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Plexus
(The Rosy Crucifixion #2)
by
Paperback, 632 pages
Published
2010
by Polirom
(first published 1952)
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Start your review of Plexus (Răstignirea trandafirie, #2)

Metaphorically speaking the world is a real network of nerves, blood vessels and lymphatics: a plexus.
And Henry Miller is a human ganglion placed inside this huge Plexus…
And Henry Miller is a human ganglion placed inside this huge Plexus…
Often I have wondered, after reading about evenings with Mallarme, or with Joyce, or with Max Jacob, let us say, how these sessions of ours compared. To be sure, none of my companions of those days ever dreamed of becoming a figure in the world of art. They loved to discuss art, all the arts, but they themselves had no thought o...more

I'm waiting until I finish the entire trilogy to write my full review. However I do have a few notes to make. There was little to no sex in this book! I know it's all saved for Sexus, but those sex scenes were so well written and so spectacularly erotic that I thought for sure some of that might seep into Plexus but no such luck. What impressed me the most was Miller's vocabulary. So much so that I kept a list of all the words he used that I had never seen before. I planned to look them all up l
...more

I feel like any laudatory words on my part would simply do an unforgivable injustice to this man's writing. I keep having to stand back and re-read passages and whole chapters just because of their layering, so subtle on the surface and so complex in their structure, writing that seems to have just been carelessly thrown on the page but is in fact of a destructive force for those who understand it. Or, as is my case, for those who humbly try to...
...more

May 01, 2013
وائل المنعم
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
original-language
Henry Miller is the only artist i am really regret that I'd never meet him. He would be - without a doubt - my favorite friend, and I'd cling to him everywhere just to hear him talk.
On the contrary of Sexus, plexus doesn't contain porn scenes, only a brief undetailed group sex scene. The time the novel covers is the first years after Miller married Mona, he was then a faithful lover and husband.
I'm wondering since i start reading Miller how a character completely imaginable by him will look like ...more
On the contrary of Sexus, plexus doesn't contain porn scenes, only a brief undetailed group sex scene. The time the novel covers is the first years after Miller married Mona, he was then a faithful lover and husband.
I'm wondering since i start reading Miller how a character completely imaginable by him will look like ...more

A rambling, sometimes dense book that has rare moments of insight about the artistic life. Was 600 pages and could have been 300. Not Miller's best, but still an enjoyable read for Miller fans.
...more

I have tried reading Henry Miller a number of times, and never got through his books, but Plexus was different. There are some passages in this book that are amazing, the way he talked about van gogh was incredible and page 404 I believe it was, incredible. Parts of the book rambled on too much for me, dream sequences that I had a hard time staying interested but most of this book was writing that is of a lost era. Its not going to happen anymore, like losing a generation....

Miller, Henry. Plexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, Book 2)
I have always found Henry Miller addictive, having first read Tropic of Cancer in 1954, and smuggled it into England as if carrying dynamite. Ever since I’ve been a sucker for anything he wrote. I suppose I admired the man rather than the books themselves. He had done what many of us at some time in our lives have done or, rather, wished to do: given up the rat race. In his case it was choice rather than necessity that drove him into poverty an ...more
I have always found Henry Miller addictive, having first read Tropic of Cancer in 1954, and smuggled it into England as if carrying dynamite. Ever since I’ve been a sucker for anything he wrote. I suppose I admired the man rather than the books themselves. He had done what many of us at some time in our lives have done or, rather, wished to do: given up the rat race. In his case it was choice rather than necessity that drove him into poverty an ...more

3.5 rounded down
Henry Miller is an author who I think would have affected me differently had I read him many years ago, as a late teen or early adult. Still though, his exuberance remains appealing--it's like a love letter to life, and an absolute refusal to be conventional in any way. In this regard, he reminds me a lot of Jack Kerouac, at least the Jack Kerouac of On the Road.
The sense of life in the time he's writing about--the late 20s or early 30s--is also fascinating, as well as the lunac ...more
Henry Miller is an author who I think would have affected me differently had I read him many years ago, as a late teen or early adult. Still though, his exuberance remains appealing--it's like a love letter to life, and an absolute refusal to be conventional in any way. In this regard, he reminds me a lot of Jack Kerouac, at least the Jack Kerouac of On the Road.
The sense of life in the time he's writing about--the late 20s or early 30s--is also fascinating, as well as the lunac ...more

