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The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur
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.
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.
408 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2014
25 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Hoyle
2 books46 followers During the 1990s I began reading Henry Miller. I was drawn to his work and his life story, and before I retired from a career in education I began research for my biography of him, The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur. My book focuses on his years living in Big Sur, California, where he settled after his return from Europe in 1940 and wrote many of his most important books. My biography of him was published through Skyhorse/Arcade in March 2014.
My second non-fiction book, "Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain," was published on March 17, 2020 by Sunbury Press. This book takes the reader on a journey across American history through the lives of exemplary men and women who challenged the prevailing customs and habits of mind of their times. My essays on climate change and socialism have been named among the ten best non-fiction pieces published in the zine Across the Margin during 2019.
My second non-fiction book, "Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain," was published on March 17, 2020 by Sunbury Press. This book takes the reader on a journey across American history through the lives of exemplary men and women who challenged the prevailing customs and habits of mind of their times. My essays on climate change and socialism have been named among the ten best non-fiction pieces published in the zine Across the Margin during 2019.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 24, 2014
Hoyle's book is easily the best book on Henry Miller that I've ever read - and I've read most of them.
Hoyle captures the complexities of Miller's many textual voices, proving - I hope one and for all - that Miller is an inheritor of the tradition of Blake, Rimbaud, Nietzsche, Whitman, Dostoevsky, Hamsun, and Lawrence and the most important spiritual writer that the USA produced in the 20th century. Other visionaries - Kerouac, Mailer, Vollmann, Dylan, Patti Smith, Acker, Delany, etc. - are possible because of the landscape he cleared.
It's a shame that Miller's been pigeonholed as a "pornographic" or "sexist" writer. Like Whitman's, his work contains multitudes. Like life, his work contains multitudes. Sex IS just one aspect of the Miller project - an aspect that's been blown WAY out of proportion.
But Miller's work encompasses satire, social criticism, surrealism, spiritual sorrow, spiritual rebirth - the very stuff of human life.
WHY IGNORE HIM????
Hoyle captures the complexities of Miller's many textual voices, proving - I hope one and for all - that Miller is an inheritor of the tradition of Blake, Rimbaud, Nietzsche, Whitman, Dostoevsky, Hamsun, and Lawrence and the most important spiritual writer that the USA produced in the 20th century. Other visionaries - Kerouac, Mailer, Vollmann, Dylan, Patti Smith, Acker, Delany, etc. - are possible because of the landscape he cleared.
It's a shame that Miller's been pigeonholed as a "pornographic" or "sexist" writer. Like Whitman's, his work contains multitudes. Like life, his work contains multitudes. Sex IS just one aspect of the Miller project - an aspect that's been blown WAY out of proportion.
But Miller's work encompasses satire, social criticism, surrealism, spiritual sorrow, spiritual rebirth - the very stuff of human life.
WHY IGNORE HIM????
January 6, 2020
The Chained Titan
We often read a biography out of curiosity for the man behind the work, pleased whenever we find some dirty secret, some misdemeanour, some misfortune or mischief, guiltily delighted with everything that belittles him, that makes him an ordinary human being, that shows that he was not, at the end of the day, better than us, that he was, like everybody, a mere mortal...
But what happens when the man is his work? When the border between the artist and the hero is blurred until the distinction between reality and fiction loses its significance? When the artist, instead of carefully separating his life from his art, or camouflaging it to conserve his privacy chooses to pour it in every word he writes, reversing the daring (and narcissistic) literary statement Madame Bovary c’est moi to emphasize the pronoun – I am Madame Bovary, I am the “I” of all my writings, like Miller does:
For Miller, the best writers are exemplars, men and women he regards as “living books” because their words are inseparable from their deeds.
Well, this is when a biography becomes more than a biography, and the biographer’s work becomes more challenging and (I think) infinitely more rewarding, even though looking for the artist's life in his writing is a double-edged sword, because it is so easy to forget that the artist’s only truth is aesthetic and be led to believe that all life described is life lived. The biographer’s mission becomes then a delicate one, in which he is supposed to decant, compare, interpret, fill in the blanks and ultimately magically recreate the portrait of the artist in all its glory. This is what Arthur Hoyle aims to achieve by his book:
…his own words, and the words of those who knew him intimately are the flesh of my portrait. The facts of his life are merely the skeleton.
