Henry Miller and How He Got That Way - Hardcover

Katy Masuga

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0748641181 ISBN 13: 9780748641185

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Identifying six significant writers - Whitman, Dostoevsky, Rimbaud, Lewis Carroll, Proust and D. H. Lawrence - Katy Masuga explores their influence on Miller's work as well as Miller's retroactive impact on their writing. She explores four forms of intertextuality in relation to each 'ancestral' author: direct allusions; unconscious style; reverse influence; and participation of the ancestral author as part of the story within the text. The study is informed by the theories of Bakhtin, Barthes and Kristeva on polyvocity and of Blanchot, Wittgenstein and Deleuze on language games and the indefatigability of writing. By presenting Miller in intertextual context, he emerges as a noteworthy modernist writer whose contributions to literature include the struggle to find a distinctive voice alongside a distinguished lineage of literary figures. Key Features * Major contribution to rehabilitating an important and often overlooked twentieth-century writer * Places Miller's work in thought-provoking intertextual relationships among a diverse range of writers * Provides an incisive critical approach to Miller's writing

About this title

Review

Katy Masuga seamlessly weaves high brow literary theory with laugh-out-loud, casual Millerian prose, that only a real Miller fan could concoct. Both scholarly and broadly accessible, Henry Miller and How He Got That Way is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the real meaning of the words and connections behind the stories of one of the twentieth century's most underestimated and poorly understood writers. --Jim Haynes, Founder of the Traverse Theatre

Books may be, as Miller said, 'as much a part of life as trees, stars or dung' but he also said 90% of them 'could be thrown on the junk heap.' As for the 10% which contributed to the often overlooked intelligence of his seemingly pornographic, idiosyncratic prose, Katy Masuga's much-needed study discretely shows why, and how, with suggestive attention to the writer writing about writing itself. --Herbert Blau, Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities University of Washington

About the Author

Katy Masuga earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2007, centring on Anglo, French and Germanic modernism. Masuga has also written numerous articles as well as The Secret Violence of Henry Miller (Camden House 2011). Her current research focuses on Beckett, Wittgenstein and language. Masuga has researched and taught literature, philosophy, film, art history, history and languages at universities in France, Germany, the US and UK. She is an Associated Researcher at Paris-Sorbonne University and Editorial Coordinator at Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris.

About this edition

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0748641181
• ISBN 13: 9780748641185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224