Henry Miller
Paperback | Pages: 154 pages Rating: 3.69 | 4245 Users | 233 Reviews
Point Out Of Books Quiet Days in Clichy
| Title | : | Quiet Days in Clichy |
| Author | : | Henry Miller |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 154 pages |
| Published | : | January 13th 1994 by Grove Press (first published July 1956) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Literature. Novels. Classics |
Narrative As Books Quiet Days in Clichy
This tender and nostalgic work dates from the same period as Tropic of Cancer (1934). It is a celebration of love, art, and the Bohemian life at a time when the world was simpler and slower, and Miller an obscure, penniless young writer in Paris. Whether discussing the early days of his long friendship with Alfred Perles or his escapades at the Club Melody brothel, in Quiet Days in Clichy Miller describes a period that would shape his entire life and oeuvre.Mention Books Conducive To Quiet Days in Clichy
| Original Title: | Quiet Days in Clichy |
| ISBN: | 080213016X (ISBN13: 9780802130167) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Paris(France) |
Rating Out Of Books Quiet Days in Clichy
Ratings: 3.69 From 4245 Users | 233 ReviewsRate Out Of Books Quiet Days in Clichy
Quiet Days in Clichy - there is nothing quiet about Miller's days in Clichy. Henry Miller is my 'one author who affected me the most' (and I am not using the word influenced on purpose). I've read and reread his novels countless times, always finding new meanings, hidden messages, obscure sentences that burst forth with life. Miller has the power to pick me up when I'm down, the power to make me laugh when I'm sad, the power to see beauty in our messed-up world. Why? Because his works are fullTalented and unabashedly debaucherous, Joey (a fictionalised Miller) and his roommate Carl mostly seem to spend their quiet days in Clichy either writing or fucking. Every woman in these two stories exist entirely as sex objects for Joey and Carl, and almost all of them are ready and willing to spread their legs, for money or lust, and occasionally with utter indifference.Normally, this would lead me to rip the story to shreds for its sexism, but I was completely swayed by Millers brilliant
I always enjoy Henry Miller. Here's a passage that I liked: "There are hotels in the side streets leading off the boulevard whose ugliness is so sinister that you shudder at the thought of entering them, and yet it is inevitable that you will one day pass a night, perhaps a week or a month, in one of them. You may even become so attached to the place as to find one day that your whole life has been transformed and that what you once regarded as sordid, squalid, miserable, has now become
Quiet Days in Clichy is a novella about nothing. It tells the story, barely at that, of a few days in the lives of two starving writers in Paris. It's supposed to be semi-autobiographical, based on Miller's own experiences of living a destitute life in Clichy neighbourhood of Paris in 1930s.Both the central characters are made out to be crass misogynists yet cannot live without women. Miller writes marvellously as long as he is not writing about sex. When he turns to sex, which is almost on
Sometimes I can't separate the work from the morals/actions. But Henry Miller is just too charming to not forgive (ignore?) his objectification of women and revel with him as he fucks every girl that walks by and treats them like shit. Maybe it's just too romanticized in my mind--a starving writer in Paris going on bender after bender. Whatever it is, he's a beautiful writer. Even if he is a pig.
Never has a man, before or since, been able to find such trouble while still carrying himself with as much aplomb and gravitas as Henry Miller. You'd almost (ALMOST! But not quite) think he was a real gentleman. His contrived chivalry seems to fool many a sashaying skirt. His style is definitely not for the prudish or easily-offended. At one point, a girl's cunt (a term he uses regularly) is referred to as a suction pump ("she's got a cunt that works like a suction pump") --quite the compliment,
Miller just isn't for me.However this book did have a great moment where the protagonist goes to Luxembourg and afterwards provides some amusing insights:'The quiet, dull life of a people which has no reason to exist, and which in fact does not exist, except as cows or sheep exist,''Luxembourg is like Brooklyn, only more charming and more poisonous,''Better to die like a louse in Paris than live here on the fat of the land.'
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