اصلاً نفهمیدم چه کوفتی بود؛ چرا فیدیبو این را در زمره‌ی کتاب‌های شعر قرار داده؟ نه انسجام موضوعی داشت نه هیچی.

I haven't read anything by either Henry Miller or Arthur Rimbaud. I know that must make me sound stupid, but it's the truth, and thought this, a study of Rimbaud by Miller, would be an interesting intro to the both of them. I wasn't expecting it to be a perfect companion to nearly all of the thought I had been working through this year, from Nietzsche to Foucault, Freud, and Kristeva, it brought everything together in a blindsiding of interpretation.

It's about Rimbaud, but more about his life as an example of the trials and travails of the artist/thinker in the 19th century. Miller is of course quick to point out that things haven't changed, and poets of all kinds still face the hardships that thwarted Rimbaud. In so doing It provides the clearest and most concise interpretation of 19th century thought and literature that I've ever come across without really trying.

Oh, and it's beautiful:

"Rimbaud plucks his heart out and devours it slowly. And so the world gradually comes to resemble the time of the curse. The birds drop from the air, dead before they arrive. The wild beasts gallop to the sea and plunge. The grass withers, the seed rots. Nature takes on the barren, deformed look of a miser, and the heavens mirror the emptiness of the earth. The poet, jaundiced from riding the wild mare over lakes of steaming asphalt, slits its throat. In vain he flaps his rudimentary wings. The Fabulous opera collapses and howling wind rends the props. Save for the furious and most ancient witches, the heath is deserted. Like harpies, armed each and every one with grappling hooks, they fall upon him. Theirs is a more earnest greeting than that visionary brush with his Satanic Majesty. Nothing lacks now to complete the concert of hells he once begged for."

I wasn't sure where my pleasure reading course was pointing this summer, and I think it was just handed to me. I'm off to 'A Season in Hell.'

هنري مييللر يعوم هنا في بحثه محاولاً دراسة آرثر رامبو الذي سرعان ما أصبح معلمه المفضل بعد أن كان لا يطيق أن ينطق احد باسمه . قراءة هذه الدراسة تجاوزت كل التوقعات! و مصدر إلهام ضخم، عندما تنتهي من هذا الكتاب تخرج بأفكار مختلفة والفضل لهما. هذا الكتاب أظهر جوانب عدة من هنري وذلك عن طريق طرحه لسيرة رامبو مستخدماً التناظرات في النقد! التي اعتبرها علامة عبقريته! لديه مهارة عالية في استخدام الكنايات واختيار الألفاظ والمقارنة، قادر أن يزرع لدى القارئ شغفاً وتوقاً لمعرفة المزيد عنهما. كتاب أجده نموذج في العبقرية والفن، فيه الكثير من الجرأة مناقشاً كل مايتعلق بتقلبات الإنسان ،صراعات النفس، تناقضات الحياة، اتساع الوعي، العنف، البحث عن الحرية، الفراغ، الحب، الامومة، المادية، الفن، الموسيقى، الأحلام، رحلة الأمان، الخلط بين الهلوسة والواقع!
صاحب أسلوب مختلف لم يسبق أن قرأت شيئاً يشبهها!
ورامبو -موضوع البحث هنا- الشاعر المتمرد صاحب الأفعال الشاذة والأفكار المشوشة الذي كتب قصيدة -فصل في الجحيم-التي أثارت الجدل في الأوساط الأدبية في الماضي ومازالت سبباً لجدلية لا تنتهي- وهو في أواخر مراهقته متوصلاً لنتائج لم يتوصل لها العديد ممن هم في ضعف ضعف عمره! وأشعاره التي لا تستطيع أن تعي معانيها من أول قراءة. والتي كانت من مسببات الحماسة الظاهرة على هنري في تقديم هذا الدراسة الأدبية ليؤكد مرة إثر مره أن رامبو لم يكن بالإنسان العادي وأيضاً ليثبت التشابه الفكري بينهما.
دراسة ناجحة أوصي بها بشدة!

All poets and artists should read this book.

كان جميلا و لطيفا على ما أعتقد. جعلني في شوق للبحث عن كل ما كتبه رامبو و التهامه.

لن أستطيع المرور دون ترديد ما قاله ميللر:
إنّ السؤال الواحد الأحد الذي يُواجهنا هو: "إلى أيّ مدى نستطيع تأجيل الحتمي؟"

When you read a famous writer's meditation on a legendary figure that inspired him the last question you should be asking yourself is "Does this writer's interpretation do justice to the biographical facts of X and X's oeuvre?" That is question for insectoid scholars. The actual experience is closer to a literary equivalent of a nature documentary on whalefall. We witness Miller, ever the scavenger, make himself equal to Rimbaud by digging into the uncrowned prince's two bodies (biological and literary) and reconstituting it according to the laws of his own being. For untimely symbols to be interpreted, first they must be cannibalized. In other words, you should sit back and enjoy the ride, really.

