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.

Sexus is an autobiographical story of Miller’s first two marriages, his shit job, and the prospect of becoming a professional writer. The main characters are his friends: an artist, a doctor, and other archetypal characters that he uses as sounding boards, in addition to foils to his own wild life. The writing is energetic and direct. It consumes you in the way that he consumes everything in his vascinity. All material is fair game.

There are two main elements in this first book: the sex and the rants. Which one breaks up which, I’m not sure. The sex is graphic, male-centric, dirty, protracted, filthy, and the juiciest bits. You can’t help but read more. Countering and inspired by these scenes are the rants, which either come about through character encouragement (‘keep going, don’t stop!’ - the same response to his sex) or through a surrealist association of free writing. These associations bounce around filling a stream of conscious roller coaster of energy and emotion. There is a force going on and on, unrelenting, rapturous, consuming all and anything.

When taken as a whole, it’s a success story. We are holding the book that he’s been working towards during these dark years of poverty, betrayal, and animalistic excess. But you get the feeling he doesn’t mind any of it. He doesn’t mind moving from house to house, being cheated on, getting STDs, going through a divorce - none of it. None of the things that we are supposed to care about as part of our perfect American dream. Because in the end, he has succeeded in the long terms goal of becoming the writer of the book we’re holding. Everything leading to this reason, the universe organizing itself to this one point.

He doesn’t care to have the bottom fall out. For him, life is a matter of perspective gained from these moments. And the ability to always find sex and some easy money at the end of it all. Life is all one giant ride, and Miller is taking us by the shoulders and jolting us, slapping us across the face, screaming ‘wake up NOW’. It’s a wake up ride, a call to action. To get drunk off freedom and and enjoy life. Leave work, leave your wife, leave what is holding you back. He spends pages of juicy details of a threesome with his ex-wife then skims over a second marriage ceremony in two pages. The first ends in extacy for all parties involved, lasting well into weeks and years ahead. The second marriage leads to a tumbling downfall. But why should he care? There’s always back up again. Everything’s perspective and there’s lots of sex, easy money, and good times to be had.

Sexus, Henry Miller's first novel in his Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, is a fictionalized autobiographical account written when Miller was in his fifties, reflecting on his time as a thirty-something in New York City before his Paris years. Miller doesn’t hold back—everyday life, philosophical musings, and sex, along with more sex, erupt in a 500-page literary volcano that was famously banned from publication in the US.

As a way of providing something of a taste test for this Henry Miller rosy crackerjack, below are a number of Sexus direct quotes along with my comments.

“We got into a cab and, as if wheeled around, Mara impulsively climbed over me and straddled me. We went into a blind fuck, with the cab lurching and careening, our teeth knocking, tongue bitten, and the juice pouring from her like hot soup.”

Can you imagine a prudish, puritanical judge back in 1940s America reading these lines? We shouldn't be surprised the publisher was fined and handed a prison sentence. Fortunately, some years later, readers could detect there was more to Sexus than sex, that the novel possessed the qualities of a first-rate literary work.

“The only benefit, I reflected, which the act of writing could offer me was to remove the differences which separated me from my fellow man. I definitely did not want to become an artist, in the sense of becoming something strange, something apart and out of the current of life.”

Henry Miller leaves no doubt: while his voice as a writer—his particular angle of vision—counts as his exclusive, unique property, he always aimed for his writing and life as a writer to express a common human experience that all women and men could directly relate to. Miller positions himself at the opposite end of the artistic spectrum from those writers and artists, like the nineteenth-century French decadents, who viewed themselves as highly refined, uniquely aesthetic beings, holding little in common with the vast majority of the population they looked down upon as a filthy, money-grubbing ruck.

“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.”

Henry Miller understood that no amount of analysis, commentary, or theory could ever fully capture the essence of a true work of art. His words remind us that art defies containment; it invites us to encounter it without preconceptions, to let it wash over us like a mystery we accept rather than solve. To engage with a work of art—especially literature, one of the most vivid expressions of the human spirit—demands a willingness to be transformed. In that openness, Miller suggests, lies the potential for revitalization, a renewal that only those who surrender themselves fully can experience.

“The only time a writer receives his due reward is when someone comes to him burning with this flame which he fanned in a moment of solitude. Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.”