And this is what is wonderfully done. Backed up by extensive quotes, either of Henry Miller’s books and letters, documents, friends’ memories, critics’ opinions etc., the portrait drawn by a sure and skilled hand is one which would have made proud the writer himself, for it presents the artist stepping into fiction, becoming fiction, reinventing himself as a character. Thus the ultimate reading of this Miller’s biography is a combination of the facts of life’s description and critical interpretation of his work:
As is often the case with Miller’s “autobiographical” writings, the version of events presented on the published page is at variance with the reality evidenced in his private correspondence.
Nevertheless, this interesting approach has a second purpose, maybe more important than the evocation itself. A purpose announced by the title, for the epithet “unknown” does not promise the revelation of some hidden aspects of Miller’s life, but tries to stir up America’s interest for one of its greatest writers, while being disappointed by its indifference.
As if to give justice to the old saying that no one is a prophet in one’s own country, thirty-four years after his death, Henry Miller continues to be overlooked, ignored or banished from the American academia, under the same accusations the Supreme Court ruled against 45 years ago, maybe to prove true the writer's belief that “ Americans, for all their talk of it, do not understand the meaning of freedom and do not desire it in its true form.”
At the end of his book, Arthur Hoyle discloses the results of an academic survey conducted by e-mail: from the 444 e-mails sent to schools in 196 states, he received 250 answers and only 28 affirmative at the question of including Henry Miller in their curriculum. The explanations received for the negative varied from innocent acknowledgements of ignorance of the writer’s existence to ridiculous technical problems (difficulty of finding his texts online), dry dismissal (he does not fit in the 30s or he is not an urgent read), and even political correctness (the conservative values of the university). The most articulated justification, that Miller’s outrageous frankness, defiance, subversion and humour would be diminished by the blessing of the institutional authority, is also the most pathetic one, using the writer’s superb courage to hide its own lack of it. No wonder Arthur Hoyle has the bleak epiphany of a writer-Gulliver overwhelmed by the shortsightedness of his fellow countrymen:
…perhaps Miller saw in the image of Gulliver, bound to the earth by a swarm of tiny men, a metaphor of his own condition in American society.
I come from a European culture in which Henry Miller’s name is well known and already put among the classics. This is why Arthur Hoyle’s book interested me from the very beginning. And The Unknown Henry Miller. A Seeker in Big Sur proved to be such a rewarding reading that I can only thank the author again with all my heart for sharing it with me. But it was also a disturbing experience, emphasized by the closing question that haunted me with its sadness and hopelessness:
How can America’s great intellectual centers continue to neglect and ignore an artist who is so uniquely American, who gave himself so completely to his work and who became such a powerful conduit of modern thought?
Maybe all America needs is valuable books like this one in order to be urged to learn and honour its heroes. It is a sad day for any country’s culture the one in which its own national titans are thrown into oblivion.
June 6, 2021
3.7.
Hoyle devotes a good portion of this biography to years and people other biographers haven't examined as deeply; that is, Miller's middle decades as a writer and his third and fourth marriages (to Lepska and Eve). (For undisclosed reasons he avoids discussing the "foolish marriage to a young Japanese singer," his fifth and last marriage.) We get the correspondence and opinions of those figures more than in other biographies (to my recall). There is the usual quotient of Nin and Durrell but there are other figures sketched more thickly than in previous books, and the financial picture of Miller's sales in europe (especially post-WWII) are discussed in good detail. As with many biographies, time is skipped, in this case largely from 1964 to Miller's death in 1980, and that's unsatisfying. But the 1940s and 1950s are done very well, including Miller's trips to europe and his fruitless (perhaps self-sabotaged) effort to find there a place to live, as well as his evolving sense of self. An easy-to-read style.
Hoyle devotes a good portion of this biography to years and people other biographers haven't examined as deeply; that is, Miller's middle decades as a writer and his third and fourth marriages (to Lepska and Eve). (For undisclosed reasons he avoids discussing the "foolish marriage to a young Japanese singer," his fifth and last marriage.) We get the correspondence and opinions of those figures more than in other biographies (to my recall). There is the usual quotient of Nin and Durrell but there are other figures sketched more thickly than in previous books, and the financial picture of Miller's sales in europe (especially post-WWII) are discussed in good detail. As with many biographies, time is skipped, in this case largely from 1964 to Miller's death in 1980, and that's unsatisfying. But the 1940s and 1950s are done very well, including Miller's trips to europe and his fruitless (perhaps self-sabotaged) effort to find there a place to live, as well as his evolving sense of self. An easy-to-read style.
