Saturday, October 25, 2008

Black Spring: The Basics

"Today is the third or fourth day of Spring and I am sitting at the Place Clichy in full sunshine. Today, sitting here in the sun, I tell you it doesn't matter a damn whether the world is going to the dogs or not; it doesn't matter whether the world is right or wrong, good or bad. It is--and that suffices. The world is what it is and I am what I am." Henry Miller, Black Spring, p.25.
Synopsis:
From GroveAtlantic.com: “Black Spring is vintage Miller. Continuing the subversive self-revelation begun in Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, he sucks us along at his mad, free-associating pace as he reverberates between America and Paris, transporting us from the damp grime of his Brooklyn youth to sun-splashed French cafés and squalid Paris flats; from a winter night, pure as ammonia, to a dream where a woman’s body has the strong white aroma of sorrow. Miller writes with an incomparable hard glee, shifting effortlessly from Vergil to venereal disease, from Rabelais to Roquefort, to the beauty of a statue defaced during a carnival. He captures like no one else the blending of people and the cities they inhabit, and Black Spring coheres in a seductive technicolor swirl of Paris and New York.”

Chapters:
1. The Fourteenth Ward
2. Third or Fourth Day of Spring
3. A Saturday Afternoon
4. The Angel Is My Watermark!
5. The Tailor Shop
6. Jabberwhorl Cronstadt
7. Into The Nightlife. . .
8. Walking Up and Down in China
9. Burlesk
10. Megalopolitan Maniac

Dedications: “To Anais Nin”

Working title: Self-Portrait

Period of writing: 1933-1935

Date of final title: September 1933

Location of writing: Louveciennes;--Clichy;--Villa Seurat, Paris

First publication: June 1936 – Obelisk Press, Paris (1,000 copies)

Second publication: October 1938 – Obelisk Press, Paris (1,000 copies)

Third Publication: 1939 – Obelisk editions pirated in Shanghai.

First U.S. publication: April 4, 1963 – Grove Press, New York
Page count: 243 (Grove Press 1994)

Current publisher: Grove Press
_________________________________________________
Publication info sourced from Shifreen & Jackson, Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. I (1993).

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My favourite Miller book, the last paragraph is one of the few things I can actually read out from memory...I adore the image of defiance - you know - there is a major world coming and that's what everyone is talking about but I don't give a damn...(though technically/narrativistically I am not superkeen on the tailor shop chapter; but that's just me).

6:41 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I always assumed that Black Spring referred to the season. However, last time I was reading it, I thought about Jung and the sort of dark, dank spring from where the water of life comes.

That makes even more sense to me. Am I slow? Did everyone else get this the first time?

7:35 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

great job with the blog. you may not be an expert, but you sure wrote it like one - well documented articles with a lot of references and photographic proof. i recently made an extended essay titled "Henry Miller's Paris"(speaking only about Tropic of Cancer) and now i regret i haven.t heard of your blog earlier, because i would have been way better informed. anyway, congrats and keep up the good work

12:13 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Xkay,

Where is your essay published? If online, could you provide a link?

Thanks.

2:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

sorry for answering so late. i.m from romania so it.s in romanian, because i did it for a class. however, it.s not that great and is more of an opinion essay so i don.t think it.s worth translating. for anything else, however, my email is xk.alex@yahoo.com

6:44 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Eric,

On the title thing, I always figured Black Spring was another solar map reference, like the Tropics.

The Sun rises on the Tropic of Cancer at the summer solstice and then on the Tropic of Capricorn at the winter solstice. In between you have the Equator, which is where the sun rises at both the spring and autumn equinoxes. So in the title, black refers to the autumn as the time when things die and of course spring = spring ;) It's a sort of marriage of birth/death opposites. "Black Spring" may refer then essentially to the Equator and it was published between the two Tropic volumes, which would be its logical placement in the map sequence.

1:34 am  
Blogger Jon said...

My favorite Miller book too.

5:37 pm  
Blogger chenlina said...

chenlina20151119
coach factory outlet
ugg boots
canada goose jackets
uggs clearance
coach factory outlet
jordans for sale
canada goose outlet
uggs outlet
canada goose jackets
kids lebron shoes
michaek kors outlet
uggs outlet
kids uggs on sale
north face jackets
jordan 11
hollister
oakley sunglasses
michael kors outlet online
hollister uk
instyler max
michael kors outlet online
louis vuitton handbags
uggs on sale
ray ban sunglasses outlet
ralph lauren outlet
soccer shoes
running shoes
cheap uggs
air jordans
the north face
gucci outlet
michael kors outlet
celine outlet
ugg boots outlet
cheap nfl jerseys
ugg boots
vans shoes sale
louis vuitton outlet
louis vuitton handbags
mont blanc legend

7:41 pm  
Blogger John said...

ugg boots
nike huarache
coach outlet store online
ugg boots
polo ralph lauren outlet
uggs boots
oakley sunglasses
michael kors outlet
ugg australia
michael kors outlet
ugg boots
toms
true religion outlet
oakley sunglasses
polo ralph lauren
abercrombie
replica watches
louis vuitton handbags
ugg clearance
ugg boots
michael kors outlet
ugg boots
mont blanc pens
louis vuitton outlet
longchamp outlet
michael kors handbags
hollister uk
ugg australia
chanel bags
coach factory outlet
adidas originals
toms outlet
20151228yuanyuan

2:44 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

JIANBIN0929
chaussure louboutin
nhl jerseys
oakley sunglasses
nike roshe run shoes
true religion canada
yeezy boost 350
mizuno shoes
tory burch outlet online
oakley sunglasses sale
rolex orologi

3:42 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

coach outlet online
ray-ban sunglasses
kobe bryant shoes
canada goose jackets
moncler outlet online
michael kors outlet
oakley sunglasses
ugg boots
ralph lauren shirts
ralph lauren polo
20161122lck

2:06 am  
Blogger raybanoutlet001 said...

nike huarache
nike free 5
cheap oakley sunglasses
michael kors outlet
michael kors handbags wholesale
air max 90
michael kors handbags wholesale
nike huarache

2:17 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

adidas stan smith sneakers
nike mercurial
prada glasses
ferragamo belts
michael kors outlet online
kobe shoes
pandora jewelry
michael kors uk
yeezy shoes
kobe basketball shoes
20170606

1:10 am  
Blogger raybanoutlet001 said...

nike air max 90
true religion outlet
michael kors uk
moncler jackets
bengals jersey
jordan shoes
polo ralph lauren
ugg boots
michael kors outlet
michael kors uk
2017.7.5

9:52 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

yeezy boost 350
five finger shoes
atlanta falcons jersey
adidas yeezy boost
chrome hearts online
michael kors handbags
jordan shoes
yeezy shoes
vibram fivefingers
yeezy shoes
20170721

9:47 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

www0906

nike blazers
ugg outlet boots
red bottom shoes
michael kors outlet
ralph lauren polo
pandora outlet
ray ban sunglasses
skechers shoes
supreme
true religion jeans

10:33 pm  
Blogger yanmaneee said...

christian louboutin shoes
fila sneakers
michael kors outlet online
chrome hearts
yeezy boost
coach outlet
jordan shoes
air max 270
nike shoes
ralph lauren uk

11:14 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home