The Measure of a Life Well Lived: Henry Miller on Growing Old

May 26, 2021 4:22 PM

"I was cursed or blessed with a prolonged adolescence; I arrived at some seeming maturity when I was past thirty. It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young." "If at eighty you’re not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin’ and keepin’ power."

"If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on the way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss — under your breath, of course — “Fuck you, Jack! You don’t own me!” … If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you’ve got it half licked."
Henry Miller, at 80, giving us the lowdown.

posted by dancestoblue (20 comments total)

I learned about Miller by way of George Orwell's long essay about him, "Inside The Whale" iirc. Orwell praised aspects of Tropic of Cancer and defended Miller against various critical dismissals, and, of course, as being a proper writer, not merely a pornographer. I read Tropic of Capricorn too, which is really funny, and has some fine lyrical passages about old Brooklyn, etc.

However. Looking back, I'm not so sure that Miller's philosophy of freeing oneself from more or less any obligations in order to pursue ecstatic communion with life and art (not as a hermit - you will need plenty of support from other people, you will need an entourage) was the best advice for me to be on-boarding, as a young person. My tendency to think that my difficulties in life were mostly because I was too brilliant and visionary to care about mundane things, like idiots do, caused me a lot of trouble in life, and having it encouraged was maybe the wrong direction to nudge it.

I probably would not have read a novel counselling me to quit smoking, get sober, and open a savings account, of course. But imagine the damage that the man must have strewn in his wake. I met a guy in California who claimed to have worked as a caretaker at the Miller house, I believe after Miller's death. His longtime companion held court there and dished out the advice to pilgrims, until his own death about 10 years later, iirc. This guy.....had nothing good to say about the entire scene around Miller. He also judged Miller very harshly for what he saw as neglect of his daughter - I do not knew the facts here, that was this guy's position.
posted by thelonius at 4:44 PM on May 26, 2021 [24 favorites]

The idea of taking life advice from Henry Miller seems... all I can say is at that point he was married to woman who was nearly 50 years younger and had not yet had his last divorce.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:45 PM on May 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

I'm with thelonius on this one. Bad advice for the young. As William Shatner observed of life on his 90th birthday, "Nothing matters. But I'm glad I didn't know that at age 20, or I never would have done anything."
posted by Modest House at 4:54 PM on May 26, 2021 [21 favorites]

I had a friend who hated The Romance of the Rose because it was very misogynistic. But she loved Miller and kept telling me to read him. Finally, after not seeing her anymore I started the -exus trilogy. I got through a book and a half. I had no clue what she saw in him. Miserable books…
posted by njohnson23 at 4:55 PM on May 26, 2021

His longtime companion

I should add that I do not know anything about their relationship, and I am not hinting that I know they were romantic. I was thinking of Emil White, who "moved to Big Sur in 1944 to serve as caretaker and personal secretary to Henry Miller".
posted by thelonius at 5:04 PM on May 26, 2021

Like thelonius I would never promote Miller as a model for living. Still, I found wisdom in this link; thanks for posting.
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:17 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Lots of dislike for Miller in this thread.

Yet I found the chapbook's sentiments thoughtful and inspiring.

This one hit home:
if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical… you’ve got it half licked
I need to keep an eye on this. My parents definitely went this way.

Thank you for sharing, dancestoblue.
posted by doctornemo at 6:27 PM on May 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

Metafilter:

You observe your children or your children’s children, making the same absurd mistakes, heart-rending mistakes often, which you made at their age. And there is nothing you can say or do to prevent it. It’s by observing the young, indeed, that you eventually understand the sort of idiot you yourself were once upon a time — and perhaps still are.

posted by zengargoyle at 7:34 PM on May 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

Lots of dislike for Miller in this thread.

Well, I did love his books, or, some of them, and his primitive paintings were not too bad at all. He was one of the last great romantics, for good and ill, I suppose. The energy and immediacy and experimentalism of his best prose is really good, and, I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced the Beats and later American, well, call it freedom literature, I don't know what the right genre label would be. A long time later, I look back with some distance. I hope I didn't poison the well..
posted by thelonius at 7:46 PM on May 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Love when Anaïs Nin is spot on. Miller was somewhat charming, a fuelish odd demurrage in nautical terms but a fierce loyalty he had in his own way. He was an unrelenting ass and more towards women. First, when I started reading a bio on Miller, on vacation, my grandmother was like "what the hell" and a small disapproving look and you didn't push grans' opinion aside. So we chatted and all the clap trap, sex stuff was not hip in her circle when he was first publishing. But I read about half the bio and dropped it. Think I shared this on mefi, maybe in irc, 9622, anywho, was friends with a charming woman who was at a party house Miller attended regular like and the first thing I asked about..."Hands, all hands a sheen lech with that, that, sideways grin and boozey monologues on the world according to Henry."
posted by clavdivs at 8:02 PM on May 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

