Wisdom of the Heart

by Henry Miller

Book Overview

In this selection of stories and essays, Henry Miller elucidates, revels, and soars, showing his command over a wide range of moods, styles, and subject matters. Writing "from the heart," always with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811201163
• ISBN13: 9780811201162
• Release Date: January 1942
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Henry Miller - Beyond all manner of classification

I started with the Rosy Crucifixion (Sexus, then Plexus and finally Nexus) and then went on to his collections of essays, including The Wisdom of the Heart and Stand Still Like the Hummingbird. Henry Miller has been a major influence in my life by virtue of these readings. I have read most or all of The Wisdom of the Heart more than once, and the essay which gives the book its title concerning the writer/psychiatrist E. Gordon Howe is one I come back to again and again for inspiration.

getting to know Henry Miller

I first purchased Tropic of Cancer prior to this book, but had not as of yet read it when I came across this collection of essays and stories. I enjoyed it so very much. Reading his essays gave me great insight into who Henry Miller was, after reading this book I was able to start Tropic of Cancer with a better understanding of his writing style. It enabled me to better appreciate his writing and understand his significance as a writer. Tropic of Cancer is highly erratic, reading "Wisdom of the Heart" allowed me to understand that this is what Miller would be like and I was ready to embrace him, after coming away from "Wisdom" with a sense of what his philosphies are like. Some of the stories are admittedly trite and the book's entire collection is somewhat ragged, but certain writings really shone, and Miller's philosophies rang loud and clear throughout everything. An excellent read for someone who is curious about Miller the man and not yet ready to embark upon the Tropics.

Henry Miller was not married to Marilyn Monroe

Though I have not read all of this book, I can say for certain that Henry Miller was NOT married to Marilyn Monroe!

Arthur Miller, not Henry

Henry Miller was married 5 times in his life, but never to Marilyn Monroe. You are confusing him for the playwriter Arthur Miller, who was briefly wedded to Ms. Monroe.

As Luminous As Suns that shine in the rain

An exquisite journey into a mind and heart open for all to join and be the quest. Reminiscent of his equally stimulating companion volume, STAND STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD, this selection of stories and essays shows again the wide range of mood, style and subject matter which Henry Miller's work commands. As Lawrence Durrell once wrote, "I suspect that Henry Miller's final place will be among those towering anomalies of authorship like Whitman or Blake who have left us, not simply works of art, but a corpus of ideas which motivate and influence a whole cultural pattern."Here is a man who, however brief was their intercourse, was wed to Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe (just kidding, in Henry's dreams maybe, but NOT, that was the other Miller, the playwright, Arthur). Here is a man expressing himself with exhilarating candor and freedom, writing "from the heart" which a refreshing lack of reticence. Miller involves the reader directly in his thoughts and feelings. "His real aim," Karl Shapiro has written, "is to find the living core of our world whenever it survives and in whatever manifestation, in art, in literature, in human behavior itself. It is then that he sings, praises, and shouts at the top of his lungs with the uncontainable hilarity he is famous for."Whether Miller lifts up D. H. Lawrence as in "Creative Death" and "Into the Future," or expounds the philosophy of the psychoanalyst, E. Graham Howe as in "The Wisdom of the Heart," or honors Keyserling on the occasion of his 60th birthday in July 1940 as in "The Philosopher Who Philosophizes," his genius is immutable. If you have read, even occasionally, Henry David (Thoreau), Ralph Waldo (Emerson), Uncle Walt (Whitman), this volume is for you. Henry Miller says nothing here either more offensive or less insightful than these three Transcendentalists who lived before him. Including some of Henry Miller's best-known writings, here are essays on Raimu, the film star; Brassi, the photographer; Erich Gutkind, the metaphysician -- who Miller puts, like Lawrence, in the line of "Akhenaton, Hermes Trismegistus, Plotinus, Paracelsus, Blake, Neitzsche: he is a visionary, a prophet, a man ahead of his time." In "Reflections on Writing," Miller examines his own position as a writer. In "Seraphita" and "Balzac and His Double," he applies himself to the work of another writer. In short, throughout this wisdom book, there is an illuminating spiritual unity in the deep diversity and high hilarity, at once, reconciling sacred and profane, regenerating love -- always fearless, always totally alive with the joy of living the examined life -- open-hearted and generous to all who have ears to hear. As Joseph Campbell so aptly encouraged, "Bless Thy Bliss."