Posted BySchwitters on November 04, 19101 at 22:51:58:
I read in a review of Opus Pistorum on Amazon.com that the title, "Opus Pistorum", is Latin for "Miller's Work". I verified this by digging up an online Latin dictionary.
That's an interesting way of publishing an anonymous book - to simply state the author's name right there in the title, but in a language you wouldn't expect most people to penetrate. Of course, you'd also have to expect that someone would eventually make the translation. I wonder then if Miller's continued refutation of authorship was truly a way of distancing himself from a book he thought to be of little artistic merit or just a continuation of the joke.
While Opus Pistorum does go well off the deep end with the porn, Miller wasn't given to filtering his literary output. In addition to 10-20 novels and collections of essays, he published thousands of letters, a play, etc, etc. Why was he so reticent to acknowledge authorship of the "Opus"?
Also, does anyone know how the decision to change the title to "Under the Roofs of Paris" came about?