Moloch Or This Gentile World [Hardcover]

Henry Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 1993

Tired of his demeaning job and tempestuous marriage, Dion Moloch, an anti-Semite living in Brooklyn during the 1920s, escapes to the streets and battles against a world that threatens to destroy him. 12,500 first printing.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dion Moloch, the hero of Miller's first extant, heretofore unpublished novel (written in 1927 and long thought to be the work of his wife June), is an anti-Semitic boor and vain intellectual snob who defends his wife-beating and crudely mocks a friend's death. A stand-in for the aspiring novelist himself, Moloch, who works for a New York telegraph company (modeled on Western Union, where Miller himself once worked) embodies the author's twisted Nietzschean image of himself as "an iconoclast who destroyed from a sheer superabundance of health and strength." As Miller biographer Dearborn notes in her introduction, Moloch's dominant theme is its protagonist's poisonous, obsessive hatred of Jews, which makes long stretches of this work offensive. Peppered with repellent slurs against women, gays, blacks and other ethnic groups, the novel nevertheless provides tantalizing flashes of Miller's mature, quasi-surreal, apocalyptic style and offers flavorful glimpses of 1920s Manhattan, Brooklyn's mean streets and Jazz Age Harlem. Moloch's relationship with his wife, Blanche (modeled on Miller's first wife), is one long, bitter quarrel, in which the two simmer with mutual resentment. The chief interest in this half-baked, awkwardly written self-portrait lies in watching Miller feel his way into the autobiographical adventure narrative, a mode he would bring to fruition in Tropic of Capricorn.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Like Crazy Cock ( LJ 9/15/91), Moloch , Miller's earliest novel, lay lost for most of its author's life. It draws on an even earlier series of sketches, "Clipped Wings," and in its turn provided grist for Tropic of Capricorn ( LJ 9/1/62). Miller's wife, June, passed the novel off as her own--with Miller's connivance--in a scheme to milk a rich "friend" who fancied himself a patron of the arts. The novelist's Bowery setting allows Miller to caricature a parade of down-and-outers--an approach he would later raise to an art. But as Miller biographer Mary V. Dearborn ( "The Happiest Man Alive": A Biography of Henry Miller , LJ 4/15/91) declares in her introduction, Moloch "leaves much to be desired." Miller's style here is literary in the worst sense, and his anti-Semitism is pronounced. For fans only.
- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers; Second Edition, First Printing edition (April 22, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0002241439
• ISBN-13: 978-0002241434
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,993,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

HENRY MILLER (1891-1980) was an American writer and painter infamous 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 most characteristic works of this kind are "Tropic of Cancer," "Tropic of Capricorn," and "Black Spring." His books were banned in the United States for their lewd content until 1964 when a court ruling overturned this order, acknowledging Miller's work as literature in what became one of the most celebrated victories of the sexual revolution.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The first Miller disappointment, June 28, 2007

By 

Henry Martin "Author" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moloch (Hardcover)

I found a used copy of this book in a local store. One of the very few Miller's books I did not own, I was eager to read it. It is not often, actually almost unprecedented, that I give up on a book after a few chapters. In case of Miller, this is the first for me. I have been an avid Henry Miller reader for the past fifteen plus years and read anything by him I could lay my hands on. Most of his books even five or six times and I consider Miller to be the main reason why I started writing myself. However, after a few chapters, I could not connect with the story, I could not "live" with the narrator and his voice. It is Miller's writing, and therefore there are gems within the text, but unlike his other works, the narration here appears artificial, almost pushed out with a great effort. I miss the fluidity with which Miller wrote, I miss the rambling, I miss the metaphors. Unfortunately, at this time, I will not continue reading this work. Perhaps, in the future, a time may come when I will try again, but there are many, many more Miller's books I'd rather re-read. It almost hurts me to say I didn't like a book by Miller, especially since his writing has provided me with many sleepless nights when, thinking of his words, I was unable to shut an eye. 99% of his other works are a true inspiration to me and I have the utmost respect for this writer. This one, for me, has missed the mark.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A writer waiting to happen, December 6, 1999

By 

Doug Vaughn - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Moloch: Or, This Gentile World (Paperback)

While one may see in this book many of the characteristics, themes and incidents of Miller's writing that would one day cause him to be recognized a true original, if not truely great, I doubt that this is a book that anyone other than a die hard Miller fan would like. It is early stuff for Miller, who was just learning his own voice as a writer, and lacks the exuberance and passion of his later work. It probably will find its place mostly as an item to be studied by Miller scholars but I can't imagine actually reading it for pleasure when one could turn to the later and much better books like the 'Tropic' books and Sexus, Nexus and Plexus.

Some of us think that Miller is a great writer, but he had not yet become one when he wrote this.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Reigning God of Angry Young Men!, March 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Moloch: Or, This Gentile World (Paperback)

Although, Mr. Miller, was not young when he wrote this novel, he was without a doubt, still in his full mental faculties. I love this man. When you can't sleep at night, or want something to make you laugh, or cry (at times). The works of Henr Miller fits just what you are looking for at all times. Every concievable emotion is in every book by him. Every soul should at least read one of his novels before they die! This man was a truly unrecognized genius and it is a shame that we live in this modern age and still can't give some credit to a man who revolutionized literature for an entire generation