| Title | : | Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0802151809 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780802151803 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 506 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1949 |
Henry Miller called the end of his life in America and the start of a new, bohemian existence in 1930s Paris his 'rosy crucifixion'. His searing fictionalized autobiography of this time of liberation was banned for nearly twenty years. Sexus, the first volume in The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, looks back to his early sexual escapades in Brooklyn, and his growing infatuation with the playful, teasing dance hall hostess who will become the great obsession of his life.
Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, #1) Reviews
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I'm an artist, blah blah blah blah blah, I have promiscuous sex, blah blah blah blah blah, my wife is a lesbian, blah blah blah blah blah, I just got some genital warts, blah blah blah blah blah, banged my wife's lesbian lover, blah blah blah blah blah, I'm a poet, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....
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I believe that the trilogy title The Rosy Crucifixion is a free interpretation of the mystical term Rosicrucianism – the Order of the Rosy Cross… Thus Henry Miller is a Rosicrucian and alchemist of passion and the name of the novel Sexus wholly expresses the contents of the book.
The best thing about writing is not the actual labor of putting word against word, brick upon brick, but the preliminaries, the spade work, which is done in silence, under any circumstances, in dream as well as in the waking state. In short, the period of gestation.
And for the artist of Henry Miller’s calibre this period of gestation and the spade work is an ecstasy of love.
And Henry Miller’s love confessions are a boiling geyser of martyr’s lust.His mouth would wreath itself in a veritable mandibular ecstasy; he would work himself up until the very soul of him came forth in a spongy ectoplasmic substance. It was a horrible state of affection, terrifying because it knew no bounds. It was a depersonalized glut or slop, a hangover from some archaic condition of ecstasy – the residual memory of crabs and snakes, of their prolonged copulations in the protoplasmic slime of ages long forgotten.
Even being crucified, if one is crucified by love, may be an excruciating delight… -
As a no-holds-barred relic of the sleazy 1920s, this is an audacious text, marred by passages of sublime arrogance, outrageously boring prose soup, and inane porn scenes. Miller’s status as a provocateur is well-earned, his style a frenetic mash-up of Dostoevsky, Lawrence and Selby. Sexus is incoherent, meandering and shameless, but compelling and unavoidably stimulating.
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It is an ode to Mara-Mona, that is to say to June, the author's second wife, which he will celebrate many times in his work.
The first chapter opens in the dance hall where, the day before, the narrator has just met a hostess who sells his dances and company to men alone. From there, Miller leads his reader in a round of characters that he has already made us admire individual samples. I will mention only one name - that does not need comment: the ineffable Kronski.
But Sexus is mainly an opportunity for Miller to refine his hyper-manly character, satisfying all women - or almost. That he is with Mara, who, at a precise moment, asks Kronski "humbly" if "she is worthy of Henry" (!!!), does not prevent him from fornication on the right and on the left, and even with his lawful wife while both of them started their divorce proceedings. The reader immediately notes that it is almost Maude who asks him.
I believe in the American author's too much intelligence and subtlety for not having painted such an unflattering portrait of himself in vain. Because he is deeply involved in his life story, the fact that he embellishes many details or arranges them in a more theatrical perspective does not detract from this depth. Miller knows he can not back down: this time, he will not be able to content himself with touching the Miller gigolo, the Miller macho, the cowardly coward, and running away that he was too. Therefore, with social skills and talent that can not be challenging, the writer reveals everything that shocks and scandalizes him as the language he loves never grows.
The most extraordinary is that, throughout these almost 500 pages (pocket edition), we do not think for a moment to plant there, Henry. His sex, his gonorrhea, his women, his scams to the money, his blackmail to feelings, his cooking, and the unlikely friends he drags in his wake. Sometimes, it's true. We stop and wonder: let's see, this exhibitionist tightrope who, completely drunk, makes us sneaky up there on this rope with the edge of a razor blade, is it the great Henry Miller? Unbelievable! Despite all that we already knew about his sexual frenzy, his emotional complications, and the man's life he maintained, for example, with Anais Nin, we would never have thought of him.
And yet, despite everything, we keep him (the author) in a tiny place deep in our hearts. No one is perfect, they say to themselves, and at least we can not tax hypocrisy in this writer who perseveres in painting in such colors.
