I’ve just finished watching a 90 minute video/documentary (over the course of two days) called The Henry Miller Odyssey (1969), which I found on an interesting blog: Mia Loves Henry Miller at http://www.mialoveshenrymiller.com . It’s a very interesting odyssey indeed about the life and times of Henry Miller featuring the voice, video clips and good friends of the American writer. He talks of his early days in Brooklyn, his first marriage and the Paris years. Henry’s only regret was that he didn’t go to Paris earlier. He tells of getting fired from one job as an assistant editor of a mail order catalog and a voice over reads from another letter firing him from The Chicago Tribune.
Some of the revelations include his anti-American and pro-Parisian sentiments, moving in with Anais Nin and the importance of her editing. Henry admits if he could have gone back he would have written smaller, slimmer books. At the time he left everything in because he thought everything was important but Anais talks about how everyone was interested in what she deleted or left out from Henry’s writing.
“I will write what no man dares to say and they can take it or leave it. But I think they will take it.” Henry Miller
Handwritten notes about learning watercolors, postcards written, and his break-through novel The Tropic of Cancer. Conversations with Anais Nin reminiscing about their past together in Paris and their writing. The diversity and irregularities of Paris thrilled him as much as the conformity and mundaneness in America bored him.
Henry talks about the joys of many things including the joy of going into the public urinals in Paris, all shown with wonderful video footage of the city and the surrounding provinces. There is something very childlike about Henry Miller, which I think helps explain his joys more than his sorrows.
It’s an insightful look into the life and mind of Henry Miller and how important our attitudes are. I particularly liked some of the footage near the closing with Henry playing at the piano.
Mia Malone Jennings
I found the 90 minute free video of The Henry Miller Odyssey far more interesting and entertaining than three of the last four movies I have paid to see. Check it out if you are so inclined by clicking the picture above of Mia Malone Jennings, which will take you to Mia’s blog:
What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born. – Henry Miller
The above image is of a Henry Miller portrait done by famed artist Kalman Aron, a fascinating individual. He was a child prodigy in his youth yet spent time in seven (7) different concentration camps during World War II. His web site is definitely worth spending some time at and can be found by clicking the Henry Miller portrait. Mr Aron is still alive and well, still painting and living in southern California.
Thailand Footprint: Impressions left by the books, people, places and music of Thailand and South East Asia 
An essay by EMILIA ALMANZA TOWGOOD about reading, literature and the impact of Henry Miller’s, THE BOOKS IN MY LIFE …An excerpt: “For Miller, to express himself about what he read is equal to do self-examination, to recount not what he consumes with his eyes and thought, but what he really is. Just the same as with food, we also are what we read. Perhaps that is why Miller insists that we should learn to read less and less and not more and more, because quality matters more than quantity.” In the Thick of the Life – a WordPress blog