126
PARTISAN REVIEW
WORDS WITHOUT END
THE BOOKS IN MY LIFE. By Henry Miller. New Directions. $5.00.
"The purpose of this book, which will run to several vol–
umes in the course of the next few years," explains the author, "is to
round out the story of my life. . . . One of the results of this self–
examination is the confirmed belief that one should read less and
less, not more and more." For this reviewer, one of the results of Mr.
Miller's self-examination is the confirmed belief that most writers, and
he above all, should write less and less, not more and more. Fat
chance. Logically, if readers begin to read less, writers must begin to
write less. But Mr. Miller, although he prefaces his book with a series
of gloomy quotations from Aquinas, Emerson and others on the vanity
of writing, clearly doesn't apply all this to himself-though the way
he dwells on it suggests that perhaps a suspicion glimmers way down
deep in his unconscious.
Some of us suffer from writer's block; Mr. Miller suffers from
the complete absence of writer's block. In his day, he has written some
good stories and parts of the
Tropic
novels are not bad, but his recent
books aren't literary productions at all but rather tape-recordings of
the garrulities of a mildly intoxicated, mildly intelligent, mildly genial
old fellow in a bar. This "book" is made up of the sort of dim memor–
ies, hazy speculations, and drowsy introspection that meander through
one's mind while shaving or taking a warm bath. It wouldn't occur to
most of us to bother even to say them aloud much less write them down
for others to read, but it did and does occur to Mr. Miller, who is con–
vinced that every passing thought that floats through his mind is of
import to the world, or at least to the little cult of which he is the
oracle, a conviction which I daresay is correct. The ancient oracles were
laconic to the point of being cryptic, but this one, alas, leaves one in
no doubt as to the slightest detail. On a single page (43), we learn that
the first person to whom he read aloud was his grandfather, that
when he read aloud to his boyhood friends they went to sleep and that
he thence concluded that "books are not for everyone," that "of
course I expect the normal youngster to sing and dance from infancy,"
that "boyhood is a subject I ncver tire of" (he never tires of any sub–
ject, indeed), and that "to play games-ah, there is a chapter of life
in a category all by itself." On second thought (this garrulity is catch–
ing) perhaps our oracle does leave one in doubt as to details, the in-