My tendency to think that my difficulties in life were mostly because I was too brilliant and visionary to care about mundane things, like neurotypicals do
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:28 PM on May 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

thelonius, I appreciate that.
posted by doctornemo at 7:09 AM on May 27, 2021

Fuck you, Henry! You don't own me!
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:28 AM on May 27, 2021

I arrived at some seeming maturity when I was past thirty. It was only in my forties that I really began to feel young."

I arrived at Henry Miller when I was past thirty but it was only in my forties that I really began to appreciate his long view; in particular the reality that a full-on rejection of the status quo carried with it benefits and curses that would simultaneously haunt and bless you for the rest of your life. It seems bloody obvious now but at the time, I just wasn't getting. It think it was Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch that got me there.

And then there's that stuff that comes up at the end of Nexus (the "climax" of a long, long read -- The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy). A friend has been bugging him, looking for tips toward convincing a woman he has the hots for that he's genuinely in love with her ... and the Miller character finally unloads, tells him what love really is -- the sweet and delirious curse of it (the rosy crucifixion) -- how once you genuinely love someone, you can only ever want the very best for them and, often as not, that means removing yourself (and your obsessions) from their life, because you, in all your ego-driven craving and selfishness are definitively NOT what is good for them. In other words, fuck off, leave that girl alone ... but accept that you'll always love her, you'll always bear that wound and it shall never truly heal, there will always be blood.

He was one of the last great romantics,

indeed
posted by philip-random at 7:38 AM on May 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

Miller is genius
But the framing of this post is ableist
posted by angrycat at 11:41 AM on May 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

"If at eighty you’re not a cripple or an invalid", ... Well, I'm very close to that only 5 more years, I do have my good health, I do still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), I can sleep without first taking a pill, in fact I don't take any pills at all at my age I still yet have to take my first flu shot and I'm not planning to do it. When years ago they say caffeine is bad for you and you have to drink decaffeinated coffee I said Fuck I'm not gonna take that shit that they add many chemicals to remove the caffeine and those chemicals in the coffee hurt you more than what the caffeine can do to you, I continued drinking regular coffee until now where I drink at least 7 cups of that liquid every day. When they said that eggs have too much cholesterol and eat only the white I said Fuck that and I continued eating eggs regularly and never caused me any trouble. I don't smoke, No drugs of any kinds neither the illegals or those that they commercially push into you on TV specially at the evening world news on all channels. I use regular sugar and not those chemically sweetened trash they advertise, If I drink sodas, regular ones, not those less sugar or sugarless, I drink alcohol socially not every day but when I feel like drinking. Birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire me. But most important of all:
I DON'T GET DOWN ON MY KNEES NEITHER AT MORNING OR NIGHT TO THANK ANY FUCKING FAKE AND NON EXISTING IMAGINARY "GOOD LORD"; I DO THANK AND FEEL GRATEFUL FOR ALL THE GOOD THINGS THAT MOTHER EARTH OFFER AND PROVIDE ME WITH. AMEN!
posted by CRESTA at 1:55 PM on May 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I don't feel very good either at insulting believes that other people (too many in my opinion) keep deep in their being, but for that previous note I felt it was necessary, If someone feel hurt by my comment, my apology.
posted by CRESTA at 2:11 PM on May 27, 2021

For what it's worth, I don't think the "god" of Mr. Miller would be found within the confines of any religious establishment.

A literary gangster who protested through obscenity: the salaciousness of Henry Miller

Miller was a hard-bitten writer with immense intellectual bravery and a gift for words, who presented a chaotic world through images that are both vital and dangerous – a literary gangster who protested through obscenity and his violent view of life, a free spirit who had fallen under the literary spell that emerged from the French shores and permeated all over Europe and America. As a writer, he touches our darkest hopes with a sense of comedy, stretching literature beyond its limits and making it life itself. And his writings are kindled by outrage..
posted by philip-random at 4:16 PM on May 27, 2021

While his other books were hard to read for me, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch was accessible, fun, and I felt insightful.
posted by toddhoffious at 9:06 AM on May 28, 2021

Miller is genius
But the framing of this post is ableist

Isn’t that part straight from Miller?
posted by atoxyl at 1:52 PM on May 29, 2021