Ultimate wink addressed to the reader by the text itself: the anecdote that Miller reports on Knut Hansum, one of the authors he loved. I'll let you discover it. It resembles the part of Miller's shadow: annoying, pitiful, cunning, arrogant, and yet so naive that we can not help smiling as we would before the escapades of a poor kid but brilliant. ; O) -
This is such a difficult book to write about because it's so expansive and so forthright in its world view. This is my first foray into Henry Miller and lets just say that it has truly altered my perceptions, and affected my world view. Miller is a nutjob, and often times you can't help but loathe his actions and are revolted by his way of thinking, but this is where he succeeds and makes his strongest victories. Miller's writing is the most confessional personal essay one can imagine. He never shies away from telling us of his more devious visions in order to create a more likeable personality for himself. He strips himself bare and includes his most bizarre sexual and primal impulses. Obviously there is a strong emphasis on the book's sexual proclivities as it was a pivotal moment in the deconstruction of our country's censorship laws, but Miller (I believe) is not trying to be overtly graphic in his sex writing merely to shock people so he can sell more books. In my opinion he includes the sex scenes in all their detailed glory because he wants to give them as much space in his writing as they exist in his world. Sex is a huge part of most people's lives, be it actually having sex or merely thinking about it. Miller was an especially amorous person, so a book about his life is going to contain a lot of sexual writing. Is this a sensational way to write a book? Damn right. But the beauty of Miller is that he couldn't give two shits. He is driven and unrepentant of any of his beliefs. He wasn't trying to start a revolution here, he was just writing the only way he could. And controversial subject matter aside, it's just worth reading for the poetic style of his prose which contains some of the most aesthetically beautiful sentences, forget content, that I have ever read. There are times I would read paragraphs out loud to myself just to hear the way they sounded coming off my tongue. So yeah, I like Henry Miller. He has won me over as a convert and I'm very excited to delve deeper into his other writings.
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Henry Miller is nothing short of a favorite writer of mine, after just one book. I feel like I discovered a whole new universe between his pages. I feel like I’ve been let in a secret club of people who can feel so deeply that their hearts beat in the spine of the book, who can be filled with so much of anything that their blood oozes in the spaces between letters. To say that I like his writing is an understatement – I fell in love with it.
This semi - autobiographical work is, in itself, very good fiction. I’m sure it’s embellished, in true style of every over achieving author, but it’s not embellished to the point where you don’t believe it anymore. The characters are real, they’re human through their flaws, through their denial and acceptance of life’s moments, they are a bunch of “characters” in the real sense of the word: people whom you find hard to believe you would see on the street, in your neighborhood, because such individuals could only gravitate around someone like Miller. He is the center piece of this trilogy, and by all means, he has to be.
His portrayal of himself is pathetic: he’s a man of a thousand vices, of which just the first are women and alcohol, he is weak in his will to do anything except for laying around and having fun, he is defined, ultimately, by his cowardice and laziness. How, can you ask, is he then the great man that I advertise him to be? Well, he’s a genius - the way he writes beggars belief. I could not have expected more out of his work, and I feel sad that I haven’t read him earlier.
There might be people out there who find his style shallow and empty, as his life was all about himself, sex, himself, literature, himself, sex, alcohol, sex.. you get the point. But I beg to differ – even in his most dirty episodes, those that give feminists heart attacks, he never shames women, never debases them. They are, to him, part of the few things beautiful in this world, part of what is to be worshipped, be it that his prayers come in the form of sex (did I say he had a lot of sex?). In order to understand his take on women better, I advise anyone interested to read his correspondence with his wife, Anais Nin. They are exquisitely beautiful declarations of love and you can recognize his penmanship in there, as well.
To “Plexus”, I say! -
حسنا هنرى اخبرنى كيف أقيم هذا الكتاب ؟؟
من المفترض انها الجزء الاول من ثلاثية الصلب الوردى التى اساسها حياته الخاصة .
وما تم كتابته عن العمل
ان مافعله هنرى انه تناول السنوات الجوهرية للحياة فى أمريكا حين كان يتعلم فى البداية كيف يكتب وعلاقة الحب الجوهرية فى حياته وفحصهما بدقة ولكن من وجهة نظر لاحقة اكثر نضجا بكثير فكانت النتيجة سردا ساحرا بصورة لاتصدق عملا ملحميا بالمعنى الشخصى والاجتماعى والاجمالى
حقيقة لااستطيع تصنيف هذا العمل لكنه مزيج غريب وجذاب احداث حياتيه يومية ، وفلسفة ، واراء اجتماعية وسياسية ، وأفكار، وجنس .
فى العادة عندما اكتب مراجعة تتدفق الافكار او احساسى تجاه العمل لكن هنا اجد صعوبة ، بداية اجد تسميتها رواية ليست صحيحة فلن تجد حبكة وقصة متكاملة ويمكن تلخيصها فى جملتين السيد ميلر وزوجته وحبيبته واصدقاءه ومعارفة .
اما الجزء الاخير فحقيقة لم افهم ماذا يريد هنرى لم افهمه جيدا ..
لكن ذلك لم يمنع ان هناك شئ يجذبنى للقراءة بشدة هناك افكار داخلية ومناقشات خارجية واحاسيس واراء جذبتنى . تشعر انه يتحدث عن كل شئ ف الحياة والمجتمع ليس عن شى محدد ، تجده يأخذك فى جميع الاتجاهات .
《مع هنرى ميلر مش هتقدر تغمض عنيك 》 😁😁
باختصار عمل غريب وجميل وصادم ويتضمن اجزاء جنسية صادمة مقيتة وستجدها عادة فجأة احيانا سريعة واحيانا باسهاب ووصف مطول وهنرى تقريبا مارس الجنس مع اغلبية النساء فى الرواية او الكتاب ايا كان تصنيف هذا العمل وربما يعقب حكاياته الجنسية افكار واراء وفلسفة .
