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Henry Miller

The Art of Appreciation

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The great American writer Henry Miller wrote, "The man who spreads the good word augments not only the life of the book in question but the act of creation itself." (The Books In My Life, 28)

Henry Miller was the quintessential writer's writer. Always difficult to categorize, his books were like the flow of big rivers, touching on countless shores and always emptying out towards the great sea of the cosmos. This energetic flow manifested in poetically punch-drunk soliloquies, inquiries into mysticism, surreal manifestos of art and creation, social and philosophical critiques, ever-constant ties between life, suffering and writing, and all sorts of meditations on sex, passion, and the ways in which we fall in and out of love.

Unexpurgated artist as author, Miller’s work recorded and interpreted every lens of human emotion, and for this his books were banned from his own country for most of his life. The mainstream dismissed his writing as pure smut for years. Although this miscategorization deeply troubled him, his voice never faltered.

Praise aside, his singular vision for art was also a flaw that mixed with the racist and sexist views of the times that bred him and led to an imperfect man. But through it all, few can deny that Miller remained a steady giver. Whether it be of money, food, or time, he always gave in excess, which resulted in multiple bouts of poverty throughout his life.

This magnanimous trait of his blossomed in his ability to speak of other artists, humans and writers who had affected him. He rarely faltered in lavishing critical praise on those who deserved it. In these special passages peppered throughout his entire body of work, Miller's words resemble those of a close friend or lover sharing the art that has fundamentally changed him.

In his later work The Books In My Life, Miller revealed yet more stories from his life, recounting events that transpired through the influence of authors and remembering times when he first came upon a book and why it moved him so deeply. These contextualized, highly personal reviews triple as story, recommendation, and meditation on the phenomenon of influence and inspiration.

Indeed, in a world drowning in information, content, and more new work emerging every day, a jubilant and critical voice who can guide us through the muck is a breath of fresh air. Henry Miller's birthday is December 26th, and we've put together a collection of his recommended books for you to retrace the path of his inspiration. It contains the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Knut Hamsun, Walt Whitman, D.T. Suzuki, Madame Blavatsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alfred Tennyson, Oswald Spengler, Nostradamus, Elie Faure, and many more.

By Thad Higa