I bought this book as a souvenir for a trip to New York - it seemed more relevant and memorable than picking up one of those $5 I *heart* NY t-shirts peddled at every tourist stop and street stand in the city.
I knew what i was getting myself into, having read portions of the diary of Anais Nin... and Mr. Miller did not disappoint. I'm still reeling from everything that's in the book, most of which i feel was lost on me. But if you read with a certain amount of surrender, not unlike that required to listen to a crazy person in a bar, you'll catch moments of startling lucidity. Of course it's some of the raciest erotica i've read, but it's much more relevant to human experience than some smutty porn that calls itself literary.

Well, Henry isn't a patch on Anaïs, that's for sure, but this complex book makes for some interesting discussion pieces. Firstly, I couldn't put this book with my Nin collection, as this is not erotica. Henry does attempt (and sometimes succeeds) to lay with any woman he chooses, and sometimes this is described in detail, but it was in parts almost comical, and then mostly it felt like an overwhelming sadness that at first not even Henry himself knew he was suffering with. He wandered aimlessly through life trying to find his purpose seeking comfort in sex whilst probably feeling like the loneliness man in the world.

Anaïs Nin gives us raw, unadulterated sex, a moment of discovery and pages of breaking those boundaries. She is one of my favourite female writers, and I'll read anything with her name attached to it.

The comical sex scenes did not make for smooth reading. It is obvious Miller could write, and there were quite a few mesmerising excerpts in here, but the sex stuck out like a sore thumb, immaturely written, and there was too much said about his 'Slippery genitals' and fine detail about his bowel movements.

I can always appreciate someone that isn't afraid to say exactly what they mean, without fear of judgement; Henry Miller is definitely one of those people. I admittedly felt the angry feminist rearing it's head during parts as he jumped from bed to bed, but actually, it was his self-respect he damaged, and although he didn't say it, I think he probably knew it.

I'm glad I have read this book, as it was an interesting one to sit and unpick, and it has also solidified my love for Nin.

The man could write;



"His head nestling in her lap like a swollen viper, the words seived through Kronski's mouth like gas escaping through a half opened cock. It was the weird of the irreducible human atom, the subsoul wandering in the cellar of collective misery. Dr Kronski ceased to exist:only the pain and torment remained, functioning as positive and negative electrons in the vast atomic vacuum of a lost personality. In this state of abeyance not even the miraculous Sovietization of the world could rouse a spark of enthusiasm in him. What spoke were the nerves, the ductless glands, the spleen, the liver, the kidneys, the little blood vessels lying close to the surface of the skin. The skin itself was just a bag in which was loosely collected a rather messy outfit of bones, muscles, sinews, blood, fat, lymph, bile, urine, dung and so on. Germs were stewing around in this stinking bag of guts: the germs would win out no matter how brilliantly that cage of dull gray matter called he brain functioned. The body was in hostage to Death, and Dr Kronski, so vital in the X-ray world of statistics, was just a louse to be cracked under a dirty nail when it came to surrender it's shell."

الرواية عبارة عن مشاهد ايروتيكية متكررة ومقاطع فلسفية بتمثل أراء الكاتب ونظرته لبعض الامور وحبكة (خط )درامية هزيلة
اراء ميلر مثيرة للتفكير ومستمده من نمط حياته الفعلية ومتاثر باسلوبة المعاش
لامكترث لا مبالى بوهيمى
ميلر هنا يتجلى بكل فخر عاريا من الخوف لا مجال لرشق الاعين كما لا مجال للمواربة فكل جملة راقت لك ام لا هى منحوته فى متحفه الذاتى .

n  

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.

n
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!

een knap en rijk boek, maar het had beter geweest in minder woorden

Seks ancak bu kadar erotik işlenebilirdi diye düşünüyorum.
Otobiyografik özelikler taşımasının yanında Corona virüs herkesin hayatını zorlaştırırken okumak, insanda tuhaf bir sakinlik oluşturuyor.
Sırada plexus ve nexus var.

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.

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.