Plexus is the second and BEST novel in Henry Miller's "The Rosy Crucifixion" trilogy. Better than Tropic of Cancer (in my opinion). You'll have to go elsewhere to find a real review--I don't have the time to get into it. But I loved the book, dog-eared many pages, underlined constantly, had to tape the cover on twice, and look forward to reading it again.
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Henry Miller is, to me, a minor God. When he gets on a roll, he is one of the best.
I loved reading his sense impressions of hitchhiking down South; of traveling through Harper's Ferry, WV and John Brown; of working (without much success) at several jobs before becoming a writer.
On my list is Nexus. ...more
I loved reading his sense impressions of hitchhiking down South; of traveling through Harper's Ferry, WV and John Brown; of working (without much success) at several jobs before becoming a writer.
On my list is Nexus. ...more

A window onto Miller's early years of struggle to become a writer as he surrenders his will to the chaotic personality of his second wife June (Mona). As with all Miller's "novels," the narrative moves through association, memory, and dream rather than a logically organized plot.
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Yes, I longed to read Henry Miller for quite sometime. What I didn't know is the unfortunate dislike of some of his books like this one. A lot of rambling about books, people, and places. I did not like the plot at all. The main character is Henry Miller who is a poor and struggling writer. They move from place to place meeting different people some of whom are supportive but some are not. The author talks about life and various aspects of life. He talks of religion, philosophy, childhood, dream
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PLEXUS (The Rosy Crucifixion, #2)
By Henry Miller
A Review By Nicole D'Settemi
Henry Miller's novels were really memoirs before memoirs were memoirs. Literary fiction at it's best. Miller is probably the most thought-provoking of the clique of memoir writers of that time, other than Anais Nin. Much like his lit fiction--her diaries were also really, memoirs, more or less. The two were a dynamic duo, and wrote together fiery, passionate works, which are some of the best of their line of work(s) ...more
A Review By Nicole D'Settemi
Henry Miller's novels were really memoirs before memoirs were memoirs. Literary fiction at it's best. Miller is probably the most thought-provoking of the clique of memoir writers of that time, other than Anais Nin. Much like his lit fiction--her diaries were also really, memoirs, more or less. The two were a dynamic duo, and wrote together fiery, passionate works, which are some of the best of their line of work(s) ...more

“A whole lifetime lay ahead of me. In a few months I would be thirty-three years of age—and ‘my own master absolute.’ Then and there I made a vow never to work for anyone again. Never again would I take orders. The work of the world was for the other blokes—I would have no part in it. I had talent and I would cultivate it. I would become a writer or I would starve to death.”
“Our grotesque life in the street, as boys, had prepared us for these mysterious encounters. In some unknown way we had und ...more
“Our grotesque life in the street, as boys, had prepared us for these mysterious encounters. In some unknown way we had und ...more

A masterpiece of ecstatic speech, Plexus is by far my favorite Henry Miller book thus far read. Previously, I've read Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. (Did not care for Black Spring.) The Tropics were great, but I don't remember that they were this good.
All of Miller (that I've read) seems like one book. It's all sui generis Miller, the writer reeling off endless anecdotes, dreams, contemplations, rants. This tome had no slow spots for me. It held my attention from beginn ...more
All of Miller (that I've read) seems like one book. It's all sui generis Miller, the writer reeling off endless anecdotes, dreams, contemplations, rants. This tome had no slow spots for me. It held my attention from beginn ...more

I sort of have this idea in the back of my head about how Henry Miller is basically this heterosexual Genet and this book both confirmed and questioned that. Confirmed, in that so many of the stories here are basically just bumbling about New York City (with some hitchhiking here and there) trying to find and/or hating work and job-ness. Questioned, in that there's hardly any sex. Instead it's more philosophical and introspective, and Henry Miller is an amazing wordsmith.
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be careful. you may abandon your mundane life after reading this.

