Black Spring

Strange reason for writing a review. I stumbled across an old George Orwell review of Black Spring and wondered. Questions abound in these pages.Did you know that Orwell was a prolific book reviewer? Book reviews staved off starvation during the Depression for the struggling Orwell. Did you know that Orwell and Miller were friends? Maybe the apolitical Miller's friendship was a respite for the war weary Orwell after his near death experience in revolutionary Spain.Orwell, always the pragmatist, questioned the "mickey mouse universe" found in the pages of Black Spring but admired the genius of Miller. Orwell,in his essay Benefit of Clergy, said the same of Dali's surrealism. Technically good but weird. Orwell oddly concluded that Dali was demented and Miller was a genius. Was Orwell biased towards writing over painting? Was Orwell biased against Dali's fascism?Is Black Spring a written attempt to create a surrealist painting when surrealism was in vogue? A mickey mouse universe indeed yet one beautifully wrought. The images in this book are compelling...I could see the decks being scrubbed down and the guns polished and the weight of those big sea monsters resting on the dirty glass lake of the basin was a luxurious weight on me. p7Can't you feel the weight of the water and the ships? The racism in this book is rife..the n word, Asians described as having "glass craniums" and even a lurid description of a lynching in the mind of the detached narrator. Is it any wonder that the government tried to ban Miller's books under the Comstock Act?Two strange BLACK SPRING references seem to be prophetic: one describing annihilation like a "sputtering roman candle" a large blast between New York and Nagasaki (written in the thirties) while the other refers to a large statue in the desert with breast and buttocks pointed in opposite directions. Looking at past celebrations of the BURNING MAN spectacle in the Nevada desert I saw such a statue exactly as described in BLACK SPRING...of course, the person who conceived the sculpture could have read Black Spring, but the destruction of Nagasaki is weird.In any case, time marched on after Black Spring and the turmoil of the Depression became the counterculture of the sixties. The sound of Kerouac's typewriter echoes throughout this book. When I read Miller I can not help but see the counterculture writing that floated in the wake of Black Spring's voyage. Miller was the staccato force behind Kerouac's typewriter and Vonnegut's grim image of burnt Dresden in Slaughterhouse 5.Be warned though, Miller's mickey mouse universe is ultimately finite and self indulgent- a post christian Mobius Strip turning on itself endlessly... demanding attention to its own beautiful vanity. Miller is modernity for good and bad.Was Orwell right about Miller? Strange reason for writing a review but that is what I did. An Age Like This, 1920-1940 (Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Vol. 1)

I have read every book, literally, Miller has written and a few were extremely hard to find. His perspective on America and American society is just as relevant today as when it was written. In some cases, it is even more relevant today as America has moved on from its dehumanized industrial era to an even more cold, sterile and technically isolating era. America has always been a myth which, if one looks just under the surface, one finds a sewer infested with money hungry power mad ghouls the equal in every way of the Morlocks in H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine. Miller saw and experienced the dehumanizing horror of industrialization in his time but could scarcely have imagined the automated high tech hell into which America has morphed in the 21st Century and which it is spreading throughout the world.The stories in this book are all good but, I gave it only four stars because it is not his best work although nothing Miller wrote was irrelevant concerning the institutional insanity of America. For me the best of the group and the one which resonated most with me was Megalopolitan Maniac.

As a big fan of Anais Nin's diaries I was drawn to this by her descriptions of being with Henry Miller while he was writing Black Spring. She is a much better writer than he is. What you have with Miller is a horny crank with a terrific prose style. Sometimes the writing in this book rises to heights that are stupendous. The story Jabberwhorl Cronstadt is one. I haven't finished the book yet, as it's slow going when it's not terrific, which, so far, is most of it.Sorry to be so critical of a man who is an idol of many, but, having read Tropic of Cancer and as much of this as I've plowed through I just can't see it.

This in one of of those books which, in my opinion, was very significant historically, because no one (that I can think of) wrote like him at the time. It's feels like an "experimental" book, which I'm in favor of. Miller's greatest achievement was to inspire other writers to experiment and find their own style. Whenever I read Hubert Selby, jr. or Henry Rollins, I feel the Miller influence.This book did not "blow me away" and I won't read it again any time soon, but I have great respect for Miller and his contribution to literature.

This book has much of the same tone as Tropic of Cancer, but more chimerical energy. What I enjoy about Miller’s books is love him or hate him, they will never bend to your sensibility, you have to approach them like you’re going to someone’s house, and must navigate through each situation or scene your own way.

This book is pretty typical of Henry Miller's style and it was a great read. For anyone that has read either of the Tropics and enjoyed them I would highly recommend this book.

The book was not in great shape; but, it arrived as promised and in the described shape. It was more than adequate for the class that I needed it for.

Great read. Really glad I picked up this book. Arrived fast with no damage as well

It is utterly beyond me how so many people can rave about this book and the writing in it. I had to force myself to read it, and it took months. People rave about his amazing prose? Sorry, but I have trouble calling most of the what is in this book "prose." Possibly "poetry," poetry of a type that is about as interesting as having the flu. A couple of the pieces were tolerably interesting, kind of like finding two useable coins in a cow patty: hardly worth pulling them out considering what you have to go through. Does Amazon offer refunds for books that suck so bad that it is an exercise in torture and boredom to get through them?

Miller gives the reader his complex and thought provoking philosophy.

they don't write travel books like this any more.

Le livre n’est pas neuf et abîmé par l’eau