Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Henry Miller

  Now when I watch Howard Welch, a neighbor, going about his business I wonder if the glorious future I have just depicted may not be the flip and froth of dream. I look at Howard, who’s a plain, handsome, ordinary fellow from Missouri, a chap full of energy, full of integrity, full of good will, and it seems to me that this program of progress and expansion doesn’t jibe with his simple, sensible, straightforward view of things. Not that Howard isn’t a hundred percent American. He’s more than that, indeed. He’s a hundred and twenty proof. But his notion of an all-American program is somewhat different from the one I have just outlined. It’s not as grandiose perhaps, but it’s more foolproof than the star-spangled Utopia of our deluded dipsydoodlers.

  When Howard came here, about four years ago, all he had in mind was to find work for his two hands and a place to flop. He wasn’t choosy about the jobs that might be offered him. Nor was he fussy about what he wore or what he ate. He needed only a pair of pants, a shirt and a jacket; he knew how to get along on Mexican beans, squash, New Zealand spinach, wild mustard greens and similar pabulum. What really drew Howard to Big Sur was the hope of finding a small community of neighborly people in whose midst he could become self-sustaining, self-sufficient. He had no bizarre Weltanschauung, no ideological notions whatever, and no crusader’s itch. “A little land and a living”—that was his dream. He came like a lone ranger in search of green pastures. Something just as simple and ordinary as that.

  Why do I single Howard out? Not because I regard him as unique but because, to my way of thinking, he is a genuine American type. Tall, lean, muscular, alert, quick-witted, eyes a-twinkle, toes sparkling, slow of speech, musical voice, dry, kindly humor, fond of the banjo, the guitar, the harmonica, capable of working like a fiend if need be, spry as a leprechaun, good-natured, peaceably inclined but quick to flare up if provoked, always minding his own business, always pretending to be less than he is, ever ready to lend a hand, eccentric in attire but in a pleasing, dashing way, scrupulously conscientious, punctilious as well as punctual, sentimental but not sloppily so, idealistic, slightly cantankerous, neither a follower nor a leader, sociable yet chary of ties, and, where the other sex is concerned, just a trifle difficult to live with. A man, in short, who would lend spice to any community. A man to rely on, as a worker, as a helper, as a friend, as a neighbor.

  This is the lone-American type I admire, the kind I believe in, can get along with, and whom I vote for even though he’s never nominated for office. The democratic man our poets sang of but who, alas, is being rapidly exterminated, along with the buffalo, the moose and the elk, the great bear, the eagle, the condor, the mountain lion. The sort of American that never starts a war, never raises a feud, never draws the color line, never tries to lord it over his fellow-man, never yearns for a higher education, never holds a grudge against his neighbor, never treats an artist shabbily and never turns a beggar away. Often untutored and unlettered, he sometimes has more of the poet and the musician in him, philosopher too, than those who are acclaimed as such. His whole way of life is aesthetic. What marks him as different, sometimes ridiculous, is his sincerity and originality. That he aspires to be none other than himself, is this not the essence of wisdom?

  Howard is one of those young men I spoke of earlier when gathering the oranges of the millennium. The type who is content to live en marge: the sort who believes in picking up the bread crumbs. I’ve run across a number of these individuals these last few years. They may not agree with all I say about them, but to my mind they all have something in common. They all arrived here by different paths, each with his own purpose, and one as different from the other as marbles from dice. But all “naturals.” All somewhat “peculiar” in the eyes of the ordinary run. All of them, to my mind, men of service, men of good will, men of strong integrity. The ideal material for the making of community. Each and every one of them fed up with the scheme of things, determined to free themselves of the treadmill, lead their own lives. And ever willing to give of their best. None of them demanding anything more fantastic of life than the right to live after his own fashion. None of them adhering to any party, doctrine, cult or ism, but all imbued with very strong, very definite ideas as to how life may and can be lived even in these evil times. Never crusading for their ideas, but doing their utmost to put them into practice. Making compromises now and then, when compelled to, but always cleaving to the line. Adapting themselves to the ways of their neighbors but not necessarily to their views. The first to criticize themselves, laugh at themselves, humble themselves. Putting above everything—human dignity. Difficult sometimes, especially where “trifles” are concerned, yet always available in genuine emergencies. Stone deaf when asked to toe the line.

