King Leer: How sharper than a serpent's tooth....





...the ingratitude of those dang females who get all snitty about their role as sherpas for the mighty "sexual adventurer."  In the New York Times Sunday review, Jeannette Winterson takes down Frederick Turner's bio of Henry Miller, Renegade, and in the process pretty much kills off the enthusiasm a girl could have about the old priapic prophet himself.

Henry Miller

           A deadbeat dad who depended on his second wife June, and then lover Anais Nin to bankroll his life, Miller was, as Winterson notes, "obsessed with masculinity but felt no need to support himself or the women in his life.  Turner sympathizes with Miller who must sell his well-cut suits on the streets of Paris for half their value, but is apparently indifferent to the fact that June was selling her body on his behalf."

And then there's this observation:

 For Miller, America was "more mercenary than the meanest whore."  This is an ugly image, and while it is certainly true of Miller's mind, it seems indicative of Turner's own unconscious thinking....

And this:

 It seems to me if part of your mythmaking is to place a writer ahead of his time, we had better know something about his actual world--the world of the 1930s in New York and Paris.  In Paris, for instance, brothels were legal, but women couldn't vote--the exact reverse of the America Miller left behind.

Here's a link to Winterson's website http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/

And here's a link to a Miller website  http://www.henrymiller.org/

Jong:  "Sisterhood,
smisterhood, I'm taking
you down, byatch!"

This just in:  Fear of Flying author and Miller devotee Erica Jong has challenged Winterson to a nude mud wrestling match at Big Sur.  Writer Katie Roiphe promises to tag team.  Stay tuned for further developments.