Big Sur

I just finished reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which I enjoyed even though I was a bit surprised at its lack of polishing.

Now I've started a book by Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. So far it looks promising, more so than Miller's Air Conditioned Nightmare, which was pretty much just blah for me. But having visited Big Sur myself recently, and having read Air Conditioned Nightmare which precedes this book, I think I might enjoy this one. Here is an excerpt I just read:

"Some will say they do not wish to dream their lives away. As if life itself were not a dream, a very real dream from which there is no awakening! We pass from one state of dream to another: from the dream of sleep to the dream of waking, from the dream of life to the dream of death. Whoever has enjoyed a good dream never complains of having wasted his time. On the contrary, he is delighted to have partaken of a reality which serves to heighten and enhance the reality of everyday."

From reading the first 28 pages, I think that Miller makes very accurate observations of Big Sur. I was surprised, when, coming back from my trip there, I read Kerouac's book by the same title and realized that it was apparently not just me who saw the overpowering and in a way frightening force of Big Sur. I think Big Sur, by Miller, will be an enjoyable read.