Plexus: The Rosy Crucifixion II

Quality product, great price, on-time delivery, no issues!

I hadn't read Plexus since 1968. I found that I had somehow thrown out my old copy, which was old and worn. I have reread parts of it since purchasing a copy a month or two ago. I was surprised how well it holds up. I believe some critics criticized the Rosy Crucifixion (a trilogy of which Plexus is the second volume) as a comedown from the Tropics. I found Plexus full of the good, zesty writing you expect of Miller. Narrative passages plus philosophizing. A wonderful cast of colorful characters drawn from Miller’s young adulthood in New York. I feel that in this trilogy Miller was kind of letting himself go (for which he was criticized), writing as he pleased -- writing in toto his fictional autobiography, including everything that he thought or remembered -- having finally made it as a writer and figuring that he had license to write as he pleased and include as much as he pleased without worrying about being edited. I find that the freedom he exercises pays off. The reader is rewarded. It is a long narrative “ride” he invites you on, and one is bound to have a good time.

Nuts and hysterically funny. Miller captures a scene as well as any playwright could. His feel for the absurdities in things is precious and he records them with great precision and wit. He has all of Dickens' sense of taking forever to get to the point but, unlike dickens, miller is very easy to read. Rarely does the language get too thick or silly. Just a joy to read, but ultimately, miller gets tiresome because he doesn't create characters that have any real value. Rather he describes real people who, like the sixties types that followed, are just along for the ride, as is Miller himself. His moral compass is Dostoevsky, which is not very helpful. What impresses me is that someone with Miller's insights is left, like Burroughs, cackling over something stupid.

how do you review a book that you've read 8 or nine times . . . paperback and now on my iPad (Kindle app) ?? my library burned up last year and now I'm replenishing it virtually and concretely . . . Henry Millers work is being stored on the iPad . . . the Rosy Crucifixion - Nexus, Sexus and Plexus - is the start-up . . . now I can browse at my leisure without having to find where I stashed my books. Most everything Miller wrote is worth a read, but the trilogy is the most fun . . . and worth the $$$

I read the Rosy Crucifixion when I was very young. I thought it was hilarious and a great rollicking bollicking ride. In my middle age it reads like what it is: unadulterated garbage. Don't waste your time on Henry Miller. He's forgotten - forget about him. A waste of space.

Henry Miller makes me want to read his words out loud.

RIP Henry Miller, one of the best!

Plexus, the second part of Henry Miller's Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, is a much different animal than Sexus, the first part, which was published only a few years earlier (both in France, as Miller's works were banned in the U.S. at the time due to obscenity). Mostly gone are the sexual escapades that made Sexus notorious, and, frankly, tiresome.Instead, Plexus gets down to the real business of the Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, which is the story of how Henry Miller became Henry Miller, (relatively) famous writer. The novel finds Miller married to Mona (second wife June in real life) and, astonishingly, to all intents and purposes monogamously. The story takes us from Miller's giving up of his regular day job with the telegram company through his (and Mona's) various schemes to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table (mostly by mooching) to Miller's early attempts at writing, mostly of short pieces intended initially for third-party magazine publication and later on, published and disseminated on his own (Miller could really have used the internet and it's self-publishing opportunities).It is certainly an interesting story but it is repeatedly sidetracked by Miller's utterly undisciplined approach to writing. The story is constantly interrupted by anecdotes, observations, free-form philosophical musings and a couple of surreal visions that more or less anticipate Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception, which ironically was published at almost the same time. Some of these interludes are interesting, others tedious. It's like listening to a rambling monologue by a brilliant but erratic raconteur.I also have to say that if this is in any way a true account of this period of Miller's life (unreliable narrator warning!) he was one of the luckiest people on the face of the planet because it isn't everyone who has so many friends and acquaintances willing to give or lend (same thing mostly) him money whenever he needs it. Numerous times in this book we find the Millers at the end of their rope only to bump into some associate who happily slips them enough dough not only to pay the rent but to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant. Mona herself is a preternaturally indulgent wife, not only a real looker but one who demands that Henry quit his job and loaf around until the mood to write strikes him while she takes care of paying the bills. They don't make 'em like that any more!Why do all these people do this? Because they all recognize that Henry is a great writer even if he still has his doubts, he modestly tells us. Toward the end of the book he even trots out a pseudo prophet figure to reveal to him that he will become a great writer after going abroad and suffering some tribulations.I've read all of Miller's books to this point chronologically, so I have few excuses for being shocked or put off by this literary onanism. By this point in his career, Miller was clearly not going to change. He was a writer with an incandescent prose style who had one subject and one subject only: himself. It is a fascinating subject indeed, even (especially?) when he is at his most egotistical. I just wish he had focused on that and cut down the extraneous stuff.

Arrived quickly, no damage - good condition. A steamy read!

I'm reading the rosy crucifixion for the first time and I'm really enjoying it! Plexus is particularly good!

So pleased that the book arrived quickly, in good condition, it just needed a little TLC which I offered right away, and definitely willing to buy from this seller again. Thank you. A note on the author, if you want your whole being read inside out and still be brave enough to face and accept the beauty in the not so beautiful nooks and crannies of your deepest self, by all means dive into every book he has ever written, it will be worth it.

Enjoyed book but your service was not good