  All of them have demonstrated that it is possible to live happily on next to nothing. All are married, or have been. All are extremely capable, in many ways. As cabinet ministers they would be perfect. Under their guiding hand there would be no need for revolution, they would run the country into the ground in no time.

  Whether they know it or not, that is precisely what they are trying to do. Their goal is not a bigger and better America but a world made for man. What they are seeking is a new old way of life, one consonant with human aspirations and equated with human proportions. Not back to the safety and security of the womb, but—out of the wilderness!

  When I said a while ago that the aim of these individuals is to become self-sufficient, I hope I made myself clear. What they are after is to become as undependent as possible. Interdependent would be more like it. Hudson Kimball, who pushed the idea furthest, found it extremely difficult. In attempting to live his own life he grew a vegetable garden, raised goats, chickens, rabbits, geese, kept bees too, if I am not mistaken, yet his wife had to give music lessons and he himself had to work in town a few days a week in order to raise the indispensable cash needed to meet the exigencies of even the simplest mode of life. He had no vices, no indulgences. He neither smoked nor drank, neither did his wife. They lived just about as frugally as two people can, with a child of eight or nine, but they couldn’t make a go of it.

  Jack Morgenrath, on the other hand, does pretty well. In fact, I would say very well. He works as little as possible—at anything. Just enough to earn the few dollars needed to provide for a wife and three children. Jack has two cars, whereas the Kimballs had none. (When the latter went to town, they had first to walk almost two miles to the highway, then grub a ride. They went to bed at dark, to avoid the expense of fuel and kerosene.) When his car breaks down, Jack takes the motor apart himself; I believe he could build a new body for it if he had to. Jack needs a car—and a truck—in order to hire himself out. Otherwise he wouldn’t dream of owning one.

  As for Warren Leopold, an architect, a builder, a painter, a fine carpenter, he has a wife and four children, probably the best behaved and the most contented children in the whole community. (Aside from the Lopez family.) His idea, or ideal, is to so manage that they won’t need a house—they will all live together in a tent—or under a rock. Warren loves to build houses but loathes his profession. And with good reason. For, until one can establish himself as another Frank Lloyd Wright, one is condemned to design homes that will suit the taste of people who have no understanding of architecture whatever. In short, one must do the very opposite of what one believes in. To circumvent this dilemma, Warren had the very sensible idea of building a house according to his own ideas, living in it for a while, then selling it to anyone who took a fancy to it. Once he got a contract to design a house for a wealthy woman who paid him a handsome retaining fee. Warren didn’t altogether approve of the kind of home the woman demanded, but he decided to do the best he could. He had two children then, one of whom had to undergo several very expensive operations. (It was just before the child was stricken that we met on the street in Monterey one day. Warren was still dazed by the amount of money he had collected as a retaining fee. He would have preferred no fee and a free hand in carrying out his architectural idea
s. But here’s how he greeted me. “Can’t I give you a few hundred dollars? I don’t know what to do with all this money.” It never occurred to him to improve his standard of living. He wasn’t even tempted to do so. When I refused his offer he said: “Look, you’re always sending food and clothes to Europe”—it was right after the war—“Take the money and give it to those who need it.” I refused again, this time with less conviction…. But that’s the sort of chap Warren is.)

  Warren can earn good money as a first-class carpenter. He doesn’t want to. He wants a little piece of land, just enough to raise some fruit and vegetables, rabbits and chickens, and to hell with your $12.50 per day—or is it $20.00 a day that first-class carpenters now earn?

  But perhaps I can better convey the feeling of frustration and disillusionment which carpenters, bricklayers, engineers and architects in America are prone to by quoting a few passages of a letter I once received from an Egyptian student whom I had hired to serve as a messenger when I was hiring and firing for the Cosmococcic Telegraph Company. It was in the spring of 1924 and Mohamed Ali Sarwat had left our employ to seek a better position in Washington, D.C.