E, contudo... e, contudo, apesar de todos os indícios exteriores de sermos unidos, inter-relacionados, sociáveis (...), quase fraternais, apesar de tudo isso somos um povo solitário, uma manada mórbida e enlouquecida que se debate num frenesi zeloso, tentando esquecer que (...) somos apenas algarismos manobrados por mão invisível num cálculo que não nos diz respeito.

Serei provavelmente uma das poucas pessoas que pega num romance de Henry Miller sem saber o que esperar; mas o facto é que quando vi o Sexus numa banca de livros em segunda mão, Henry Miller era só uma vaga recordação a que não sabia muito bem o que associar. Decidi-me a explorar; e ainda bem.

Já no prefácio deste livro me informam que o cavalheiro é por demais conhecido como sendo provocador nato, escritor erótico e depravado, que com grande escândalo expunha sem grandes preocupações de suavização os aspetos mais gráficos e despudorados da sua vida de boémio em Nova Iorque. Mas a impressão final com que me deixou este Sexus é a de que é um grave erro desqualificar Henry Miller como sendo somente um provocador; coisa que, por si só, não tem o menor interesse. O que mais atrai neste romance é justamente a crueza do nosso protagonista-escritor: a sua vida aparece tal como era, sem muito se preocupar com pós de arroz que a possam fazer menos decadente ou mais digna. Com efeito, em vários momentos, o nosso bom companheiro ergue-se como um monumento à indignidade. Esta crueza é por vezes dolorosa, por vezes depravada, mas é, acima de tudo honesta e inteligente.

Porque Miller tem um olho vivo com que observa o mundo à sua volta, aceitando-o como é, e não como outros gostariam que fosse. Por vezes, a assertividade pode ser excessiva - é o género de assertividade que pertence aos que tem a certeza de possuir a verdade última sobre as coisas do mundo - e dá-lhe certo ar de pretensiosidade; mas pretensioso ou não, certo ou errado, nunca Henry Miller comete o grande pecado de ser desinteressante. É uma mente fascinante. Se Dostoievski fosse um depravado, poderia ser Henry Miller; porque é realmente esta inteligência com que analisa a sua vida e o mundo à sua volta que fazem deste livro uma coisa inesquecível.

O livro aborda uma fase da vida de Miller em Nova Iorque, na qual se apaixona pela sua segunda mulher, June Miller (no livro chamada Mara, e depois Mona), e deixa a sua primeira mulher, Beatrice (Maude no livro). Com muita depravidade pelo meio, ou não fosse Henry Miller homem para achar que amar ou ser amado não é nenhum crime. O que é realmente criminoso é convencer alguém de que ele ou ela é a única pessoa que jamais se poderá amar. É, no fundo, uma demanda por uma liberdade absoluta que é impossível de alcançar.

n  Aquilo por que aspirava secretamente era desembaraçar-me de todas as vidas que se tinham entretecido no padrão da minha própria vida e estavam a transformar o meu destino numa parte do seu destino.n

I saw a film (I stupid way to begin) in which Henry Miller was made out to be an amazing author.

This book has some good parts and has the feel of A movable feast by Ernst Hemingway but Ernst is far better in describing everything he experienced, and had some truly incredible varied experiences. Plus he was to the point and kept your interest.

With Henry it was the opposite he would ramble on for several pages on what he probably believed to be deep and meaningful insights but quite frankly were fucking moronic at best.

Victor Hugo rambles on in a similar way but then rewards you with an amazingly intricate story that suddenly becomes breathtaking.

Again Henry does not achieve anything near this level. Also maybe back in the day his love scenes (or written porn) may have been provocative but quite frankly in this day and age most of it seemed unbelievable and somewhat bizarre. Not to mention these events just seem to be thrown in out of context and completely irrelevant to the current situation.

It was entertaining at times but sixty percent of the book is pointless and meaningless.

I was stupid enough to buy all three…..fucking imbecile

Gave me a boner

I finished this a little while back but haven't opened this visual bookshelf in awhile. The sex is a footnote. Henry Miller is insightful and witty. Even if he changes the subject the way most people do when they talk, he's a good talker and therefore a good writer. You want to read Miller, like people undoubtedly wanted to listen to him talk when he was living.