السؤال الان لنفسى :
هل ستكملين باقى الاجزاء ؟؟ نعم لدى فضول لقراءة باقى الاجزاء كما ان هناك حبل خفى يجذبنى هناك اجزاء لمستنى بشكل شخصى تجعلنى اتجاوز او اتجاهل صدمات كتاباته .
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Henry Miller always writes with a surge of life being pushed through his pen. His stories, countless stories, always with another point of view - at one moment, as an all-knowing superior man, and the next, as a good-for-nothing, useless piece of garbage that's floating about the air. He's all too ready to express his truth, even when it doesn't serve him favorably. Who can't relate?
Sex is part of life. The view that Henry Miller is attempting to show himself off as some kind of Casanova has never come through to me. He writes objectively, as if to say 'Yeah, it happened. This is what it was.' and before you know it, he's gallanting into some other room, all together unconcerned with the scene he was just inextricably a part of.
Who hasn't received something from reading some Henry Miller? You can learn to live from his books, if even a small compartment of your life. -
To be able to give oneself wholly and completely is the greatest luxury that life affords. Real love only begins at this point of dissolution.
I've giving this 4 stars for the wild energy of Miller's vision and writing, and the iconoclastic way in which he challenged the 'rules' of fiction - but this comes with massive caveats about the casual racism ('now a Chink was different. Chinks were white slavers. But a Jap you could trust'), implicit homophobia ('he was a bit queer, wasn't he? Didn't you tell me he was in love with a bus driver? Or was he a N***** lover?') - though women having sex together is totally ok, preferably with a male watching or participating - and complete macho obsession with the potency of the penis: 'she had several orgasms in succession and almost fainted in the process'. Incidentally, this isn't just one woman but all 'good' women in Miller-world are multi-orgasmic at the sight of a erect penis, while you know a 'bad' women because she's frigid. Oh, until she catches a glimpse of said Miller's always-erect penis, of course! Still, at least sex and pleasure are not the prerogative of men, even if the fantasies that underpin the sexual scenarios and the writing of sex are very different from, say, that of Anais Nin.
While this has been cited as literate pornography, I'm not convinced that that's true as I'm not sure this is written to titillate - in actual fact, the sex scenes are pretty samey (I soon started skimming them) and are more about a rejection of bourgeois values (though I was immensely amused that during this book, Miller is working a 9-5 corporate job!) than anything else. Sex is a counter-cultural marker as is the writing of it in explicit detail.
I came to this book on the back on Anais Nin's writings, especially her diary that details her ménage with Miller and his wife June (here known as Mara and then Mona) in Paris. The frenetic energy might all belong to Miller but the more intriguing character is Mara-Mona/June and the role she plays in Miller's own inner narrative: 'but if they are able to throw themselves at one another recklessly, concealing nothing, surrendering all, if they admit to one another their interdependence, do they not enjoy a great and unsuspected freedom?'.
It's this goal of liberation that really drives the book, and Miller's simultaneous power over, and enthrallment to, an endlessly elusive woman ('then it came to me: only if she were dead could I love her the way I imagined I loved her!') is one that reverberates through male writing in a western cultural tradition from Catullus' Lesbia poems, via Dante's
Vita Nuova and Petrarch's sonnets to Laura in the
Canzoniere all the way through to Swann's obsession with Odette in Proust. These women are all subject to the overwhelming literary, spiritual and physical desires of their male lovers and creators which is why it's especially seductive and a bit subversive that in Miller's case we have, in Anais Nin, a female voice from within this nexus of desires.
So I enjoyed this for its crazy whirl of youthful adventures in New York (it's only at the end that Miller and Mona start to talk of travelling to Europe), its philosophising ('the truth that the goal of life is the living of it'), and the full-on rejection of limiting conventions whether in writing or living. It's easy to see how influential this was, and it's difficult to imagine an
On the Road without Miller (though Kerouac's vision is very different). Just be ready for an awful lot of hardily-erect penises and gushing ejaculations! -
Henry Miller quotes,"Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern."
Maintaining Henry’s charm; let the perversity surge.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am Henry Miller and I’m in a gratifying allegiance with my penis. I LOVE TO FUCK!!! Screw every pussy in town!! YooHoo!! My ex-wife is a lesbian! Yay!! I fucked my wife’s lesbian lover; for years! Whoa! Aren’t I an uncouth, sordid dirty little bastard?
Things you ought to discern about my book - Sexus.
1) Sexus is the first volume of the Rosy Crucifixion trilogy. The series is based on my factual life experiences amid my metamorphosis of being a novelist. Predominantly, it is my sexual navigation of an exotic creature – Mara; not before circumnavigating Irene, Sylvia and numerous dripping lassies. Irene that horny cunt can make a man bleed. No wonder her husband is paralytic. She must have twisted his cock off. Poor Ulrich couldn’t keep up with the all night orgy. Sylvia on the other hand is dull as ditch water. Mara, that bitch can get me barmy giving me a hard on even when I’m looking at the bitter hag -my wife. I am so hung up on her blowjobs and taxi quickies, I overlook that she is an impetuous liar.
