> > I agree. Miller is repulsive. Tropic of Cancer is pornographic
> travel> fiction. The sex in Justine is more genuine than in that
> travesty.>
>
> Actually, I'm not very familiar with Miller's work. Pound recommended
> his first book to Shakespeare Press in Paris with the comment,
> "It's a dirty book worth publishing." Kate Millet gives him a pretty
> good going-over in her _Sexual Politics_.
Well I don't know that _Sexual Politics_ is a very good guide in that regard. It's a bit too easily offended and rather too categorical. Sure Lawrence has written some of the worst poetry and most tedious novels I've ever had to read... but Millett's reading makes him sound almost as provocative, troubling and important as he wished to be. She's closer to the mark with Miller maybe because that kind of monolithic gender politics shaded with hyperbole was exactly his style. But again she makes him sound crucial and thus dangerous rather than dull, sensationalist, and pompous all at once.
A dirty book worth publishing? That's a strange kind of compliment coming from Pound, so much so that I doubt it reflects a very high opinion at all. It might be justified, but again, 'dirty' makes it seem affecting... tantalising rather than clumsy. I better stop now or I'm going to end up having to justify these statements, and that might require actual engagement with the actual text, and once was more than enough.
Catherine