Henry Miller, anti-establishment rant, liberation

I was burning for expression, experience, ideas and meaning. Henry Miller's Colossus of Maroussi was tinder for the blaze to come. I had found a dog-eared copy and, knowing nothing of the man or his reputation, devoured it. Written in 1939 as all Europe prepared for inevitable war, it was superficially a travelogue and a character study of the great Greek poet George Katsimbalis. In fact it was a celebration of friendship, spirit and life – all that seemed authentic and valuable and which was on the point of being destroyed. (source infra)

How Henry Miller's anti-establishment rant liberated me from little England | John Vidal | Comment is free | The Guardian: " . . . I read the book and immediately gave it away, not bearing for it to be unshared. I had entered a new realm. I had confirmed that my responsibilities were not just to myself, or to little England, but to the imagination and to something far greater than my present parlous condition. My immediate miserableness and loneliness were as nothing. And so what if I had nothing to show for life, no house or job, money or prospects? I too was a millionaire in spirit. I too had self-belief. I walked the next day in the Jardin du Luxembourg and passed two middle-aged women wrapped in furs and with lapdogs on leads. One of the women spat at my feet and muttered, "gauchiste!" I could not remember being so pleased. Happy as a kite, I echoed Miller, shouting back: "Je m'enfou de votre civilisation!" I strode on, laughed and never looked back. A few days later, I took the train to Greece."

The Colossus of Maroussi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Colossus of Maroussi is an impressionist travelogue by Henry Miller, which was first published in 1941 by Colt Press of San Francisco. It is set in pre-war Greece of 1939, and is ostensibly a characterization of the "Colossus" of the title, George Katsimbalis, a poet and raconteur. The work is frequently heralded as Miller's best

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