Having spent the past twelve years immersed in writing book reviews, Henry Miller's words resonate deeply with me. My goal has always been to go beyond mere critique, to share the author's vision, and ignite in others the same fervor I feel. I want to convey not just why a book is worth reading, but why missing it would be a kind of loss.

“To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.”

Reading Miller's works—books like Tropic of Cancer, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, and the novel under review—it becomes clear that Henry Miller is all about celebrating life. Even when his head and bones ache, or when he's hungover and feeling exhausted from a marathon conversation with friends or an intimate night with a lover, Miller still makes room for joy, for the simple fact that he's alive.

“People have had enough of plot and character. Plot and character don't make life. Life isn't the upper storey: life is here now, any time you say the word, any time you let rip. Life is four hundred and forty horsepower in a two-cylinder engine . . .”

Here, Miller lashes out at anyone who clings to the notion that a novel must mimic the style of Charles Dickens or Theodore Dreiser. No! Henry Miller knew, deep in his heart and gut, that his writing—raw, revolutionary, and wildly unorthodox—was as legitimate as any novel that had come before.

I've only touched on a few highlights. Again, Sexus is a 500-pager. More, much more Henry Miller burning lava awaits a reader courageous enough to tackle this glowing gem.

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...

Terminar de leer Sexus de Henry Miller fue una "crucifixión" realmente. Las escenas sexuales quizás lo más comentado acerca del libro no llamaron mi atención, quizás por el hecho de leerlo en una época donde el sexo y la pornografía instantánea pueblan los medios haciendo que la fuerza reveladora que originalmente tuvo el libro quede empañada. Mi lectura no fue por ese aspecto particular como podría sugerir el título del libro, más bien lo hice por la interrogante de saber los inicios del Miller que terminó en París en Trópico de Cáncer, curiosidad por personajes literarios por ponerlo de otro modo. Lo que no esperé al comprar el libro fue encontrarme con una prueba de resistencia a las descripciones y los monólogos interiores de Miller, al llegar a la página 300 estaba agotado y solo era la mitad del libro, buscaba una trama y no existía, buscaba algo en el personaje o en su historia que me genere empatía y tampoco hallaba nada, fue como vislumbrar un largo túnel con ventanas ocasionales. Raras ventanas de luz que se presentaron en forma de conversaciones sobre el papel del artista y su relación con el arte o hilarantes anécdotas como el japonés aficionado a los servicios sexuales de muchachas americanas. Interesante ver como el proyecto de Miller por desenmascarar la hipocresía de la sociedad en torno a lo sexual terminó convirtiéndose en parte fundamental de su estilo, tomando como base la presentación directa de sus experiencias junto con las reflexiones que este tenía desde su particular punto de vista, hasta ahí todo esta muy bien, pero cuando extendemos esto a 632 páginas hace de la lectura un ejercicio extenuante. Seré feliz sabiendo que Miller conoció posteriormente en su vida de casado a la verdadera Mona ( la del último capítulo ) y que terminará viajando a París con 10 doláres prestados en el bolsillo. El ciclo se ha cerrado.

Actualización 9 de Marzo del 2012.

Bukowsky on Miller

If Henry Miller reviews me and it comes out bad, don’t worry. I once reviewed Henry Miller. I was in a little bus station in the middle of Texas and some gal who had been ramming her tongue down my throat went into the ladies’ room and I walked over to the newsstand with my hair down in my eyes and I bought one of the Cancers, I forget which, and Henry understood that the only way to get to a man was to speak the language of the day, the present tongue, but he got to a part where he talked about a guy with a big cock and how he made it with all the women with THIS BIG COCK, and he went on and on with this and I began getting sleepy and worse…worse than ANYTHING, I got the idea that Henry Miller the ALL-KNOWING didn’t know much more about fucking than to talk about it, and that’s the way most non-fuckers are.
You know, I wonder if Henry Miller is really all that good? I've tried to read his books on cross-country buses but when he gets into those long parts in between sex he is a very dull fellow indeed. On cross-country buses I usually have to put down my Henry Miller and try to find somebody's legs to look up, preferably female

BEST book EVER!!!!

