Read this as a youth, of course - not today. But I think that people who want to 'get' Miller should read Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus - not the Tropics.

"Ghompal 'Hindistan'da bir söz vardır' diye başladı insanı yıkan öykülerinden birine. Her duruma uygun bir öyküsü vardı Ghompal'ın. Korkunç hoşlanıyordum onlardan; kolay, kendi kendini açıklayan çözümlerdi, zararsız bir örtüye bürünmüş küçük gerçek hapları gibiydiler."
"Eğilimlerini boğmakta direnirsen, sonunda bir balgam parçacı olursun. Sonunda seni tıkayan parçayı tükürürsün, ancak yıllar sonra anlarsın bunun balgam değil de kendi öz benliğin olduğunu."

"Kesinlikle inanmadığım bir başka şey de çalışmak. Daha yaşamın eşiğinden beri, bir işte çalışmak ahmaklara vergi bir şeymiş gibi gelirdi bana. Yaratmanın tam karşıtıdır: Bir oyundur yaratma, kendinden başka bir raison d'etre'i olmadığı için de yaşamın en büyük yöneltici gücüdür. Tanrının, evreni kendine iş çıksın diye yarattığını söyleyen oldu mu hiç? Akıl-fikirle hiç ilgisi olmayan bir dizi koşul yüzünden ben de öbürlerine benzedim -köle oldum."

"Toplumun bir üyesi olmayı bıraktığım, kendim olduğum zaman gerçekten işe yarar birşeyler almaya başlayacaktır dünya benden. Devlet, ulus, dünyanın birleşen lusları, dedelerinin yanlışlarını tekrarlayıp duran birşeyler yığını yalnızca."

"Şimdiye kadar okuduğum bir tutam kitaptan gözlemlediğime göre, yaşamın iyice içinde olan kişiler, yaşamın ta kendisi olan kişiler, az yiyorlar, az uyuyorlar, ya pek az şeyleri oluyor, ya hiç bir şeyleri olmuyor. Görevmiş, hısım akrabalığın sürdürülmesiymiş, devletin korunmasıymış, böyle boş kavramlar yok kafalarında. Gerçekle ilgileniyorlar, yalnızca bir tek eylem tanıyorlar: Yaratmak. Yaptıkları işte kendilerine buyuranlar yok, çünkü yalnızca kendi verdikleri sözü yerine getiriyorlar. Tek gerçek verme yolu o olduğu için karşılık beklemeden veriyorlar. Çekici bulduğum yaşayış bu işte: bir anlamı var, dosdoğru bir anlamı. Yaşamın kendisi bu işte -çevremdekilerin taptıkları yanlış görüntüler değil."

"Ruhun yeri, dışdünya ile içdünyanın birbirine dokunduğu noktadadır. Çünkü kimse, yalnız kendi oluyorsa aynı zamanda başkası da değilse kendini bilemez."

"Sevdiklerimle yakınlarıma acı vermeyi içeriyordu özgürleşmem."

"İnsanlar, dahinin sonu için endişe duyarlar her zaman. Ben hiç endişelenmedim dahi için: Deha, insandaki dehayi gözetir. Duyduğum endişe, bir hiç olan insan içindi hep. İtiş kakış arasinda yitip gitmiş, varlığı bile fark edilmeyecek kadar sıradan, her yerde görülen insanlar içindi... Dahi için en önemli şey, kendini işe yaramaz kılmaktır. Herkesin katıldığı akıntıya karışmak; bir ucube değil, bir balık olmaktır."

"Yazmak eyleminin bana sağlayacağı tek yararın, beni öbür insanlardan ayıran şeyleri ortadan kaldırmak olduğu sonucuna vardım. Yabancı bir nesne, yaşamın akıntısından ayrı; onun dışında kalan bir nesne olmak istemiyordum kesinlikle."

"Yazmak, diye düşünüyorum, iradeden yoksun bir eylem olmalı. söylenecek şey, derin okyanus akıntısı gibi kendiliğinden akıp çıkmalıdır yüze. Yanlış yaşamın biriktirdiği zehiri atmak için yazar insan. Masumluğunu yeniden elde etmeyeçalışır, oysa (yazarak) yapmayı başarabildiği tek şey, dünyayı kendi yanılgısının virüsüne karşı aşılamaktır. Hiç kimse kağıt üstüne tek sözcük dökmezdi, inandığı şeyi yaşamaya cesareti olsaydı. Daha kaynağındayken sapıyor esini. Yaratmak istediği, bir gerçeklik, güzellik ve büyü dünyasıysa niçin milyonlarca sözcük koyuyor bu dünyanın gerçeğiyle kendisi arasına? Öbür insanlar gibi üne, kuvvete ve başarıya kavuşmak için değilse, niçin erteliyor eyleme geçmeyi? 'Kitaplar insanoğlunun ölmüş eylemleridir' demiş Balzac. Gene de gerçeği görmüş olmasına karşılık, kendisini elde eden şeytana bile bile teslim etti meleği."