April 9, 2014
Great biography of the fascinating and irritating Henry Miller. I won this in a Goodreads contest, but it doesn't change the fact that this was an excellent book. Having not known much about Miller before reading this, I found this biography kept me turning the pages and wanting to read more. I plan on reading some of Miller's books now that I've finished this biography, and a thank you goes out to Mr. Hoyle for introducing me to the works and life of Henry Miller.
April 23, 2015
This is a good book, with a strong and interesting thesis, that eventually loses its way. I'd give it an extra half star, if Goodreads allowed it.
Arthur Hoyle is another in long list of Miller fan's who want to revise his legacy as a writer of smut. A misogynist he could be, a cad and a louse as a human being, but his writing was a way of trying to make himself better, to bring enlightenment. Hoyles wants us to know that Miller was an essentially religious writer, and an important one--one of the 20th century's most important novelist--who was not yet been brought into the canon, but should be. The sex, the bad words, these are central to understanding Miller and to his project--which makes him such a troubling case for 20th century censorship laws--as they were keys to how Miller was trying to expose all of life, the most mundane parts of it, to intense scrutiny on the path to making himself a more enlightened person and his own life into an act of art.
Hoyle focuses on Miller's time in Big Sur, California--call it the forties and the fifties--because it was then he was able to best give voice to the underlying philosophy he was developing since he had become a writer in 1927. Wisely, Hoyle skips the early parts of Miller's life, except as flashabacks, and starts with Miller on the verge of leaving France, where he had hoped to live the rest of his life, driven out by war. He follows Miller to Greece, where Miller comes upon the idea of making one's life into a piece of art, and then his wanderjahrs in America before settling in Big Sur. By this point, Miller had developed a critique of America as soulless, deracinated, concerned with money and squashing artists.
Early int he book, Hoyle is good at showing how Miller set himself up and found a support system in Bern Porter and George Leite and Emil White, especially. He always evokes Miller's women problems--and suggests some racial issues that really need to be developed by someone: he didn't want a lover, he wanted a mother, someone who would dote on him and do all the mundanities of life so that he could write. There is a constant tension in these years between Miller's craving for a more civilized Europe (that was then blowing itself to smithereens, ironically) and love of urbanity with the squalid living conditions and spiritual transformation he was making in America. Hoyle smartly notes that Miller deferred a lot of this tension by imagining escaping to Mexico with his ex-lover Anais Nin, a wished-for solution to his problems.
Instead, Miller stayed in Big Sur and worked on his Rosy Crucifixion series, which while probably not as good as the work he wrote in France--the two Tropics books, Black Spring--or his book on Greece--most clearly developed his philosophy. There was no solution to the problems of the world through social change, but only individual transformation: by humans coming face to face with the truest reality and accepting it. Hoyle does well in showing Miller striving for this ideal in his own life, but also the many times he fell short, and the many ways he was not the Christ-like figure he imagined himself to be.
Toward the end of the book, there's a nice exploration of Miller's use of astrological and occult symbolism, which ties in to his essentially mystical understanding of human life and human history. Hoyle is not always a great literary interpreter--he sometimes misses the hidden structures of Miller's books, and ends up comparing them to rivers, which seems inapt-but does nice summaries of the various works Miller wrote during this period and tying them into the overall themes that concern both Miller and Hoyle. This is no easy task, given the mess that Miller made of his bibliography, publishing ephemera, republishing bits and pieces of works here and there. Of course, censorship was one of the big reasons that his bibliography is such a hash: his unexpurgated work could not usually be published, and so there was a need for smaller samplings.
Miller continually bumped up against censors--and it is a revelation I had not known that he was actually in sympathetic correspondence with one of the government's censorship lawyers, who tried to help Miller overcome the laws, at least to an extent. The dilemma for Miller was that he needed to be known as a writer of importance so that he would not be read as a pornographer (indeed, he had failed an attempt to write straight-up pornography; Nin did for a private collector to support Miller, though). But he was publishing a lot of trivial works at the time, and also was pushing other buttons, with his pacificism and anarchism. I was true, as well, that the sex in his earlier books--if not the Rosy Crucifixion--was central to the story that he was telling: it was a direct affront to censorship theories, not able to be skipped and he was too lucid a stylist to get the James Joyce treatment (i.e., nobody c an understand the book anyway, so it can't be pornography).
