Publication
Grove Press (1994), Edition: Reissue, 243 pages
Original publication date
1936
Collections
Genres
Description
Continuing the subversive self-revelation begun in Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller takes readers along a mad, free-associating journey from the damp grime of his Brooklyn youth to the sun-splashed cafes and squalid flats of Paris. With incomparable glee, Miller shifts effortlessly from Virgil to venereal disease, from Rabelais to Roquefort. In this seductive technicolor swirl of Paris and New York, he captures like no one else the blending of people and the cities they inhabit.
User reviews
LibraryThing member amandrake
Important literary figure, he really must be read... I find him dull, but this is definitely a minority opinion.
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
Awful, just awful. Miller's interesting use of language wasn't enough to rescue this piece of crap from the crap pile. No redeeming value whatsoever.
LibraryThing member raggedprince
This is from the 'tropic' trilogy. it's great to read someone who is full of the joy of living and writes in an uninhibited and unabashed way, about practically anything that takes his fancy. You read his book you feel like you're getting to know the whole man - becoming intimate like a friendship.
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I have a close friendship with Henry Miller's books. Show Less
LibraryThing member poetontheone
Henry Miller's Black Spring, like Tropic of Cancer, is a feverish narrative filled with images from the gutter, both beautiful and terrifying. Unlike Cancer, Black Spring is composed of several short pieces and some are better than others. Though not quite the stunning revelation of Miller's most
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infamous work, Black Spring is a fascinating look into the mind of one of America's greatest modern writers. Show Less
LibraryThing member Myhi
Huh ! Now that I found Miller... should I tell mom ?!
Absolutely new, out of common, vulgar, extremely indecent... great pieces of work though ! No wonder they were all prohibited in US, for years... Not the kind of books you would hear in school about.
Absolutely new, out of common, vulgar, extremely indecent... great pieces of work though ! No wonder they were all prohibited in US, for years... Not the kind of books you would hear in school about.
LibraryThing member otikhonova
I started reading Miller' books from this one. And it definitely deserves the time you spend on it.
LibraryThing member Marse
"Black Spring" is filled with writings about Miller's youth, both as a child growing up the son of a tailor and as a young man experiencing Paris. It is dedicated to Anais Nin and was published in the mid-30s. Like all of Miller's writing, it is exuberant, weird, over-the-top, and fascinating. The
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writing puts Kerouac to shame with its uninhibited, wild freedom that is quite satisfying to read. Show Less
Media reviews
New York Times
Black Spring is, I think, one of the finest evocations of low urban life in all American literature. ‘I am a patriot,’ says Miller, ‘of the Fourteenth Ward, Brooklyn, where I was raised. The rest of the United States doesn’t exist for me, except as idea, or history, or literature.’ The
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patriotism is expressed in an almost myopically close rendering of a world of ‘cancer, dropsy, cirrhosis of the liver, insanity, thievery, mendacity, buggery, incest, paralysis, tapeworms, abortions, triplets, idiots, drunkards, ne’er-do-wells, fanatics, sailors, tailors, watchmakers, scarlet fever, whooping cough, meningitis, running ears, chorea, stutterers, jailbirds, dreamers, storytellers, bartenders – and finally there was Uncle George and Tante Melia.’
Though he disavows either a literary aim or a learned technique, Miller belongs to the logorrheal tradition of Rabelais and Sterne (as does Burroughs). He becomes a wordy bore only when he finds it necessary to prophesy; that great American disease we can call vatism is in him as it is in Dahlberg and even Mailer. When Miller starts talking about Love, not amour, I feel like giving him a few francs to go to a brothel. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0802131824 / 9780802131829
Physical description
243 p.; 5.35 inches
Pages
243