Henry Miller! Wild and woolly American writer, composer of such lusty texts as TROPIC OF CANCER. Henry Miller! Who partied, and lived, and loved VERY hard in his day, most famously during his time in Paris, where he wooed and struggled and drank and wrote and drank and wooed some more and DRANK. Henry Miller! Whose work was often decried, often censored, often burned. Henry Miller! What the hell happened to him?
Turns out that, after some rough years of travel, he settled down. Not just anywhere, mind you, but Big Sur: an obscure part of the California coast (at least, circa 1950s, it WAS) where the mountains are vast and the ocean endless and there might not be any electricity and you have to take a dump in an outhouse but, by, GOD, there’s room and time for a man to raise a family, meet some wacky neighbours, and make some art.
Such is what Henry Miller thinks of it, anyhoo, and he fills us all in on the minutia of day to day life in Big Sur. Need a ride to town? Walk down to the freeway and hitchhike. Want a hot bath? Go to the natural hot water springs and chase away the sea lions. Need some help with, I dunno, anything? Help will arrive, just when you need it…at least, it will, if you’re Henry Miller.
And that’s sorta the thing with this book: if you love Henry Miller, you will love BIG SUR. It’s absolutely HIM: waxing poetic, elegantly descriptive prose style, full of opinion and swagger but not above the odd bit of contemplation. Now, if you DON’T love Henry Miller…see, I LIKE Miller, I do, but that’s ALL. SO every now and again I couldn’t help but notice things like…”Didn’t he talk about this 50 pages ago?” or “He sure does like talking about himself, don’t he” and “Wow he REALLY likes talking about himself” and “HOLY CRAP MILLER TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE”. Self-critique is not so much his thing: he keeps wondering about all these presents that keep arriving and how they must be gifts from the Universe or something without seeming to understand that, y’know, HE’S A WORLD FAMOUS WRITER. For chrissakes someone just GIVES him a house at one point and he kinda shrugs and says “Neat! Karma!” No no that’s a kinda privilege, darling; not everybody gets that sorta karma.
Also, when you’re writing about your family, maybe go outta your way to give your wife a NAME dammit. The book is only 400 pages long; that’s a long time to put up with an author’s passive aggressive crap, lemme tell you.
I kid, I kid (sorta). But his memoir is long, and more than a bit self-indulgent, and very, very aimless. EXCEPT: there is an extended narrative concerning a Mr. Moricand, a Swiss layabout whom Miller invites into his own home and, well…if you like stories about “The House Guest from Hell” then you might wanna read about Monsieur Moricand cos HOLY CRAP. This section is focused where the rest wanders, is pointed where the rest can become dull, and ANGRY where most other sections are pleasantly…chill. It’s a hell of a tale, and the best part of the book. Me like books.
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