These are all smart and good points, The trouble comes with chapter 8--which starts on page 154. It and the next three chapters cover almost another 150 pages, most of it padded, with Hoyle lost. After the smart decision of skipping the biographer's usual gambit of starting with genealogy of the subject, he becomes the obsessed biographer, and follows Miller on every trip, through every up and down of every relationship, the same themes repeating: not in a way that develops them, but just smashes the reader over the head with the same point: obscenity was necessary for Miller; he valorized art and the imagination as the key to life; he was fundamentally religious. alongside these are tons of menial details that bog the book down. WHen we get to the last substantial chapter--there is a concluding one that is good, focused on his legacy--titled "Celebrity" it is clear that the narrative thread has been lost.
It was always an open question whether this side of Miller is "Unknown"--as opposed to just neglected--but certainly when discussing him as a celebrity, he is no longer unknown. And it was during his time as a celebrity he did so much to ruin his reputation (playing naked Ping Pong for Playboy, etc., etc.)
If only those last four chapters had been boiled down to two, cut in half, and refocused, the book would have been an excellent introduction to Miller. As it is, read the first half, skim the second.
Arthur Hoyle is another in long list of Miller fan's who want to revise his legacy as a writer of smut. A misogynist he could be, a cad and a louse as a human being, but his writing was a way of trying to make himself better, to bring enlightenment. Hoyles wants us to know that Miller was an essentially religious writer, and an important one--one of the 20th century's most important novelist--who was not yet been brought into the canon, but should be. The sex, the bad words, these are central to understanding Miller and to his project--which makes him such a troubling case for 20th century censorship laws--as they were keys to how Miller was trying to expose all of life, the most mundane parts of it, to intense scrutiny on the path to making himself a more enlightened person and his own life into an act of art.
Hoyle focuses on Miller's time in Big Sur, California--call it the forties and the fifties--because it was then he was able to best give voice to the underlying philosophy he was developing since he had become a writer in 1927. Wisely, Hoyle skips the early parts of Miller's life, except as flashabacks, and starts with Miller on the verge of leaving France, where he had hoped to live the rest of his life, driven out by war. He follows Miller to Greece, where Miller comes upon the idea of making one's life into a piece of art, and then his wanderjahrs in America before settling in Big Sur. By this point, Miller had developed a critique of America as soulless, deracinated, concerned with money and squashing artists.
Early int he book, Hoyle is good at showing how Miller set himself up and found a support system in Bern Porter and George Leite and Emil White, especially. He always evokes Miller's women problems--and suggests some racial issues that really need to be developed by someone: he didn't want a lover, he wanted a mother, someone who would dote on him and do all the mundanities of life so that he could write. There is a constant tension in these years between Miller's craving for a more civilized Europe (that was then blowing itself to smithereens, ironically) and love of urbanity with the squalid living conditions and spiritual transformation he was making in America. Hoyle smartly notes that Miller deferred a lot of this tension by imagining escaping to Mexico with his ex-lover Anais Nin, a wished-for solution to his problems.
Instead, Miller stayed in Big Sur and worked on his Rosy Crucifixion series, which while probably not as good as the work he wrote in France--the two Tropics books, Black Spring--or his book on Greece--most clearly developed his philosophy. There was no solution to the problems of the world through social change, but only individual transformation: by humans coming face to face with the truest reality and accepting it. Hoyle does well in showing Miller striving for this ideal in his own life, but also the many times he fell short, and the many ways he was not the Christ-like figure he imagined himself to be.
Toward the end of the book, there's a nice exploration of Miller's use of astrological and occult symbolism, which ties in to his essentially mystical understanding of human life and human history. Hoyle is not always a great literary interpreter--he sometimes misses the hidden structures of Miller's books, and ends up comparing them to rivers, which seems inapt-but does nice summaries of the various works Miller wrote during this period and tying them into the overall themes that concern both Miller and Hoyle. This is no easy task, given the mess that Miller made of his bibliography, publishing ephemera, republishing bits and pieces of works here and there. Of course, censorship was one of the big reasons that his bibliography is such a hash: his unexpurgated work could not usually be published, and so there was a need for smaller samplings.