2) Maude my present wife is such a wrench. Fucking her makes me feel like a necrophiliac. Although it is not a nuisance as I can bang any crap with a hole, yet her customary snide of me being a promiscuous prick, not caring about the family or my child smacks the shit out of me.
3) My cronies- Dr. Kronski, Ulrich (my sidekick in sexual burlesque), Stanley, etc.. are a bunch of sympathetic drunks with suicidal or fatal aspirations, except get them some twirling willowy legs and they can hump like rabbits.
4) Sex is one of the nine reasons of reincarnation. So, each time I get a stiff bulge in my pants I come across ways to attain salvation.
5) If the frequent usage of racially provocative or prejudiced language astounds the proverbial reader, chew a nickel and get on with it. I can’t help if I’m the cruelest sexist asshole.
6) At times when my penis does not take a call, I do manage to pen down sensible libretto arguing the significance of being a writer and life as we call it. However, me being a narcissistic prick, eventually the narration embellishes all-night orgy sessions with couple of lou-lous and Ulrich.
7) Several readers consider me to be a pervert dickhead while some contemplate about my genius collaboration of imaginative intelligentsia. Yes! My common sense does take a hike at times, but that’s who I am – a raunchy, egoistical mastermind of sexual emancipation.
Hush Miller! We get it! You are as horny as a three-balled tomcat with a swamped gutter mouth.
In conclusion, as to sum it all up, Sexus is a freakishly fascinating reserve. -
I intended to give it 3 stars but because of the last 2 chapters - almost 50 pages - i decided that it deserve the 4 stars.
The big difference between "Sexus" and his first two gems "Tropic of Cancer" and "Tropic of Capricorn" is that here there's a lot of sex without any aesthetic or artistic purposes. Also many times i feel he constrained the events and encounters with other characters. his ordinary nonsense about life and women reach another high limit.
He still got the great talent of a bohemian artist, still use the most remarkable language among American novelists. You can keep reading for many successive hours without felling boring except for the unnecessary porn scenes.
The most remarkable parts in Sexus are :
- When he tried to get rid of Maude by convincing her ex-lover to save her from him.
- The party he arranged for his friends when he got the bonus.
- His definition of creation and creativity.
- How Melanie got into the book.
- His dream of Una.
- Kent Hamson's letter.
- Finally the most beautiful parts i've ever read by Miller until now is the last 50 pages which starts with Cleo at Minsky brothers then the two deaths of Osmanli the Turk, and the end with Miller the dog and his woof! woof!. -
Simplesmente brilhante.
“A maneira como agora via as coisas era a maneira como um dia escreveria a respeito delas.”
“Ia a caminho dos trinta e três anos, a idade de Cristo crucificado, e abria-se à minha frente uma vida totalmente nova, se tivesse a coragem de arriscar tudo. A verdade, porém, é que não tinha nada a arriscar, pois encontrava-me no primeiro degrau da escada e não passava de um falhado em toda a acepção da palavra.”
“Deitado na cama larga, ao canto do quarto do rés-do-chão, lutei com um delírio que ameaçava terminar com a morte. Nunca estivera verdadeiramente doente desde a infância e a experiência foi deliciosa. Ir da cama à casa de banho era como percorrer, cambaleante, todos os labirínticos corredores de um transatlântico. Vivi diversas vidas nos poucos dias que a febre durou. Foram as minhas únicas férias no sepulcro a que se chama lar.”
“A minha política foi sempre a de queimar todas as pontes atrás de mim, o meu rosto está sempre virado para o futuro. Se cometo um erro, é fatal. Quando me empurram para trás, caio sem apelo nem agravo até ao próprio fundo. A minha única salvaguarda é a elasticidade; até agora, consegui sempre ressaltar. Algumas vezes o ressalto assemelhou-se a um movimento ao retardador, mas aos olhos de Deus a velocidade não tem qualquer significado especial.”
“Tinha uma historiazinha para cada situação e eu adorava-as; eram como simples remédios homeopáticos, grãozinhos de verdade recolhidos num manto inócuo. O que mais me agradava nelas era o facto de, depois de as ouvirmos, não as podermos esquecer. Nós escrevemos grandes calhamaços para expor uma ideia simples; os Orientais contam uma história simples, intencional, que se fixa no nosso cérebro como um diamante.”
“A expressão «contra-senso» é uma das mais intrigantes do nosso vocabulário. Tem apenas um carácter negativo, como a morte. Ninguém pode explicar o contra-senso: só pode ser demonstrado. Acrescentar que senso e contra-senso são permutáveis mais não seria do que complicar as coisas. O contra-senso pertence a outros mundos, a outras dimensões, e o gesto com o qual, às vezes, o afastamos de nós, a finalidade com que o repudiamos, provam a sua natureza perturbadora. Rejeitamos tudo quanto não conseguimos encaixar na nossa margem estreita de compreensão. Assim, a profundidade e o contra-senso podem parecer que têm certas afinidades insuspeitas.”