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."

Much to say about nothing

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.

“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.”

“Suddenly now and then someone comes awake, comes undone, as it were, from the meaningless glue in which we are stuck—the rigmarole which we call the everyday life and which is not life but a trancelike suspension above the great stream of life—and this person who, because he no longer subscribes to the general pattern, seems to us quite mad finds himself invested with strange and almost terrifying powers, finds that he can wean countless thousands from the fold, cut them loose from their moorings, stand them on their heads, fill them with joy, or madness, make them forsake their own kith and kin, renounce their calling, change their character, their physiognomy, their very soul. (…) In their efforts to communicate the secret they become a nuisance to us, true. We shun them because we feel that they look upon us condescendingly; we can’t bear to think that we are not the equal of anyone, however superior he may seem to be. But we are not equals; we are mostly inferior, vastly inferior, inferior particularly to those who are quiet and contained, who are simple in their ways, and unshakable in their beliefs. We resent what is steady and anchored, what is impervious to our blandishments, our logic, our collectivized cud of principles, our antiquated forms of allegiance.”

“I’m just a commercial illustrator, but I do know enough about it to say that I envy the man who has the courage to be an artist—I envy him because I know that he’s infinitely richer than any other kind of human being. He’s richer because he spends himself, because he gives himself all the time, and not just labor or money or gifts. You couldn’t possibly be an artist, in the first place, because you lack faith. You couldn’t possibly have beautiful ideas because you kill them off in advance. You deny what it takes to make beauty, which is love, love of life itself, love of life for its own sake.”

O país ideal para se ler este livro é aquele em que senhoras de meia idade compartilham publicações nas redes sociais dizendo que o artista é um grande vagabundo e um inútil.

É também aquele em que os auto-intitulados “restauradores da alta cultura” criticam obras de arte que eles próprios jamais seriam capazes de tocar e acolher, por possuírem a sensibilidade de uma capivara.

Este livro é uma defesa apaixonada do artista. É, portanto, o anti-Brasil 2019.

Simplesmente brilhante.

“A maneira como agora via as coisas era a maneira como um dia escreveria a respeito delas.”

“Ia a caminho dos trinta e três anos, a idade de Cristo crucificado, e abria-se à minha frente uma vida totalmente nova, se tivesse a coragem de arriscar tudo. A verdade, porém, é que não tinha nada a arriscar, pois encontrava-me no primeiro degrau da escada e não passava de um falhado em toda a acepção da palavra.”

“Deitado na cama larga, ao canto do quarto do rés-do-chão, lutei com um delírio que ameaçava terminar com a morte. Nunca estivera verdadeiramente doente desde a infância e a experiência foi deliciosa. Ir da cama à casa de banho era como percorrer, cambaleante, todos os labirínticos corredores de um transatlântico. Vivi diversas vidas nos poucos dias que a febre durou. Foram as minhas únicas férias no sepulcro a que se chama lar.”

“A minha política foi sempre a de queimar todas as pontes atrás de mim, o meu rosto está sempre virado para o futuro. Se cometo um erro, é fatal. Quando me empurram para trás, caio sem apelo nem agravo até ao próprio fundo. A minha única salvaguarda é a elasticidade; até agora, consegui sempre ressaltar. Algumas vezes o ressalto assemelhou-se a um movimento ao retardador, mas aos olhos de Deus a velocidade não tem qualquer significado especial.”

“Tinha uma historiazinha para cada situação e eu adorava-as; eram como simples remédios homeopáticos, grãozinhos de verdade recolhidos num manto inócuo. O que mais me agradava nelas era o facto de, depois de as ouvirmos, não as podermos esquecer. Nós escrevemos grandes calhamaços para expor uma ideia simples; os Orientais contam uma história simples, intencional, que se fixa no nosso cérebro como um diamante.”


“A expressão «contra-senso» é uma das mais intrigantes do nosso vocabulário. Tem apenas um carácter negativo, como a morte. Ninguém pode explicar o contra-senso: só pode ser demonstrado. Acrescentar que senso e contra-senso são permutáveis mais não seria do que complicar as coisas. O contra-senso pertence a outros mundos, a outras dimensões, e o gesto com o qual, às vezes, o afastamos de nós, a finalidade com que o repudiamos, provam a sua natureza perturbadora. Rejeitamos tudo quanto não conseguimos encaixar na nossa margem estreita de compreensão. Assim, a profundidade e o contra-senso podem parecer que têm certas afinidades insuspeitas.”