Miller continually bumped up against censors--and it is a revelation I had not known that he was actually in sympathetic correspondence with one of the government's censorship lawyers, who tried to help Miller overcome the laws, at least to an extent. The dilemma for Miller was that he needed to be known as a writer of importance so that he would not be read as a pornographer (indeed, he had failed an attempt to write straight-up pornography; Nin did for a private collector to support Miller, though). But he was publishing a lot of trivial works at the time, and also was pushing other buttons, with his pacificism and anarchism. I was true, as well, that the sex in his earlier books--if not the Rosy Crucifixion--was central to the story that he was telling: it was a direct affront to censorship theories, not able to be skipped and he was too lucid a stylist to get the James Joyce treatment (i.e., nobody c an understand the book anyway, so it can't be pornography).
These are all smart and good points, The trouble comes with chapter 8--which starts on page 154. It and the next three chapters cover almost another 150 pages, most of it padded, with Hoyle lost. After the smart decision of skipping the biographer's usual gambit of starting with genealogy of the subject, he becomes the obsessed biographer, and follows Miller on every trip, through every up and down of every relationship, the same themes repeating: not in a way that develops them, but just smashes the reader over the head with the same point: obscenity was necessary for Miller; he valorized art and the imagination as the key to life; he was fundamentally religious. alongside these are tons of menial details that bog the book down. WHen we get to the last substantial chapter--there is a concluding one that is good, focused on his legacy--titled "Celebrity" it is clear that the narrative thread has been lost.
It was always an open question whether this side of Miller is "Unknown"--as opposed to just neglected--but certainly when discussing him as a celebrity, he is no longer unknown. And it was during his time as a celebrity he did so much to ruin his reputation (playing naked Ping Pong for Playboy, etc., etc.)
If only those last four chapters had been boiled down to two, cut in half, and refocused, the book would have been an excellent introduction to Miller. As it is, read the first half, skim the second.
August 7, 2020
An interesting book for Miller fans. It focuses on his time at Big Sur. For those who know his mythos, the book shows a different side of his personality. He often portrayed himself as a beggar, but he was also a great giver. At times begging and then giving the money to other struggling artists. Later in life when he began to earn money he gave it away abundantly, to artists, friends, and X-lovers. Including his once benefactor Anais Nin.
The book also portrays him as a family man who who was devoted to the two children he had later in life.
It deals a good bit the psychology behind his relationships with women, and his cold mother. It also focuses on the spirituality within his writing. Something that seems obvious to me, but which so many miss because they are focused on the sexuality.
It a bit esoteric for a general biography, but very interesting to a Miller devotee such as me.
The book also portrays him as a family man who who was devoted to the two children he had later in life.
It deals a good bit the psychology behind his relationships with women, and his cold mother. It also focuses on the spirituality within his writing. Something that seems obvious to me, but which so many miss because they are focused on the sexuality.
It a bit esoteric for a general biography, but very interesting to a Miller devotee such as me.
November 17, 2014
I picked this up to read before going to Big Sur for the Big Sur Writers Workshop through the Henry Miller Library. I've always been a fan of Henry Miller--well, kind of a fan even though some of his work does come off a bit misogynistic. I'd read a lot of Anais Nin, including the book of their correspondence, A Literate Passion, so perhaps my interest in Miller was due to his influence on Anais Nin and not his influence on the literary world in general.
This biography was well-researched, readable and engaging. I guess when your life is your art and your art is your life, your biography is gonna end up being interesting! I now have a stronger appreciation for what he accomplished as a writer in the cultural climate he was working in.
In the first part of the book, I have to admit Miller seemed like a bit of a bum, crashing with various friends, finding benefactors, sending out begging letters when he was short on money. His main objective was to be able to keep writing so, besides a couple short-lived jobs, he did not seek employment to satisfy his need for money. He lived his life like a constant Kickstarter campaign! I have pretty low tolerance for those who expect others to support them but Miller was redeemed in my mind by his generosity when he did have money. He supported many other artists and writers--some to a foolish degree.
A great read for anyone wanting to learn more about Miller or looking for a fascinating biography to sink into.