“O’Rourke era um indivíduo ímpar, que às vezes me perturbava profundamente. Creio que, antes ou depois dele, nunca conheci ninguém que me fizesse sentir tão transparente. Tão-pouco conheci alguém que se abstivesse tão sobriamente de aconselhar ou criticar. Foi o único homem que conheci que me fez compreender o que significava ser tolerante, o que significava respeitar a liberdade alheia. Agora que penso nisso, é curioso como ele simbolizava, profundamente, a Lei. Não o espírito mesquinho da lei de que os homens se servem para atingirem os seus próprios fins e, sim, a lei cósmica e imperscrutável que nunca deixa de agir, que é implacável e justa e, portanto, em última análise, a mais misericordiosa.”
“Há dias em que o regresso à vida é penoso e deprimente. Abandonamos o reino do sono contra vontade. Não aconteceu nada, assalta-nos apenas a percepção de que a realidade mais profunda e mais genuína pertence ao mundo do inconsciente.”
“Como os barcos, os homens também se afundam, repetidamente, e só a memória os salva da dispersão completa.”
“Todos os dias chacinamos os nossos melhores impulsos.” -
ما الذي يمكن قوله في كتاب عنوانه اللاتيني يعني " الجنس " !
هذا الكتاب كان ممنوعاً في أمريكا بلد الكاتب نفسه . و قد أحدث صدمة كبيرة استاء منها هنري قائلاً ما هذا الرياء ! لماذا يرفض الناس قراءة ما يقولون و يفعلون ! يقول أنه ليس مهووس بالجنس على عكس العالم ! يؤكد في حواراته أنه ضد الإباحية و مع الفسوق فالأخير صريح على عكس الأول ! و بما أن الجنس جزء أساسي من الحياة فلن يتورع عن كتابته بكل فحش ! الكلمة الأخيرة محببة لهنري .
الكتاب هو الجزء الأول من ثلاثيته التي يتناول فيها سيرته الروائية لا الذاتية ! و هنري ينهل بالأساس من معين حياته الغريبة و ترحاله البطوطي إن صح التعبير و بطبيعة الحال من تأملاته . فالكتاب يمكن القول أنه غني بالجنس فاحتمال أن تفتح الكتاب بشكل عشوائي لتجد مقطع ساخن يقارب ال 40 بالمئة ! و هو بعيداً عن ذل�� - في الحقيقة هو لا يبتعد بالقدر الكافي - كتاب مليء بفلسفة هنري اللاذعة و سخريته النارية و تأملاته الشاطح منها و المصيب بدقة . يتناول العلاقات الاجتماعية حتى العظم ، كما يهاجم المباديء الحمقاء التي لا بد من التنازل عنها لصالح الحياة . و هو يقدس الحياة و يحب أن يعيشها كاملة حتى أقصى حدّ . يكفي أنه في منتصف الثمانيات من عمره و قبيل وفاته كان مغرماً ! يحب أيضاً تحطيم التابوهات و يباهي بذلك و يعود الفضل أو الإثم له كاملاً في تحرير الكتّاب من بعده . لا شك أن هنري ميللر لا يعرف الوسطية و قراءه لن يتمكنوا من ذلك . فإما كراهية و عداوة أبدية أو حب و تغاضي عن نزواته و طيشه . بالنسبة لي يروق لي أسلوبه و طريقة كتابته البارعة و تشبيهاته السوريالية . -
صبوات أو سكسوس هي أول الكتب في "ثلاثية الصلب الوردي " والتي تصنف كونها سيرة ذاتية لهنري ميلر
ميلر من الرواة القلّه الذين يمتلكون دقة الوصف وقوة التعبير حتى لكأن المشاهد تصوّر أمامك في فيلم طويل .. وطويل جداً .. وهذا ما قد يعيبه .. إذ أن إيقاع الملل يستبد بك حين وتتمكن أنت منه حيناً آخر
يحكي الجزء الأول معاناة فشل زواجه وطريقه في الوقوع بحب امرأة أحلامه التي كانت "عاهره" .. وصراع الكبار في وظيفته الصغيره
هي بالتأكيد كحياة أي كاتب آخر .. ولكنك ستعشق الكثير من الاقتباسات التي لن تراها إلا تجسّد حالتك بالأمس .. او الآن أو ربما غداً
الجدير بالذكر أن روايات هنري كلها +21 -
Read in the 1970s. Unforgettable. I recall when it was recommended, that when the author submitted the manuscript, he told the publisher not to touch one word. Publish as it is or not at all.