Mar 24, 2013
Lysergius
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
contemporary-american-fiction
Mind blowing---

Henry Miller is obligatorily a problematic author. It is hard to even try to fight this conception of him as an author whose work has aged particularly bad. Nonetheless, his writing prowess - if you are willing to ignore his blatantly divisive and controversial speech and ideas - is practically unrivalled. Unfortunately, on this volume of The Rosy Crucifixion, his storytelling ability sometimes takes advantage of him.
On one hand, "Plexus" is unquestionably a page turner. Miller's writing is flu ...more
On one hand, "Plexus" is unquestionably a page turner. Miller's writing is flu ...more

Henry Miller never knew when to shut up, which is a real pity because he has a facility for telling stories and capturing the atmosphere of time and place. Miller cut two-thirds out of the draft of his first published novel Tropic of Cancer, and Plexus would have benefitted from a similar harsh pruning. Some of the anecdotes and descriptions of New York life in the 1920s are interesting, and the narrator’s cheerful amoralism and brazen disregard for social conventions can be funny and exhilarati
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This particular six-hundred page tome, similar in scope to the previous one (Sexus) is considerably less sexy relative to much of Miller's library. Again much of it takes place in an America between wars and in a kind of quiet desperation that marks much of his efforts (in fact he often compares himself to Hamsun who famously wrote a book called simply Hunger). Miller rambles and you feel much like some great uncle is telling you stories about his youth, interrupting himself with asides, philoso
...more

This has got to be one of the books that affected me the most as a young intellectual in the making, and as a young writer, of course. I mean, the whole "Rosy Crucifiction" defined me, but by many criteria, "Plexus" is the richest book in the trilogy. It is madly full of events, places, interesting and grotesque characters, ideas, philosophies, descriptions, fantasies, deductions, and thing makes a small universe made exlcusively of ideas, thoughts and words. I can not describe Millers writing s
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Just so you know, I started reading the second book in the series. I have never read the first book. This was a book given to me by a Spanish teacher in the school I taught at this year in Spain. I had nothing else to read so I gave it a go, branching off from my usual genre of fantasy books. This book was a pain, physically and mentally. Physically: With just a gust of wind on a beach in Southern Spain, the first 20 pages flew out of this ancient book, and I had to sprint on the sand to catch t
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Tedious, boring and excessively long book. I'm in love with Tropic of Cancer/Capricorn and really enjoyed Sexus. But as second book in Tropic trilogy (Black Spring), this is very uneven.
Entire chapters are wasted about Miller begging every possible acquaintance to lend him money, or looking where to eat something for free.
And it doesn't feel like a formation of the great writer. It just feels like a boring narrative of everyday life, without focus and sparkle. Sadly, even his signature stream ...more
Entire chapters are wasted about Miller begging every possible acquaintance to lend him money, or looking where to eat something for free.
And it doesn't feel like a formation of the great writer. It just feels like a boring narrative of everyday life, without focus and sparkle. Sadly, even his signature stream ...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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The book is slower than Sexus and definitely draws on a little in the middle. However, the final 4 Chapters are some of the best writing Miller has done.
In Plexus Miller has just started to embark on his new life and things slowly decay as the novel goes on. With this decay, the book becomes more interesting as the characters become more desperate. However, Miller never loses his vitality.
Overall I would recommend the book to Henry Miller fans but someone would have to be a committed Miller rea ...more
In Plexus Miller has just started to embark on his new life and things slowly decay as the novel goes on. With this decay, the book becomes more interesting as the characters become more desperate. However, Miller never loses his vitality.
Overall I would recommend the book to Henry Miller fans but someone would have to be a committed Miller rea ...more

It took me forever to read this second installment of the Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy. I felt no lack of motivation. On the contrary, the pandemic, the presidential election, and moving from California to New Mexico created significant distractions. Henry Miller continues his mostly autobiographical treatise with his absolutely brilliant prose and fascinating, if also convoluted and decadent life path. Miller seeks to bring his anticipated literary brilliance to fruition. I am definitely looking fo
...more
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Henry Miller sought to reestablish the freedom to live without the conventional restraints of civilization. His books are potpourris of sexual description, quasi-philosophical speculation, reflection on literature and society, surrealistic imaginings, and autobiographical incident.
After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, California. Miller's fir ...more
After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, California. Miller's fir ...more
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The Rosy Crucifixion
(3 books)
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