“O’Rourke era um indivíduo ímpar, que às vezes me perturbava profundamente. Creio que, antes ou depois dele, nunca conheci ninguém que me fizesse sentir tão transparente. Tão-pouco conheci alguém que se abstivesse tão sobriamente de aconselhar ou criticar. Foi o único homem que conheci que me fez compreender o que significava ser tolerante, o que significava respeitar a liberdade alheia. Agora que penso nisso, é curioso como ele simbolizava, profundamente, a Lei. Não o espírito mesquinho da lei de que os homens se servem para atingirem os seus próprios fins e, sim, a lei cósmica e imperscrutável que nunca deixa de agir, que é implacável e justa e, portanto, em última análise, a mais misericordiosa.”

“Há dias em que o regresso à vida é penoso e deprimente. Abandonamos o reino do sono contra vontade. Não aconteceu nada, assalta-nos apenas a percepção de que a realidade mais profunda e mais genuína pertence ao mundo do inconsciente.”

“Como os barcos, os homens também se afundam, repetidamente, e só a memória os salva da dispersão completa.”

“Todos os dias chacinamos os nossos melhores impulsos.”

هذا العمل هو خليط من السيرة الذاتية والفلسفة والرواية وهو عمل صادم لاقصى حد حيث الجنس الصريح غالب فى النص الادبى فميللر كاتب صريح لايخفى شيئا من افكاره او علاقاته الغريبة بزوجته ثم طليقته او حبيبته مونا او حتى زوجات اصدقائه المقربين وهو يمثل الجزء الاول من ثلاثية طويلة عرفت باسم" ثلاثية الصلب الوردى"..

الرواية يصعب تصنيفها فهى تبعد عن الايروسية والايروتيكية بل تصل الى البورنوغرافيا مع الترجمة الامينة والتى اختارت الالفاظ المستخدمة عند اغلب الفئات الشعبية فى وصف العملية الجنسية فلم تستخدم الفاظ مخففة مثل (مضاجعة او نكاح او كلمات مثل فرج او كهف ) وطبعا مع العرف المجتمعى الذى تربينا عليه كان احساسى بالاثم وعدم الراحة متزايد ..

فى الرواية سنجد كراهية ميللر للحياة الالية وشعور بالعبث وجدواها وان المجتمع الامريكى هو مجتمع مزيف واغلبه من الاغبياء وهى تيمة ملحوظة فى الادب الامريكى وكتب عنها بقوة سالنجر فى تحفته الروائية "الحارس فى حقل الشوفان".. ربما لان المجتمع الامركيى قائم على قيم التنافسية والراسمالية التى تعظم من قيمة الفرد وتحقيق طموحاته اكثر من المجموع ارض الفرص كما يطلق عليها فكيف ننظر نحن لمجتمعاتنا ياترى ؟..

السرد الطويل والحديث مع النفس هو الحبكة والطريقة التى انتهجها ميللر لكتابة الرواية وتظهر فيها صراعاته مع المجتمع رؤيته للجنسيات المختلفة التى تقطن الولايات المتحدة ونظرته للادباء الاخرين والفنانين ورجال الدين..

اغلب الشخصيات عند ميللر ترى الحقيقة الوحيدة فى الجنس والحرية الجنسية فلا يوجد تعقيد فى العلاقات او محاولات لكسر الجليد او التعرف على الاخر فالحياة البوهيمية هى المسيطرة عليه ورفاقه فان كنت لاتحب الادب الاباحى او القول الفاحش فهذه الرواية لاتناسبك اما انا فأمامي مهمة طويلة مع تلك الملحمة الرائعة..

It is one of those rare books reading which transformed me.

Henry Miller’s capacity to offer raw phenomenology of experience is fascinating. He doesn’t attempt to portray himself as some sort of saint or a superhero. He basically describes social life in its nuanced ornaments, not loaded with superegoic impositions (meaning, you will find no puritanity in this book).

In the book Miller offers some of the most touching and vivid (and realistic, in my opinion) phenomenologies of contemporary sexual life. His philosophical insights are a gem too.

Loved the book!

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 .

I believe that the trilogy title The Rosy Crucifixion is a free interpretation of the mystical term Rosicrucianism – the Order of the Rosy Cross… Thus Henry Miller is a Rosicrucian and alchemist of passion and the name of the novel Sexus wholly expresses the contents of the book.

The best thing about writing is not the actual labor of putting word against word, brick upon brick, but the preliminaries, the spade work, which is done in silence, under any circumstances, in dream as well as in the waking state. In short, the period of gestation.

And for the artist of Henry Miller’s calibre this period of gestation and the spade work is an ecstasy of love.
And Henry Miller’s love confessions are a boiling geyser of martyr’s lust.

His mouth would wreath itself in a veritable mandibular ecstasy; he would work himself up until the very soul of him came forth in a spongy ectoplasmic substance. It was a horrible state of affection, terrifying because it knew no bounds. It was a depersonalized glut or slop, a hangover from some archaic condition of ecstasy – the residual memory of crabs and snakes, of their prolonged copulations in the protoplasmic slime of ages long forgotten.

Even being crucified, if one is crucified by love, may be an excruciating delight…

anaïs should have kicked henry in the fucking shin when she got the chance