"...Μπορώ να μιλήσω απερίφραστα; Πάει καλά. Φτάνει να έχω το λόγο σου πως δε θα με περάσεις για μουρλό. Ε,λοιπον. Κει περά στο βορρά υπάρχει μεγάλη μοναξιά. Ερημιά και φόβος. Να τι μας κάνει να μελανιάζουμε. Ζούμε σε μικρά,μίζερα,πανάθλια δωμάτια,τρώμε με μαχαιροπίρουνα,φοράμε ρολόγια και καταπίνουμε αβέρτα χάπια,ξεροκόμματα και λουκάνικα. Δε μπορείς να φανταστείς τι τραβάμε κύριε ταδε μου. Να σκεφτείς φοβόμαστε ακόμα και να μιλήσουμε μήπως και πούμε κάτι αληθινό. Ούτε καν κοιμόμαστε. Στην ουσία κάθε νύχτα δε κάνουμε άλλο από το να ξαγρυπνάμε παρακαλώντας πότε να ΄ρθει το τέλος του κόσμου. Δεν πιστεύουμε σε τίποτα,αλληλομισούμαστε και αλληλοδηλητηριαζόμαστε, κάθετι είναι συμπαγές, επιστρωμένο με απάνθρωπο καφτερό σίδερο. Δεν κατασκευάζουμε το παραμικρό με τα χέρια μας. Πουλάμε. Αγοράζουμε και πουλάμε. Πουλάμε κι αγοράζουμε κι αυτό είναι όλο κύριε Τάδε μου..."

"Το γράψιμο,συλλογιζόμουν, πρέπει να έιναι μια πράξη αποστερημένη από κάθε ίχνος θέλησης. Η λέξη πρέπει να έρθει στην επιφάνεια μονάχη της, όπως ακριβώς συμβαίνει με τα βαθιά ωκεάνια ρεύματα. Το παιδί δεν έχει ανάγκη να γράψει. Είναι αθώο. Οάνθρωπος γράφει για να απαλλαγεί από το δηλητήριο που πουέχει συσσωρέψει μέσα του ο κίβδηλος τρόπος ζωής που κάνει. Με το γράψιμο πασκίζει να ξανακερδίσει την αθωότητά του κι ωστόσο το μόνο που καταφέρνει είναι να μολύνει τον κόσμο με τον ιό της απογοήτευσής του. Κανένας δε θα κατέφευγε στο γράψιμο αν είχε το κουράγιο να ζήσει τη ζωή του σύμφωνα με τις αρχές του. Έτσι, η έμπνευσή του είναι απο γεννησημιού της διαστρεβλωμένη. Γιατί αν αυτό που πεθυμά να οικοδομήσει είναι ένας κόσμος αλήθειας, ομορφιάς και μαγείας, ποιοις ο λόγος να σωρεύει εκατομμύρια λέξεις ανάμεσα σε αυτόν και την πραγματικότητα του κόσμου μας; Γιατί αποφεύγει τη δράση - εκτός πια κι αν δεν επιθυμεί παρά ό,τι και οι άλλοι άνθρωποι,εκτός πια κι αν αυτό που λαχταρά είναι η δύναμη,η φήμη,η επιτυχία. «Τα βιβλία,έλεγε ο Μπαλζάκ, είναι ανθρώπινες πράξεις σε νέκρωση» Κι ωστόσο, ακόμα κι αυτός, μ' όλο που είχε διαγνώσει την αλήθεια,δεν άντεξε στον πειρασμό και παρέδωσε συνειδητά τον άγγελο στον δαίμονα που τον κατείχε."

Do I need to be more of an asshole to enjoy this book? This is quite literally the worst jumble of words I’ve ever read in my entire life. I say jumble of words because I can’t even willfully call this a book. I only even read this in the first place because I’m working through Rory Gilmore’s reading list and I wish I had thrown this in the garbage after the first chapter. I miss the person I was before I read this book. This guy seems like the worst scum to ever set foot on earth. If I met this guy in public I would probably employ my pepper spray and my taser. He’s extremely disgusting, perverted, narcissistic, stupid, I could go on and on. This book is a whole lot of self righteous and incessant rambling interspersed with horrifyingly vile and nasty sex scenes. Absolutely hated this, holy crap.

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 ذلك - 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 الكتّا�� 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 .

The greatest.

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!

It is an ode to Mara-Mona, the author's second wife, June, whom he celebrates 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 fornicating on the right and on the left and even with his lawful wife while both of them start 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.
That's an 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)