- Henri Michaux, a contemporary of Huxley’s who also wrote about his psychedelic experiences,
took a very different tact, refusing the offer of metaphor to make sense of something he believed
was beyond comprehension. In his book Miserable Miracle, he aimed to be “attentive to what’s
going on—as it is—without trying to deform it and imagine it otherwise in order to make it more
interesting to me.” Or sensible to his readers: the book is intermittently brilliant but for long
stretches unreadable. “I had no longer any authority over words. I no longer knew how to manage
them. Farewell to writing!” I know what he means, but I’ve elected to resist, even if that means
tolerating some measure of deformation in my account.
frankie
(Frankie)
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