Into the Heart of Life: Henry Miller at One Hundred

by Fredrick Turner (Editor)

In celebration of the centennial of his birth, Into the Heart of Henry Miller at One Hundred gathers a captivating selection of writings from ten of his books. The delights of his prose are many, not the least of which is Miller's comic irony, which as The London Times noted, can be "as stringent and urgent as Swift's." Frederick Turner has organized the whole to highlight the autobiographical chronology of Miller's life, and along the way places the author squarely where he belongs––in the great tradition of American radical individualism, as a child of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Miller, who joyously declared "I am interested––like God––only in the individual," would have been pleased. The keynotes here are self-liberation and the pleasures of Miller's "knotty, cross-grained" genius, as Turner describes it––"defying classification, ultimately unamenable to any vision, any program not [his] own." Or, as Henry Miller himself put "I am the hero and the book is myself."

Genres: Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

Reviews

[ger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb collection of writing from Miller ranging from 'Quiet Days in Clichy' through the 'Tropics' 'Wisdom of the heart' 'Remember to Remember', 'Air Conditioned Nightmare' and more. Strangely the only criticism I would have is his selection from 'Colossus of Maroussi' which was for a long time my favourite work by Miller. Great way to get an overview of a lot of his writing.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite drawing from a severely limited selection of Miller’s work, the pieces collected here are of such high quality that this makes for an excellent read. This may be a better introduction to Miller’s writing than The Henry Miller Reader, if push comes to shove.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories taken from different sources. I always believed Miller to be one of the best writers. Excellent.