AS MENTIONED IN THE INTRODUCTION and chapter 1, Miller's writing, particularly passages of the urban landscape, has been analyzed under various genres, such as surrealism and romanticism, which appear in critical texts previously mentioned as well as in Henry Miller, the Modern Rabelais (1990) by John Parkin. Although these methods do provide interesting routes for specific modes of interpretation, my approach is to consider Miller's writing (his presentations of people and things) in light of the manner in which the language presents objects as being complete or, in some way, incomplete. Miller's language causes the reader to question conventional forms of literature, which suggest that descriptions of objects are unable to actually provide complete “pictures” of those objects.

This technique on Miller's part might appear to critics as a shortcoming, as if he is making this assertion in his own work, when, in fact, Miller alludes, deliberately and tactically, to volatility in language.