dogmatika
Henry Miller Week: The pursuit game
01 January 2008
"I would give anything..to know all the titles of the those books which Dostoievski devoured, or Rimbaud."
Henry Valentine Miller, 26 December 1891 - 7 June 1980
Concluding Dogmatika's Henry Miller Week with 'Influences' from Books of My Life:
I repeat, I do not regard myself as a great reader. The few men I know who have read widely, and whom I have sounded out on the extent of their reading, startle me with their replies. Twenty to thirty thousand books, I perceive, is a fair average for a cultured individual of our time. As for myself, I doubt if I have read more than five thousand, though I may well be in error.
When I look over my list, which never ceases to grow, I am appalled by the obvious waste of time which the reading of most of these books entailed. It is often said of writers that "all is grist for the mill." Like all sayings, this one too must be taken with a grain of salt. A writer needs very little to stimulate him. The fact of being a writer means that more than other men he is given to cultivating the imagination. Life itself provides abundant material. Superabundant material. The more one writes the less books stimulate. One reads to corroborate, that is, to enjoy one's own thoughts expressed in the multifarious ways of others.
In youth's one appetite, both for raw experience and for books, is uncontrolled. Where there is excessive hunger, and not mere appetite, there must be vital reason for it. It is blatantly obvious that our present way of life does not offer proper nourishment. If it did I am certain we would read less, work less, strive less. We would not need substitutes, we would not accept vicarious modes of existence. This applies for all realms: food, sex, travel, religion, adventure. We get off to a bad start. We travel the broad highway with one foot in the grave. We have no definite goal or purpose, nor the freedom of being without goal or purpose. We are, most of us, sleepwalkers, and we die without ever opening our eyes."
More: Here's to Henry Miller, Rob Woodard in the Guardian // Henry Miller: Personal Collection, a website run by his daughter Valentine Miller // Henry Miller on UbuWeb [mp3s]: reading from Black Spring [Third or Fourth Day of Spring and Jabberwhorl Cronstadt] and from the Colossus of Maroussi [New York] // Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, an excellent Miller-related blog // A complete bibliography of Miller's works // Henry Miller's artwork
Giveaway: Courtesy of Harper Perennial, Dogmatika is offering one reader The Rosy Crucifixion�Sexus, Nexus and Plexus. To enter, drop us a line at dogmatikaATgooglemailDOTcom, with HENRY MILLER as the subject heading.
Henry Valentine Miller, 26 December 1891 - 7 June 1980
When I look over my list, which never ceases to grow, I am appalled by the obvious waste of time which the reading of most of these books entailed. It is often said of writers that "all is grist for the mill." Like all sayings, this one too must be taken with a grain of salt. A writer needs very little to stimulate him. The fact of being a writer means that more than other men he is given to cultivating the imagination. Life itself provides abundant material. Superabundant material. The more one writes the less books stimulate. One reads to corroborate, that is, to enjoy one's own thoughts expressed in the multifarious ways of others.
In youth's one appetite, both for raw experience and for books, is uncontrolled. Where there is excessive hunger, and not mere appetite, there must be vital reason for it. It is blatantly obvious that our present way of life does not offer proper nourishment. If it did I am certain we would read less, work less, strive less. We would not need substitutes, we would not accept vicarious modes of existence. This applies for all realms: food, sex, travel, religion, adventure. We get off to a bad start. We travel the broad highway with one foot in the grave. We have no definite goal or purpose, nor the freedom of being without goal or purpose. We are, most of us, sleepwalkers, and we die without ever opening our eyes."
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