During those purgatorial years when Miller's works were being chewed fine by the various courts in various countries, the several New Directions volumes were about the only way the general reader could find-out who or what he was, independent of all the philistine flap-doodle. This collection of essays and sketches was my first introduction to him and, half a century later, remains a fundamental part not merely of my adult understanding of his work, but of many other things as well. And all this with hardly any of his hilarious high-intensity sexual stuff! The essays on film are particularly vivid, paradoxically almost more so than the original films themselves. For those who like their Miller in this format, this is the primo collection, after which I would nominate his STAND STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD. Ideally, these salad-bar volumes will prepare the newcomer for the real feast which is his rambling, outrageous, and self-indulgent novels like the TROPICs, and SEXUS. ( )