I read this book about twenty years ago and was reminded of it this morning by another reviewer on Goodreads.

On browsing through this now, I had forgotten how interesting this French poet was and I do believe that Henry Miller has done an admirable job here. It is worth having this book purely to read Anthony Burgess' introduction if nothing else.

I was particularly taken with Burgess' statement:

"Anyone looking in his (Miller's) essay for a detailed critical account of Rimbaud's work, or a study of his life, will be disappointed. That kind of thing can be safely left to Enid Starkie. Miller is using Rimbaud as a pretext to deliver his own judgements on the world and to affirm that the boy poet was a prophet of the final collapse of civilization in the twentieth century. The essay was written in 1946, after the potential of the atomic bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Miller can be excused for believing that the collapse of civilized order was coming, if not the extinction of mankind itself. Rimbaud as a prophet of breakdown - the time of the assassins - and Miller, feeling himself to be something of a prophet too, found an affinity with the poet."

An excellent book and highly recommended.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes again and again and again. This is fuckin perfect literary criticism, or what perfect literary criticism should become. Nothing better than writers writing about writers. I fuckin hate non-writers, only readers, writing about writing... especially from a so-called literary critical analysis perspective. Beautifully composed and provides a portrait of Rimbaud unlike any other comparison. Revelation of Rimbaud and his sordid life and work. Peace be unto you Miller! You are close to Godhead in literature and beyond.

أنا لا أسمح لنفسي انتقاد أية كتاب لم أقرأه.. وهنا ميلر يكتبُ عن نفسه، يحاول التماهي مع رامبو، يشعر أنّه يُشبهه.. مرآته التي تعكس صُورته. كان المُفترض الكتاب يتناول رامبو
بشكل أكثر ومُفصل ولكن للأسف لا أرى إلا حسّ ميلر، اتصال ميلر العاطفي برامبو أفسد الكتاب.. كان مُزعج ويطغى على الكتاب بأكمله.
كما يذكر ميلر حس الإفراط في كل شيء.. أظنه أفرط بتشريح نفسه وتناول ذاته كمركزية للكتاب


مش كل من يكتُب الشعر شاعر ومش كل شاعر يكتب الشعر

Redundante

What to say? Part of me wants very dearly to give this book one star. About fifty pages in, I found myself somewhat angrily thinking "Henry Miller, what's wrong with you? Don't you see that your self-absorption is holding you back? Don't you see how deeply you misread Rimbaud, how really you are using bits and pieces of Rimbaud to interpret yourself? How you are simply rambling on about yourself, again? "

But on the other hands, flashes of insight, vertiginous and brave. Even a moment or two of insight into Rimbaud. Things beautifully said. Particularly if you plow through the first 40 pages or so, it is as if Miller begins to relax, and the embarrassing bravado and hero-identification of the early pages begins to recede. Still, even in the more mature parts of the work, I found Miller's account to be more about what he saw in Rimbaud than a true study of Rimbaud. A few specific points: Miller certainly seems quite uncomfortable talking about Rimbaud's homosexuality. I also wonder if he really understands surrealism and symbolism from which he is so quick to distance Rimbaud, or if his engagement with them wasn't limited to some faux-rebellious posturing. And at least on one point, Rimbaud's putative egoism, I wonder if he has really digested the Letter of the Visionary.

But these, perhaps, are relatively minor points. I think of you are interested in Rimbaud, it's worth reading this. Prepare to be irritated, but hang in there, it's worthwhile.

Possibly Miller at his most articulate and the closest he would ever get at being succinct. He uses Rimbaud's tumultuous life and self-imposed exile as a dramatic metaphor for martyrdom and to the role of the artist in society. His thoughts can be fully summarized as follows: the role of the artist is in decline: the modern age has effectively silenced the poetic voice. It is because of this that only becoming part of creation, rather than creating, is the only way one can truly live. "...only in silence and darkness can art be restored. " and that may be true: katabasis being the sole route towards rediscovering the artistic voice or ataraxia. "This is the fate of modern man: rooted in the flux, he does not die but crumbles like a statue, dissolves, passes away into nothingness." Miller's prose throughout this essay is beautiful - he is at the absolute height of his powers; because of the fluidity and apparent ease with which he writes in this book, I must recommend it.