The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur

by Arthur Hoyle

Hardcover, 2014

Status

Available

Publication

Arcade Publishing, (2014)

Description

Henry Miller was one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century literature, yet he remains misunderstood. Better known in Europe than in his native America for most of his career, he achieved international success and celebrity during the 1960s when his banned "Paris" books--beginning with Tropic of Cancer--were published here and judged by the Supreme Court not to be obscene. The Unknown Henry Miller recounts Miller's career from its beginnings in Paris in the 1930s but focuses on his years living in Big Sur, California, from 1944 to 1961, during which he wrote many of his most important books, including The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, married and divorced twice, raised two children, painted watercolors, and tried to live out a credo of self-realization. Written with the cooperation of the Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin estates, The Unknown Henry Miller draws on material previously unavailable to biographers, including interviews with Lepska Warren, Miller's third wife. Behind the "bad boy" image, Arthur Hoyle finds a man whose challenge of literary sexual taboos was part of a broader assault on the dehumanization of man and commercialization during the postwar years, and he makes the case for restoring this groundbreaking writer to his rightful place in the American literary canon. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member alanteder
This was an excellent overview of Henry Miller's life which concentrates on the years living in Big Sur, California (1944-1962). It also references the Brooklyn, NY (pre-1930) and Paris, France (1930-1939) years. There is not as much about the final years in Pacific Palisades, CA (1963-1980). I am
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relatively new to Miller and this made me more intrigued to read the Greek travelogue The Colossus of Maroussi, the modern American dystopic The Air-Conditioned Nightmare and the paradisiacal Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch rather than the more notorious Tropics and the Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy.

I listened to the audiobook version which was well-done but I found the pronunciation of some of the non-English names to be very peculiar. The pronunciation of Arthur Rimbaud's last name as "Ram-BAU" rather than "Ram-bow" was particularly distracting. But otherwise the narration by Jonathan Yen was perfectly fine.
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Language

Original language

English

Barcode

11077
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