The Colossus of Decatur Street
At least two generations have passed since Henry Miller raised some dust
and threw it in the eye of the Establishment with his no-holds-barred
attitude to writing and living. There really had not been anything quite
like Tropic of Cancer when it was published in a clandestine way in
1934. But it wasn’t until the relaxation of censorship, and the advent
of the hippy culture of the late sixties, that Miller’s outlook on life
was fully absorbed into the wider culture. Raised on Decatur Street in
Brooklyn, Miller had to suffer and grow far beyond his roots in order to
find expression for his inner turmoil. He finally began to exorcise his
demons at the end of a decade-long sojourn in France. He visited his
friend and fellow-writer Lawrence Durrell in Corfu just before the
outbreak of war and penned the most marvellous travelogue of his time in
Greece: The Colossus of Maroussi. The world was careening like a drunk
driver towards catastrophe, but Miller was with the ancient gods to
produce a fervent book about the pagan spirit of Greece. If you’ve never
read a word of Miller, pick up The Colussus and be transported to
another world.
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