The book has a palpable sense of place and time. -
" لا توجد عاهرة ذكية ! إن عهر الجسد دليل على ضعف الذكاء "
من حِكم هنري ميلر المثير للقلق النفسي
هذا الكتاب ليس آمنًا لأصحاب القلوب الضعيفة ممن يعتبرون بطيش نظرًا لحداثة السن و التجربتان الحياتية والقرائية أن الأدب وسيلة إمتطاء لخيال جنسي سويّ أو تحرير و أعادة إحياء لما تكبته السنون في الإنسان من ناحية الجنس ،،
هذا كتاب للتحدي ،، تتحدى قدرتك على الإحتمال و تحاول أن تتوازن فكريًا و تعطي التقييم المناسب و أنت تخطو بحذر فوق مجزرة هنري ميلر الجنسية هذه بين علاقته الموشكة على الإنفصال بزوجته و بين عشيقته و مابينهما يزدرد ميلر جيش من النساء ، كنت قد قررت قراءة مجموعة من أعماله ( الكتب في حياتي و الضفيرة و الوشيجة ) لذلك بدأت بهذه الصبوات لأنها الجزء الأول من ثلاثية الصلب الوردي ، حتى إستيائي من هذه التجربة لن يثنيني عن مواصلة مخططي لأنني أعوّل على الجانب الصريح والجريء من تجربة ميلر الجانب الذي يزهو كديك ينازل العالم بألوانه البراقة فحسب،حسنًا لربما كانت تبدو له براقة أكثر من اللازم !..
تلك الغطرسة الإلزامية في ثنايا الرواية و الفحولة الغير معالجة بواقعية تجعلك مشدوهًا كقارئ
تعلم أن الأمر لا يجري في الحياة كذلك ، ميلر هنا يستخدم الجنس كركيزة روائية سخيفة و كمبدأ الجزرة والعصا و يتوقع الكثير من الانصياع من بهائمية عالم الغريزة ذلك العالم الخزفي كما يصوره ، طريقته في الحديث عن الجنس غير مسلية و مجحفه بحق الجنس ، الجنس كقطعة حلوى يجب أن يحتفظ بها الروائي الخبير في الرّف المناسب من الثلاجة و أي تغيير تصاعدي أوتنازلي يرهق النص و يرهله ، الجنس جاء هنا كعقبة لمنح نصّ ميلر القيمة التي يستحق ، محبطة جدًا البدء بقراءة هذا العمل تحديدًا لميلر دون سواه !..
طوّر ميلر نوع مستحدث من السيرة الذاتية بخليط روائي فلسفي ناقدًا لهناتٍ نفسية في صلب المجتمع ، وهذه هي النتيجة و التي قد تتهم كجنس أدبي ماجن لن يتقبله كل القراء بالضرورة ولكن لابد من أن تجد في عشوائيته ميزة تطابق ميولك كقارئ ، رغم ذلك فلميلر هذه اللغة الذهبية التي لا تُملّ و القدرة على إلحاق القراءة النفسية الموجزة و الملائمة و المبرزة للشخصية المهمشة من بين براثن محيطه الجنسي :
" أستمع لعزف آرثر ديموند و أدركت أنه إذا قُيض لي أن أعزف البيانو فعليّ أن أتعلم من البداية ، إنتابني إحساس بأني لم أعزف البيانو حقًا طوال عمري ، و طرأ لي شيء مشابه حين قرأت دوستويفسكي أول مرة ، لقد مسح كل الآداب الأخرى "
" أراد أن يعيش حياته الخاصة ، وقد فعل ذلك ، لقد عاش حياته بالطول والعرض ، لقد عمل كل شيء ليحطم ذلك الموسيقي البارع الذي خلقته أمّه منه "
" ما الحديث إلا ذريعة لأشكال الإتصال الراقية الأخرى ، وعندما لا تؤدي هذه الأشكال وضيفتها يصبح الكلام ميتًا "
" لقد ترك أستاذ الموسيقى موسيقاه ليقوّم العالم و لكنه فشل "
" العظماء لا يقيمون مكاتب ، لا يطلبون أجراً و لا يلقون محاضرات أو يؤلفون الكتب ، الحكمة صامتة ، و أكثر الدعايات فعالية عن الحقيقة هي القدوة الشخصية "
" الخيال هو صوت الجرأة ، إذا كان ثمة شيء إلهيّ عن الله فهو هذا ( لقد تجرأ على تخيل كل شيء ) " -
Why do lovely faces haunt us so? Do extraordinary flowers have evil roots?
Studying her morsel by morsel, feet, hands, hair, lips, ears, breasts, travelling from navel to mouth and from mouth to eyes, the woman I fell upon, clawed, bit, suffocated with kisses, the woman who had been Mara and was now Mona, who had been and would be other names, other persons, other assemblages of appendages, was no more accessible, penetrable, than a cool statue in a forgotten garden of a lost continent. At nine or earlier, with a revolver that was never intended to go off, she might have pressed a swooning trigger and fallen like a dead swan from the heights of her dream. It might well have been that way, for in the flesh she was dispersed, in the mind she was as dust blown hither and thither. In her heart a bell tolled, but what it signified no one knew. Her image corresponded to nothing that I had formed in my heart. She had intruded it, slipped it like thinnest gauze between the crevices of the brain in a moment of lesion. And when the wound closed the imprint had remained, like a frail leaf traced upon a stone. -
Read this as a youth, of course - not today. But I think that people who want to 'get' Miller should read Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus - not the Tropics.
