Best of the trilogy and that says a lot. 5/5

"Woof! Woof woof!"

The final volume of Henry Miller's Rosy Crucifixion trilogy picks up where the first one left off, with Miller barking like a dog, feeling like the neglected pet of his wife, Mona, who has taken on a lesbian companion who lives with them. "Sexus" had ended with that fast-forward to the situation Miller was to find himself in, but the succeeding book, "Plexus," had stepped back to chronicle Miller's struggles to become the writer (he's looking back on his pre-"Tropic of Cancer" days throughout the trilogy; a reference in "Nexus" to Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight sets part of the action in 1927) everyone had said he could be. "Plexus" was a rambler — though a good one — at 640 pages. "Nexus," much shorter, cuts Miller's prose down to the bone that he seems to be begging his wife for.

Miller goes from despair to grudging acceptance of this menage a trois. Interestingly, Miller, this most sexually explicit of major writers — "Sexus" has more sex than you can shake a dick at — doesn't describe Mona's and Stasia's relationship in sexual detail; there are hints that it isn't even sexual. Either way, Henry's in a situation. As in the middle volume of this fictionalized memoir, Miller has shaved off nearly all the sex scenes, as though deciding "Sexus" had more than enough to spread around, or he had moved from the body to the mind, to ideas, for the last two books.

Henry and Mona and Stasia hope to move from New York to France, but the women leave Henry in the lurch by going to France themselves. The couple eventually reunite, sans Stasia, and plan a visit to France for the two of them, financed by Miller writing a book one of Mona's admirers says he'll get published, though he thinks Mona is writing it. So Miller, still not having found his voice, becomes a ghostwriter for his wife.

This book is leaner, but also sharper in many ways than what came before it. Dialogue crackles better, and Miller's tangents are more focused. In a cover blurb of my edition, there's a Norman Mailer quote: "There is nothing like Henry Miller when he gets rolling." True, and it's quite a 75-page roll to the end he goes on, much of it about his sharpening writer's chops, having gotten the bland potboiler out of his system. And his clarion voice from the gut and from the gutter is coming: "The generals of literature sleep soundly in their cozy bunks. We, the hairy ones, do the fighting. From the trench which must be taken there is no returning. Get thee behind us, ye laureates of Satan! If it be cleavers we must fight with, let us use them to full advantage."

"Nexus" isn't as audacious as "Sexus" and perhaps not, ultimately, as good because of that. Perhaps. But it's prime Miller. Yes, here he comes, the beast has slipped the leash; hear the ruckus in the dog-howl dark.

The best of his trilogy. He definitely left the best for last

در عشق ناب ، عاشق نه از اعطا کردنش آگاه است، نه از آنچه اعطا می کند، نه از کسی که به او اعطا می کند ، و مهم تر از همه این که حتی نمی داند محبوبش از آنچه او ارزانی کرده راضی است یا نه.

Honestly, though Miller uses beautiful language, his 300+ pages of cravings for the words to come out on a work of literature of his own was very tiresome to me. I can not say it is not good. I found the semi-autobiography to be very interesting indeed. However the repetitions (not of phrases, of the feelings he tries to put into words) and the over self-centeredness you fell about him make the book a hard one to read.

This is the last book in his trilogy. I skipped the preceding two. It was considered outrageous and naughty in its' day. Today it stands out as exemplary work, at least in my opinion.

Probably the best of Henry Miller's post-Paris fiction. I feel Miller lost a certain spark in his writing when he returned to America after 10 years living in Paris. That's not to say his works written after that period aren't good. Hell, if I wrote 'Sexus' or 'Nexus' I would die happy. That's how incredible a writer Miller was.

Probably the best book of the Rosy Crucifixion trilogy as Miller almost manages to stick to a narrative thread and his alter ego reaches a moment of self-awareness when he admits he is incapable of loving a real human being. The tedious ruminations on life, love, the universe and everything are mainly confined to the first and last few chapters. In between we have the usual mixture of hilarious anecdote, boring trivia, acute observation, embarrassing naivety, harsh realism, saccharine sentimentality, exhilarating zest for life, moral cowardice, brutal honesty and flagrant self-deception. There’s no pornography here, but Miller gives full reign to his adolescent delight in shocking right-thinking readers with obscenities, casual misogyny, homophobia and every racist slur under the sun. At his best Miller can be a real pleasure to read, but always a guilty one.

I have absolutely loved it...so much sincerity. However, not an easy read.

I reread "Nexus" recently; I first read it in my teens. It's one of Miller's less salacious books and my first exposure to him, a quiet moody rap on his wan last days in NYC before sailing off for the City of Light to hopefully find himself as a writer. Like fellow New Yorker Salinger, his style is conversational, albeit less arch, blunter. Although he doesn't share Lou Reed's ambivalence toward New York (he mostly hates it) he perceives it, like Reed, as hectic and insane. His comment on a stale burlesque house "nothing new in the way of jokes or ass" sounds like Reed to me./ Miller writes too much about writing in most of his books and "Nexus" is no exception. He too often self-consciously raps about his inability to put his flights-of-ideas down on paper and it can get tedious. His raps on his favorite writers hold more interest: I discovered Knut Hamsun through Miller. And his take on Rimbaud, and occasional channeling of Rimbaud's ethereal prose-poem style, certainly beats Patti Smith's Rimbaud tee shirt. / There is, fortunately, very little porn here, though there is much analysis about Miller's (deliberately?) tortured marriage to "Mona". He comes off both pathetically masochistic and kinda cool as he throws a cheesecake against the wall ("Fuck you!") after reading her surprise farewell note, a scene redolent of Celine, one of his models. It's a rambling one-sided conversation here, but one cohered by grand style and cogency.

جميل جدا. هنا قصف مدوي من السرد الممتع. من الحكايات الخالصة الجميلة. هنا هنري يودع حياة الموظف المتشرد الصعلوك وينتقل إلى حياة الكاتب المتشرد الصعلوك أيضا. هنا تنتهي ثلاثية الصلب الوردي. .

اسلوب الكاتب في وصف الاشياء اللامادية و المشاعر و الاحاسيس و لحظات الالهام رائع جدا بل خارق للعادة ولم اشاهد مثله من قبل، يكتب بأسلوب أدبي روحاني جميل و يتحدث عن معضلة الكاتب و المشاكل التي يمر بها لأجل ان يكتب روايته منتظراً لحظات الالهام التي لا تأتي الا بشكل نادر ليدخل بعدها في صراع مع عقله ومع الورقة البيضاء والآلة الكاتبة .. لكن ما يعيب الرواية هو كثرة الصفحات الخالية من اي معنى، تجد الكاتب يسترسل في الوصف و الكلام لصفحات و صفحات بلا اي هدف او فائدة وهذا ما جعلني اترك الرواية لعدة أشهر ثم قررت ان اعود إليها لأن الاعمال الناقصة و الغير منتهيه تزعجني جداً بالاضافة الى ان الكاتب يستحق أن أُنهي روايته بسبب جمال اسلوبه و جنونه و قوته في السرد بغض النظر عن السلبيات التي ذكرتها في الاعلى.