Henry Miller

Along with Georges Simenon, Henry Miller is probably my favourite twentieth century author. He knows all about living in a town of quiet despair.
He knew how guys live, so little solitude and so much loneliness, all hollowed out and filled with horse manure.
He knew how you like to dance for your supper. He knew how little you have left, not even your dreams, not even each other.
Sometimes I feel so cold, and I wish I was back in the fourteenth century, and I would play and we would all dance and drink that loco mead and chew hemp and sit round a warm fire.
Aye, things have changed and not always for the best.   

‘Still more soothing and fascinating to my spirit were the coloured reflections which danced over the surface of the water below. They danced like festive lanterns swaying in the wind: they mocked my sombre thoughts and illuminated the deep chasms of mystery which yawned within me. Suspended high above the river’s flow, I had the feeling of being detached from all problems, relieved of all cares and responsibilities. Never once did the river stop to ponder or question, never once did it seek to alter its course. Always onward, onward, full and steady. Looking back towards the shore, how like toy blocks appeared the skyscrapers which overshadowed the river’s bank! How ephemeral, how puny, how vain and arrogant! Into these grandiose tombs men and women muscled their way in day  and day out, killing their souls to earn their bread, selling themselves, selling one another, even selling God, some of them, and towards night they poured out again, like ants, choked the gutters, dove into the underground, or scampered homeward pitter- patter to bury themselves again, not in grandiose tombs now but, like the worn, haggard, defeated wretches they were, in shacks and rabbit warrens which they called “home”. By day the graveyard of senseless sweat and toil; by night the cemetery of love and despair. And these creatures who had so faithfully learned to run, to beg, to sell themselves and their fellow-men, to dance like bears or perform like trained poodles, ever and always belying their own nature, these same wretched creatures broke down now and then, wept like fountains of misery, crawled like snakes, uttered sounds which only wounded animals are thought to emit. What they meant to convey by these horrible antics was that they had come to the end of their rope, that the powers above had deserted them, that unless someone spoke to them who understood their language of distress they were forever lost, broken, betrayed.