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صَبَــــــوات هنري ميللر
Henry Miller by Kalman Aron
هنري ميللر هو أحد هؤلاء الملعونين الذين يفرغون أدمغتهم بكل ماتحمله من رصاص في وجهك مباشرة ودون تمويه أو تلون .. هنري ميللر هذا الرجل المجنون يخبرك عن صبواته لا في جلسة سرية معه في مقهى معتم يشغل الموسيقا بصوت مرتفع يمنعك من التركيز فيما يقوله من يرافقك، بل يخبرك بهذه الصبوات بكل تفاصيلها في جلسة علنية وبأعلى صوت يمكن لإنسان أن يجهر به .. هل الصبوات هي ما سيهمك عندما تقرأ هذا الكتاب؟؟ قطعا لا فهنا سترى فلسفة لطالما علمت أن هناك من يحملونها لكنك لم تقابل أحدهم بعد .. هذا رجل يؤمن بأن
من يتخلى عن رؤياه يقع في متاهة لا منجاة منها سوى بالموت
هذا الرجل فج كمخرز .. يستفزك ويفقدك أعصابك بنخزه المستمر لك لكنك تشكره نهاية على إيقاظه لك .. هذا الرجل يخبرك ما معنى الحياة بكل فجاجة وصدق وصرامة أيضا
ملحوظاتي
ص 468
جنون
لم يكن سيفلح لو أصبح راهبا، فلقد ولد وهو يحمل ضغينة ضد العالم
الحب مقامرة وليس وثيقة تأمين
إن من يتخلى عن رؤياه يقع في متاهة لا منجاة منها سوى بالموت
الفصل الاخير يمزقك حرفيا يج��ب شقي قلبك كلا في ناحبة لتستيقظ وتعي كم قاسية هذه الحياة -
I mention my thoughts here, though I could pick virtually any Henry book. I've read most of them, often a number of times. These books are totally unique, reveries, presentations of how man might live if he only had the notion and carried through on it. These books stand in total juxtaposition to the mind-conditioned state of society. They are free rambles, though carefully plotted and written! They discuss and elaborate on all man's ideas and dreams, crazy actions and adventures--both in real life and in the mind. Ground breaking is to say the least. God how lucky people are who've never read Henry and stumble upon a book like this. What a treat!
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Henry Miller is one raunchy fella.
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It is one of those rare books reading which transformed me.
Henry Miller’s capacity to offer raw phenomenology of experience is fascinating. He doesn’t attempt to portray himself as some sort of saint or a superhero. He basically describes social life in its nuanced ornaments, not loaded with superegoic impositions (meaning, you will find no puritanity in this book).
In the book Miller offers some of the most touching and vivid (and realistic, in my opinion) phenomenologies of contemporary sexual life. His philosophical insights are a gem too.
Loved the book! -
Some of Miller's most inspiring writing, I think. This is the kind of book you want to come with a highlighter so you can remember where those amazing passages are to quote again and again. That said, it's not for everybody, especially prudes. The gratuitious sex scenes almost turned me off from this book only for their sheer unbelievability and ridiculous frequency... but it all made sense in the end... or rather once I started reading Plexus, which contains absolutely NO sex scenes at all. Sexus covers the period of Miller's life when he was trying very hard to BECOME a writer, that is, work up the nerve to actually write something. Plexus covers the period when he actually does and becomes an artist. So the shift from Sexus to Plexus can be seen as the shift from the carnal to the intellectual life. Of course, it's much more fun to figure it out by reading it. Sorry for the spoiler.
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First in the "Rosy Crucifixion" trilogy ~ I can't help but love Henry Miller. He's so full of life. His books get a lot of attention for the sexual content but they are also balanced for love of life's other treats as well. Love of people, love of food, love of life itself ~ although he seems to have a strong hate for the "everyday man's" work and a love-hate relationship with New York ~ I plan on reading as much Miller as I can.
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A piece of transgressive fiction that draws upon Céline's 'Voyage au bout de la Nuit' to affirm a lust for life and love for sex like no other. While at first glance it may seem superficial or frivolous, drowning in its own sea of lustful scenes, there is depth to be discovered with each new reading. The trilogy constitutes a paradigmatic self-inquiry into the depth of the soul of a man forever in between being in love with everything and loving nothing at all.
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The work of Henry miller is in my opinion unsurpassed for opening up a new way of looking at literature. His broad in your face style masks the deeper underlying wants and desires of the human psyche. His wife June wanted Dostoyevsky but Miller could only write as Miller. He remains one of my favorites till this day...the rogue, brash arbiter of American expat writing.