This biography was well-researched, readable and engaging. I guess when your life is your art and your art is your life, your biography is gonna end up being interesting! I now have a stronger appreciation for what he accomplished as a writer in the cultural climate he was working in.
In the first part of the book, I have to admit Miller seemed like a bit of a bum, crashing with various friends, finding benefactors, sending out begging letters when he was short on money. His main objective was to be able to keep writing so, besides a couple short-lived jobs, he did not seek employment to satisfy his need for money. He lived his life like a constant Kickstarter campaign! I have pretty low tolerance for those who expect others to support them but Miller was redeemed in my mind by his generosity when he did have money. He supported many other artists and writers--some to a foolish degree.
A great read for anyone wanting to learn more about Miller or looking for a fascinating biography to sink into.
January 17, 2025
..lai gan Millers manā mīļāko autoru topā pagaidām ir tikai tāpēc, ka "Vēžu trops" bija tieši tas, kas man savulaik literatūrā bija ļoti vajadzīgs. vairāk gan par tropu, dažiem stāstiem un vēl kāda maza romāna neesmu lasījis. nesen arī uzzināju par viņa izteicieniem attiecībā uz Bukovski. lai nu kā, man ir normāla Millera kolekcija vācu valodā un to gribētu arī izlasīt. šī grāmata iedvesmoja, kaut autoram bija ļoti daudz stāstāmā par visu ko. dažbrīd pat noguru klausīties. :)
November 11, 2022
An excellent Miller biography that focuses more on his life after Paris than anything else. Well researched and entirely enjoyable.
July 24, 2024
"I like Henry Miller. I think he's the greatest American writer." Bob Dylan, 1966
November 25, 2019
What a comprehensive, well researched biography from Mr. Hoyle.
The detail is amazing and the content provides excellent insight into the author and man.
If you're a Henry Miller fan, this is a vital work. However, those interested in the man and author should find this work compelling and worthwhile.
A truly personal and in-depth read.
The detail is amazing and the content provides excellent insight into the author and man.
If you're a Henry Miller fan, this is a vital work. However, those interested in the man and author should find this work compelling and worthwhile.
A truly personal and in-depth read.
November 15, 2014
I enjoyed this biography, particularly for its coverage of the Big Sur years. It isn't a full biography: it doesn't really cover the early years or the late years, but really puts its attention on the period after Henry returned for good to the United States. Interesting read, well researched.
June 25, 2019
This book offers fascinating insights into the life of controversial Henry Miller. It does not, however, talk about the last 17 years of his life in Pacific Palisades, California, where Arthur Hoyle himself now lives.
February 20, 2025
Thorough, well-researched, and insightful. I feel a bit sorry for Henry Miller. He should have stayed with his first wife and daughter and his job at Western Union. I suspect he would have been a great writer regardless, and perhaps a more satisfied and grounded human being.
May 22, 2019
I would give this book 6 stars if I could. Thank you Arthur Hoyle and thank you, Henry Miller.
October 30, 2021
Loved it.
Amazing story. So inspiring.
Beautiful narration.
Amazing story. So inspiring.
Beautiful narration.
March 10, 2024
Lovely. Miller was a genius. Misunderstood. I wrote about it on my Substack: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/he...
January 4, 2016
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 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.
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.
March 20, 2015
One of the better biographies of iconic writer, Henry Miller. It touches on the more personal, spiritual side of Henry Miller. Where most of Miller's detractors paint him as a sexist, racist, writer, Hoyle shows how they completely misunderstand and misinterpret his writings. He shows Miller's ultimate goal was for the individual to turn inwards, understand himself, or herself, and use those transformative moments to get a clearer understanding of what their life was all about.
September 30, 2014
“The Unknown Henry Miller” brings readers into this author’s life. After a brief and concise interview of Miller’s years prior to his life in Big Sur, the bulk of the book looks at his years in Big Sur. This book would be of interest to any Henry Miller fan, or anyone looking to know the author as they discover his works.
My copy came through Goodreads First Reads.
My copy came through Goodreads First Reads.
July 30, 2015
This is a very nice piece of work. Hoyle gives just the right amount of detail, and he moves nicely between the events in Miller's life and the fiction that came from them. He presents a respectful view, but it doesn't get in the way of candor about Miller's failings, as well as achievements. Well written.
