Quiet Days In Clichy is a testimonial to the Woody Allen joke that sex is only dirty if it's done right, and the boys and girls in Henry Miller's novella all seem to be doing it right. The fingering, fucking and all around grinding here makes Charles Bukowski look like a Mighty Mouse cartoon.

While I read Quiet Days In Clichy two things came to mind, one, that Miller really does romanticize the myth of the starving artist. He (Joey in the book) and his roomie Carl are always managing to scrape a few francs here and there and taking trips and having meals on the few sous they have scrabbling around, but all this bumming around for spare change reminded me of my old punk rock days spare changing the boobs on Hollywood Boulevard while my friends and I slept at The Masque (this was 1978).

Second, I was amused by what good sports the girls in the book were and how sexually free they were, which also recalled the way girls of the glam rock era acted (1974). The worst thing about Henry Miller's book was that it made me feel old and reminisce endlessly about my happier youth in the Golden Years of the Seventies.

Henry Miller her gün karşımıza çıkan yazarlardan değil. Başyapıtı 'Yengeç Dönencesi'ni okurken 'hayatımda okuduğum en dürüst yazar bu' diye mırıldanıp durmuştum. Sonrasında da bu hissim hiç azalmadı. Hayatı ve yazdıkları arasındaki muhteşem ilişki, kurşun geçirmez inadı, yasaklara karşı senelerce direnmesi, kendini istemediği hiçbir çarka sokmama konusundaki başarısı, yoksulluk ve sefaletten mutluluk damıtması, haz damıtması... O kadar ilham verici ki, kendimi daha güçlü hissediyorum onu her okuduğumda. O yüzden ilk okuduğum günden bu yana seneler geçti, hala en sevdiğim yazarlardan biri. Özellikle herkesin tabu saydığı şeyleri arsızca, olduğu gibi anlatması; birilerinin yüzünü kızartan konuları şov haline getirmeden, estetize etmeye çalışmadan aktarabilmesi; bir yazar olarak kitaplarında kendini bu kadar şeffaf ve bütün halinde gözler önüne sermesi... Hayranım anlayacağınız.

Bu söylediklerim 'Clichy'de Sessiz Günler' için değil, yazarın kendisi için. Çünkü bütün eserlerinde ana karakter zaten Henry Miller'dır. Hep kendi hayatından kesitler anlatır. Eserleri üst üste koydukça Miller'ı da artık yakından tanımaya başlarsınız.

Bu kitap da yazarın Paris günlerini bize aktarıyor. İki tane novella var içerisinde. Bu ikisinde de Clichy zamanlarında Carl ile yaşadıkları konu alınıyor. Bana kalırsa 'Yengeç Dönencesi'ni okumamış bir okurun, yazarın diğer kitaplarını okuması anlamsız. Oradan başlamanızı ve sonrasında, Miller'ın hayatı da ilginizi çekerse diğer kitaplarına devam etmenizi öneririm. Tek başına Miller'dan bağımsız çok fazla bir şey ifade etmeyebilir zira bu kitap. Ama benim için yazarla başka bir randevumdu.

Tabuları olmayan, kapı arkasında ağlamayan, hazzından utanmayan ve Miller'ın 'Dönence'lerini okumuş okurlara tavsiye ederim.

İyi okumalar.

7.5/10

A series of very unromantic and graphic sex scenes take place around Paris in the 1930s(?). The protagonist is an American tosser. The story reeks of France. I kind of enjoyed it.

How come someone didn't tell me about Henry Miller a long, long time ago? I'm 31, fer chrissakes. With my lifestyle, I could already be dead by now. You guys know I like to read stories about guys who get it on with a series of beautiful or at least easy women. They give me hope. And Henry Miller, apparently, is the master of the form. Like a more literary (but still enjoyable) Tucker Max. Quiet Days in Clichy probably isn't even one of his best books. Tropic of Cancer was recommended to me in a dark, nasty corner of the Internets where I found some of the other books I've read recently, but it was either prohibitively expensive or not available in the format I needed. They were pretty much giving Clichy away, on the other hand. I thought it was a really good deal, but it turns out it's only about an afternoon worth of reading. Maybe a few afternoons, if you work for a living.

Vi får följa en aspirerande författare och dennes rumskamrat på deras eskapader i den stilla staden clichy. Man får nog anta att verket är i vart fall autofiktivt. Trots sina författaraspirationer är det extremt mycket pippa och begränsat med skrivande, proust och Goethe.

Jag blir varm av att läsa om det bohemiska livet.

Ingen av karaktärerna är likeable, noll sympati och inte heller finns det någon handling men ändå slukade jag allt.

Läst på flygplanet till och från Rom.

"Sex is not romantic, particularly when it is commercialized, but it does create an aroma, pungent and nostalgic, which is far more glamorous and seductive than the most brilliantly illuminated Gay White Way. In fact it is obvious enough that the sexual life flourishes better in a dim, murky light: it is at home in the chiaroscuro and not in the glare of the neon light."

I can’t believe I thought this was boring the first time I read it in 2014. I don’t think you have to have a specific state of mind to enjoy it, maybe I was just bored with everything at the time - otherwise I can’t really explain my initial dissatisfaction with the book. I can’t even tell you why I decided to pick it up again. I wanted to have a book club, I invited people to join in (three reluctant members so far), and upon eyeing my shelves I was taken hold by the white beautiful cover and without even recalling the contents of the book I said, yes! yes, that’s the one. And boy was it.

قرات من فتره طويله صفحات من روايه مدار السرطان وما قدرت اكملها كانت ممله
وبعدها جربت اقرا هالروايه وصلت 40 صفحه ولا كملتها ممله جدا
وما زلت ابحث عن مفتاح لاعماله **


***الروايه المفتاح لكل روائي مفتاح تدخل به إلى عالمه الروائي، ويختلف هذا المفتاح من قارئ لآخر، فبعض القراء لم يفلحوا في قراءة «يوليسس» لجيمس جويس إلا بعد أن أحبوا مجموعته القصصية «أهالي دبلن»، والبعض لم يفعل إلا بعد أن قرأ «صورة الفنان في شبابه»، والبعض الآخر لم يجد له مفتاحا حتى الآن، وأنا من هؤلاء» اقتباس من مقال لبلال فضل

Sometimes I can't separate the work from the morals/actions. But Henry Miller is just too charming to not forgive (ignore?) his objectification of women and revel with him as he fucks every girl that walks by and treats them like shit. Maybe it's just too romanticized in my mind--a starving writer in Paris going on bender after bender. Whatever it is, he's a beautiful writer. Even if he is a pig.

Interesting book to read if you are familiar with Montmartre and Parisian hotspots, and also wonderful to see an author who really doesn't care what he says or who he might offend with his shocking use of language. Enjoyable offering from Henry Miller.

The prose flows nicely and there are some particularly poetic passages, so that with regard to language one would like to give the book a higher rating. However, its perspective on women is not just outdated, but hopefully never was anything close to adequate back in the day either, with its at times blatant sexism, contempt for women and unflinching accounts of sexual offenses. It is entirely incomprehensible how the book came to be described as "tender" on the back cover.

As the title suggests, this tome tells individual experiences of the early forties when Miller was living in Clichy with his friend, Perles. The fabric of the tome is comparable to that of Tropic of Cancer. It is good story telling and sensible reporting. However, it does not have the forcefulness that made the Tropic of Cancer "a cry of passionate protest", and none of the delight and none of the delicate individual visualization that informed his earlier writing.

This has been my favorite Henry Miller, especially for lines like "I was that peppery, I could have raped a nun."