Hoping one of these will pull me out of the reading slump abyss 📚🤞
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Hoping one of these will pull me out of the reading slump abyss 📚🤞
so-soI always wonder about pieces like this that are classified as nonfiction but are written from such an internal perspective. Writing in Nin‘s voice is pretty much always going to be a loosing battle. And while the broad strokes biographical details are there, the narrative constructed around them isn‘t really in line with my vision of Nin. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
"It's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how...and still be happy,
be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss." -Henry Miller
Thanks for the tag, @TiminCalifornia !
Tagging a few who might like this: @wanderinglynn @catiewithac @UwannaPublishme @Megabooks
#thinkpositivebepositive @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
bailedFirst of all, I want to say that I am a big Henry Miller fan. I loved the books that comprised The Rosy Crucifixion and both Tropics, among others. But this one was just a big, long-winded tirade against America. After 50 pages or so, I got the message: America is an ugly-ass country polluted by ugly-ass people. Thanks, Henry. Fun read. I bailed before I hit page 60. Life is too short.
so-soI don't get it. I like Henry Miller. I, too, take issue with America's obsession with empty "progress" and materialism. Many parts of this book resonate today (Americans as a vulgar mob easily led astray by con men? Check.) Then why did it leave me so cold? Perhaps because for every insightful critique there are pages upon pages that are nothing more than an old man venting his spleen, all venom and no wit. A shame for a writer so talented.