July 4, 2016
Good treatment of Miller's years in Big Sur, California. Hoyle chronicles the events, in great detail, of the events leading up to the 1962 US Supreme Court decision that declared that Miller's major works, including Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, as not obscene, paving the way for Miller's popularity in the United States.
February 1, 2015
Loved it. It's basically a biography organized around his publishing history. It all his warts, yet I found him even more sympathetic. This book reminded me what I learned when I read him as a young adult (20s), and deepened my understanding of how an artist can find themselves in their work.
July 14, 2023
It is a bit too long, but Henry Miller had an eventful life. It was very interesting to follow all the twists in his personal life, the repeated banning of his books, the obvious autobiographical parts of his novels...I might now re-read the novels.
May 22, 2018
I enjoyed the book; I did not like the Audible reader.
March 28, 2017
I enjoyed this biography of Henry Miller. Most valuable to me was Hoyle's description of the life of an outsider novelist and writer who has to beg his friends for loans in order to pay his bills. Miller lived and wrote outside of the kinds of support systems that developed in post-war America through the NEH, academia, and private foundations. Due to the honesty of his writing, his novels The Tropics and The Rosy Crucifixion were banned in the United States, which deprived Miller of the royalties he otherwise could have collected. French laws tied up his royalties from sales in Europe for years. It's a grim reminder that the life of an artist, especially that of a pioneering innovator such as Miller, could be difficult in ways hard to imagine today.
There are revealing peeks into social history, such as Miller's need for his lovers to serve him as a combination housekeeper, hostess, cook, babysitter, and courtesan. It was interesting to find out more about Miller's Big Sur years, since his persona in the novels is as a man who takes joy in the diverse opportunities of New York and Paris. Hoyle helped me see Anais Nin more fully, through the eyes of grateful Henry. She paid for the publication of Miller's first book and supported him out of her household funds when he lived in Paris. She emerges here not only as Henry's memorable lover, but also as a woman with common sense, who despaired of Henry's attitude toward money and his dependency upon her.
Towards the end of his life Miller relied on astrology for psychological support and to use to make decisions. He was a follower of Sydney Omarr, who wrote daily horoscopes for the newspapers in the 60s, though Henry required much deeper, more fully developed horoscopes than would be found in the small print. It's just another sign of the world view of this writer--mystic, Blakian, Whitmanian, inveterate reader, unrepentant womanizer. Miller emerges as an energetic man who struggles to support himself and his family, loyal to friends and family. Hoyle thinks he is under- appreciated by the academy and makes a case that Miller was the precursor to the beats, Dylan, Bukowski, and other lyrical writers. It's true that Miller blended genres and wrote with an exciting virtuosity on multiple topics, but he did not escape the limitations of the times in which he lived, particularly in his view of women as both muse and destroyer. On the other hand, his vision of America as a soul-destroying "Air-Conditioned Nightmare" in which the corporate good is favored at the expense of the individual still rings true today.
There are revealing peeks into social history, such as Miller's need for his lovers to serve him as a combination housekeeper, hostess, cook, babysitter, and courtesan. It was interesting to find out more about Miller's Big Sur years, since his persona in the novels is as a man who takes joy in the diverse opportunities of New York and Paris. Hoyle helped me see Anais Nin more fully, through the eyes of grateful Henry. She paid for the publication of Miller's first book and supported him out of her household funds when he lived in Paris. She emerges here not only as Henry's memorable lover, but also as a woman with common sense, who despaired of Henry's attitude toward money and his dependency upon her.
Towards the end of his life Miller relied on astrology for psychological support and to use to make decisions. He was a follower of Sydney Omarr, who wrote daily horoscopes for the newspapers in the 60s, though Henry required much deeper, more fully developed horoscopes than would be found in the small print. It's just another sign of the world view of this writer--mystic, Blakian, Whitmanian, inveterate reader, unrepentant womanizer. Miller emerges as an energetic man who struggles to support himself and his family, loyal to friends and family. Hoyle thinks he is under- appreciated by the academy and makes a case that Miller was the precursor to the beats, Dylan, Bukowski, and other lyrical writers. It's true that Miller blended genres and wrote with an exciting virtuosity on multiple topics, but he did not escape the limitations of the times in which he lived, particularly in his view of women as both muse and destroyer. On the other hand, his vision of America as a soul-destroying "Air-Conditioned Nightmare" in which the corporate good is favored at the expense of the individual still rings true today.
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