The 100 Decisive Books in the Life of Henry Miller
Books accompanied Miller throughout his life and as such he wanted them to be acknowledged and attributed the merit that he thought they had lost.
A question apparently as simple as ‘what’s your favorite book?’ can be complicated if the person who is asked has made writing one of their fundamental activities in life. Usually, those people afford importance to everything concerning language, in almost all of its forms, and which leads them to develop a sensibility and criteria that lead them to ponder these issues in a unique way because their personal cosmogony, writing and language occupy an essential and even vital place.
“What is your favorite book? Is the question, but that is a problem for a writer. Favorite for what? To inspire me? To learn? A favorite when? In childhood or as an adult? Why a favorite? For the story? For its handling of narrative technique? For its effect on literature?"
As we can see, the answer is not simple and, in some cases, responding to it requires the writing of another book.
This is what Henry Miller did. In 1952 he published The Books in My Life. An “autobiobibliographic” text in which Miller sought to reclaim books as the means of communication of the world, something that appears obvious but in his era (and which is not so different from in our own) was a truth that was more reverenced that practiced. In that respect he wrote in the book’s preface:
"The principal aim underlying this work is to render homage where homage is due, a task which I know beforehand is impossible of accomplishment. Were I to do it properly, I would have to get down on my knees and thank each blade of grass for rearing its head. What chiefly motivates me in this vain task is the fact that in general we know all too little about the influences which shape a writer’s life and work. The critic, in his pompous conceit and arrogance, distorts the true picture beyond all recognition. The author, however truthful he may think himself to be, inevitably disguises the picture. The psychologist, with his single-track view of things, only deepens the blur. As author, I do not think myself an exception to the rule. I, too, am guilty of altering, distorting and disguising the facts — if ‘facts’ there be. My conscious effort, however, has been — perhaps to a fault– in the opposite direction. I am on the side of revelation, if not always on the side of beauty, truth, wisdom, harmony and ever-evolving perfection. In this work I am throwing out fresh data, to be judged and analyzed, or accepted and enjoyed for enjoyment’s sake. Naturally I cannot write about all the books, or even all the significant ones, which I have read in the course of my life. But I do intend to go on writing about books and authors until I have exhausted the importance (for me) of this domain of reality."
The work is in some ways impressive because it offers a precise itinerary of a reading life, following those “reading days” that for some people like Miller began in childhood and finish almost with life itself, a kind of parallel course to existence that receives the ups and downs of life and sometimes even provokes them. And all of this in the best irreverent style that characterized his work.
At the end, Miller added an appendix, “The 100 books that most influenced me,” a rigorous and exquisite selection that is worth following with the dual purpose of getting to know a little more about Miller, but also for learning from him, without forgetting the saying that each should follow their own path, even between books.
The Books in My Life
1. Ancient Greek dramatists
2. Arabian Nights (for children)
3. Elizabethan playwrights (except Shakespeare)
4. European playwrights of the 19th Century
5. Greek Myths and Legends
6. Knights of King Arthur’s Court
7. Abèlard, Pierre, The Story of My Misfortunes
8. Alain-Fournier, The Wanderer
9. Andersen, Hans Christian, Fairy Tales
10. Anonymous, Diary of a Lost One
11. Balzac, Honoré de, Seraphita
12. Balzac, Honoré de, Louis Lambert
13. Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward
14. Belloc, Hilaire, The Path to Rome
15. Blavatsky, Mme. H. P., The Secret Doctrine
16. Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron
17. Breton, André, Nadja
18. Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights
19. Bulwyer-Lytton, Edward, Last Days of Pompeii
20. Carroll, Lewis, Alice in Wonderland
21. Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, Journey to the End of the Night
22. Cellini, Benvenuto, Autobiography
23. Cendrars, Blaise, Virtually the complete works
24. Chesterton, G.K., Saint Francis of Assisi
25. Conrad, Joseph, His works in general
26. Cooper James Fenimore, Leatherstocking Tales
27. Defoe, Daniel, Robinson Crusoe
28. De Nerval, Gérard, His works in general
29. Dostoievsky, Feodor, His works in general
30. Dreiser, Theodore, His works in general
31. Duhamel, Geoges, Salavin Series
32. Du Maurier, George, Trilby
33. Dumas, Alexander, The Three Musketeers
34. Eckermann, Johann, Conversations with Goethe
35. Eltzbacher, Paul, Anarchism
36. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Representative Men
37. Fabre, Henri, His works in general
38. Faure, Elie, The History of Art
39. Fenollosa, Ernest, ‘The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry’
40. Gide, André, Dostoyevsky
41. Giono, Jean, Refus d’Obéissance
42. Giono, Jean, Que ma joie domeure
43. Giono, Jean, Jean le Bleu
44. Grimm Brothers, Fairy Tales
45. Gutkind, Erich, The Absolute Collective
46. Haggard, Rider, She
47. Hamsun, Knut, His works in general
48. Henty, G. A., His works in general
49. Hesse, Hermann, Siddhartha
50. Hudson, W. H., His works in general
51. Hugo, Victor, Les Misérables
52. Huysmans, Joris Karl, Against the Grain
53. Joyce, James, Ulysses
54. Keyserling, Hermann, South American Meditations
55. Kropotkin, Peter, Mutual Aid
56. Lao-tse, Tao Teh Ch’ing
57. Latzko, Andreas, Men in War
58. Long, Haniel, Interlinear to Cabeza de Vaca
59. M, Gospel of Ramakrishna
60. Machen, Arthur, The Hill of Dreams
61. Maeterlinck, Maurice, His works in general
62. Mann, Thomas, The Magic Mountain
63. Mencken, H. L., Prejudices
64. Nietzsche, His works in general
65. Nijinsky, Diary
66. Nordhoff & Hall, Pitcairn Island
67. Nostradamus, The Centuries
68. Peck, George Wilbur, Peck’s Bad Boy
69. Percival, W. O., William Blake’s Circle of Destiny
70. Petronius, The Satyricon
71. Plutarch, Lives
72. Powys, John Cowper, Visions and Revisions
73. Prescott, William H., Conquest of Mexico
74. Prescott, William H., Conquest of Peru
75. Proust, Marcel, Remembrance of Things Past
76. Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
77. Rimbaud, Jean-Arthur, His works in general
78. Rolland, Romain, Jean-Christophe
79. Rolland, Romain, Prophets of the New India
80. Rudhyar, Dane, Astrology of Personality
81. Saltus, Edgar, The Imperial Purple
82. Scott, Sir Walter, Ivanhoe
83. Sienkiewicz, Henry, Quo Vadis
84. Sikelianos, Anghelos, Proanakrousma
85. Sinnett, A. P., Esoteric Buddhism
86. Spencer, Herbert, Autobiography
87. Spengler, Oswald, The Decline of the West
88. Strindberg, August, The Inferno
89. Suarès, Carlo, Krishnamurti
90. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, Zen Buddhism
91. Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver’s Travels
92. Tennyson, Alfred, ‘Idylls of the King’
93. Thoreau, Henry David, Civil Disobedience & Other Essays
94. Twain, Mark, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
95. Van Gogh, Vincent, Letters to Theo
96. Wassermann, Jacob, The Maurizius Case (Trilogy)
97. Weigall, Arthur, The Life and Times of Akhnaton
98. Welch, Galbraith, The Unveiling of Timbuctoo
99. Werfel, Franz, Star of the Unborn
100. Whitman, Walt, Leaves of Grass
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