novel 'Black Spring'. But, see the facts that he's described the unmentionable, that he attempted to put words to an otherwise impossible to describe feeling, frees us all...

The universe is perceived by us all sensually. To be part of the universe is to be expressive sensually, according to Miller via Jong. To embrace both the flesh consuming microbes and the exudates we normally discard, to love equally the dung and the diamonds.

Embracing only our high ideals never lead to anything, says Miller through Jong, but war, famine and hatred. And, concludes Jong, "Without obscenity, there is no divinity". If we do not accept and embrace it all--even the nastinesses--there cannot be a breakthrough of the physical to the spiritual. Life is about liberation, minute by minute, fear by fear. Miller's role according to Jong is to help us liberate ourselves by reading about his struggles with his own liberation..

But, alas! Personal liberation? We cultured folks are much more interested in new tires for our cars since the economy is doing so well and we want to feel only as liberated as the freedom of motion we get from our cars...

And so, it is.

The title says "Erica Jong on Henry Miller" but it should read "How Henry Miller impressed & influenced Erica Jong". This book is completely subjective, filled with impressions Jong has digested from reading Miller's works, as well as from correspondence & conversations with him. It is mostly blind praise & back-patting, loaded with Jong's running commentary on American morals on such topics as sex & lesbianism. While of intrest to fans of Jong & Miller, reading this work to find out about Henry Miller's life & works will leave you still needing to find out about Miller's life & works.