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We all are supposed to know about Henry Miller and his walkabouts with all kind of women. Here the main one I would say is the one personified as June. But there are so many, that one could think he should have been destined to be a pornstar kind of. This sexually hiperactive tall and slender author writes about a sort of underground America where, precisely because these people matter to nobody, they were allowed to do things nobody else's does. So, his stories all along this, during some time censured, novel in various countries, go constantly breaking taboos. His style is somehow careless but very fluid. Guided by the principle of free association, one thing leading into another as it comes to his mind. He describes an ultra liberal America, quite often difficult to believe. One has to think he is speaking of an America period that goes from the thirties and up to the fifties, and those were years of a brainless puritanism in the States. You may think he wrote what he did just to fight against all that. But he keeps the "book" going horny as in an oven. So far it goes, that it falls beyond any imagination. Some of it possibly happened, other things may probably be fruit of his imagination. Anyway, it's good entertainment. Providing you make love before and after reading it. So hot it is. Can you imagine a post office or mail clerk working somewhere in the States and doing all that in his leisure time?? - don't remind if it was in here, or in Cancer Tropic or some other, but there were some stellar appearances of counter culture celebrities as Burroughs and some others. In fact he established a solid friendship with Durell, what may explain somethings about this singular and much more significant writer. Their correspondance is perhaps interesting. Aside, Miller was "a major influence to the Beat Generation writers". It is surely easy to relate the Kerouac style or lack of, his fluid way of writing with the Miller one. Free association of ideas, once again. But others did that saying or implying much more than him. Some other writers became friends of him, and seems he was a witty, funny and nice man. His relationship in Paris with the clever, Anais Nin, affair included and trio included, who cares, gave place to an Alan Rudolph movie. Anais was of great help for him while his staying in Paris. Anycase, if sex is a reaffirmation of life - think is just what it is - Miller was a full time reaffirming it, man. Or semental, as you fancy. Haven't read The Colossus of Maroussi , but was told that was a good book. For this Sexus is after all, not much more than a Richard Crumb comic, or better said, another of the kind Bukowsky wrote or published, after him, think. Does not say much more than love, laugh and enjoy as much as you can. Without hurting nobody, of course. Some may say it could also teach teenagers how wild women can be too, when desiring a man. Think maybe Cancer Tropic would be his best. As Keith Richards would say, in this sense Miller's life was a real celebration. Amusing sex stories. Probably exaggerated. In the Bukowsky trend, if not exactly the same. Not far from a Pleasures or Dyonisiac Philosophy. But frankly and to end with, H. Miller was a bit of a scandal at the time he tried to publish this or that, and I value his fight against America's hipocrisy, with its double morality and its puritanism... But as a writer, he is not of my kind : he don't says enough to me, and maybe is a bit outdated and/or or overpassed nowadays. If it all is like the one am reviewing...
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“A great work of art, if it accomplishes anything, serves to remind us, or let us say to set us dreaming, of all that is fluid and intangible. Which is to say, the universe. It cannot be understood; it can only be accepted or rejected. If accepted we are revitalized; if rejected we are diminished.”
“Suddenly now and then someone comes awake, comes undone, as it were, from the meaningless glue in which we are stuck—the rigmarole which we call the everyday life and which is not life but a trancelike suspension above the great stream of life—and this person who, because he no longer subscribes to the general pattern, seems to us quite mad finds himself invested with strange and almost terrifying powers, finds that he can wean countless thousands from the fold, cut them loose from their moorings, stand them on their heads, fill them with joy, or madness, make them forsake their own kith and kin, renounce their calling, change their character, their physiognomy, their very soul. (…) In their efforts to communicate the secret they become a nuisance to us, true. We shun them because we feel that they look upon us condescendingly; we can’t bear to think that we are not the equal of anyone, however superior he may seem to be. But we are not equals; we are mostly inferior, vastly inferior, inferior particularly to those who are quiet and contained, who are simple in their ways, and unshakable in their beliefs. We resent what is steady and anchored, what is impervious to our blandishments, our logic, our collectivized cud of principles, our antiquated forms of allegiance.”
“I’m just a commercial illustrator, but I do know enough about it to say that I envy the man who has the courage to be an artist—I envy him because I know that he’s infinitely richer than any other kind of human being. He’s richer because he spends himself, because he gives himself all the time, and not just labor or money or gifts. You couldn’t possibly be an artist, in the first place, because you lack faith. You couldn’t possibly have beautiful ideas because you kill them off in advance. You deny what it takes to make beauty, which is love, love of life itself, love of life for its own sake.”
O país ideal para se ler este livro é aquele em que senhoras de meia idade compartilham publicações nas redes sociais dizendo que o artista é um grande vagabundo e um inútil.
É também aquele em que os auto-intitulados “restauradores da alta cultura” criticam obras de arte que eles próprios jamais seriam capazes de tocar e acolher, por possuírem a sensibilidade de uma capivara.
Este livro é uma defesa apaixonada do artista. É, portanto, o anti-Brasil 2019.
