A photo of the author of this novel.
Then she began to bark also, crawling after him – barking in a fit of laughter, obscene and touching. Crouching, the dog began to run with her, head-on with her head, as if to circumvent her; soft and slow his feet went padding. He ran this way and that, low down in his throat crying, and she grinning and crying with him; crying in shorter and shorter spaces, moving head to head, until she gave up, lying out, her hands beside her, her face turned and weeping; and the dog too gave up then, and lay down, his eyes bloodshot, his head flat along her knees.
I don’t know this one, James, but if I read correctly will she and the dog come together? My, my… 🙂
Is this by Henry Miller? G
Ha! G, you might think so. Has James absolutely stumped us? Come on James, give it up…
The novel’s not by Henry Miller, even though its author, like Miller, was an “expatriate” for a time.
I did some look-up work to check for cross references and found that one of the biographers of this author reports that she (big hint!) got upset by the affront of her work being compared to Henry Miller’s.
James, I want to wish Happy Holidays to you and yours!
It’s from Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, a great, neglected novel. If a man had written it and made it about a heterosexual relationship he would have become a household name. Interesting that she was offended at being compared to HM, I didn’t know that.
Thank you, fromaroom! Yes, this is indeed the ending of Djuna Barnes’ “Nightwood.”
The information about her being compared to Henry Miller is from Andrew Field’s biography, “Djuna – The Life and Times of Djuna Barnes” (1983).
In general, though, I prefer Phillip Herring’s more recent biography of 1995, in which Henry Miller is not included in the index.
Yes, I enjoyed Herring’s book too.