  ESTEEMED AND MOST HONOURABLE SIR:

  I must write and let you know what sorrow’s hand has done in my heart, and it grieves me very much to overburden you with my internal pains, but I feel extremely gratified to know that you are a rare and gracious soul.

  Here I am, a wrecked ship dashed and broken into pieces, by the huge rocks in the wide, dark and rolling ocean of America. My dear sir, I have often heard people speak highly of this country, that its imaginary beauty had infatuated me and drew me hither from the calm East very vehemently.

  Very shortly after I had landed here I found what I have taken for granted is but a mere poetic sentiment; and the magnificent and gigantic mansions of hopes were but dreams and foundationless. I am very much disappointed, dear sir. There is a quotation of a Persian poet that runs:

  “And there must be a humanitarian soul in which you have to deposit your pains and sufferings, and in which you will find a balsam to relieve your ulcerated heart.”

  You know I left New York City as I was unsuccessful to earn the means of my livelihood there. I found myself lost among the crowds of the Materialistic rush in the very busy streets of the Western Metropolice. Then I have carried my knapsack of travel in the psychological attitude of Jean Valjean, the hero personage of Les Miserables, by the French Hugo and stepped forward hither with the absolute hope to earn easily the means of my living, but to my ill luck and misfortune I found all of Washington is like what I have previously had an introduction. What a pity! A man like me unable to eat his bread in the alleged garden-spot of the world. That is a great disaster. Whenever I think of the existing circumstances in this great country the lines of Longfellow run into my memory:

  “Something, something done

  has earned a night’s repose.”

  And I also think of America according to Shakespeare’s words in Hamlet: “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark!”

  What can I say more, my dear sir? The flourishing rose of my hopes had already faded. Conditions are awfully bad here. Capitalism is enslaving Labour in the midst daylight of the twentieth century, and Democracy is but a word of no meaning.

  He who has money is terribly tormenting he who has not, simply because he has to feed him, and he who has money is degraded from his spiritual sentiments. That is the main point of weakness. That the mistake of society.

  Kindly write me whenever you have a chance to do so. Advise me what to do. Shall I be patient, and my patience come to its limits? Will conditions be continuously bad in the United States as they are now? Is there any hope of the sun shining to kill the dark clouds and enlighten the obscurity? I hardly believe so. Here is what I am thinking of: I find it a black spot in the white page of my life to come to America and return back to Egypt with failure, and I would rather die than so do.

  My soul is very ambitious, and it is imprisoned within the cage of clay, the body! Shall I release it to enjoy liberty and boundless freedom? I like to return back to New York and shall not do so unless I know what my determination there will be. I want to be employed by you as a sergeant to look after the clothes, no matter what long my hours of work will be, as long as I shall be under your direction and will be leading a sedentary life. I am sure your heart will sympathize with my state and you will resume your endeavorings to put me in some position and see me settled. Do help me, please.

  I shall come back to New York when you will be able to put me in such a work and send me a word to report myself to your kindness. Don’t care much about the people, as I have no faith in them. I have only a very unshaking faith in you. You will be able yourself to solve my problem.

  Don’t hesitate to help me as much as you can. I want you to employ me as a sergeant, or elsewhere in a decent work. I am unable to afford being out of work for such a long time. I cannot exist. Read this letter again! Read it over in your spare time and write an answer please.

  I have taken a very long time from yours. I must close. With very good wishes and kindest regards, I beg to lay under your feet my most respectful homage.

  Your obedient servant always,

  (signed) MOHAMED ALI SARWAT

  As often as I’ve read the Gospels I’ve never run across a single reference to the baggage that Jesus toted around. There is not even mention of a satchel, such as Somerset Maugham made use of when walking about in China. (Bufano, the sculptor, travels lighter than any man I know, but even Bennie is obliged to carry a shaving kit in which he stuffs a change of linen, a toothbrush and a pair of socks.) As for Jesus, by all accounts he didn’t own a toothbrush. No baggage, no furniture, no change of linen, no handkerchief, no passport, no identity card, no bankbook, no love letters, no insurance policy, no address book. To be sure, he had no wife, no children, no home (not even a winter palace) and no correspondence to look after. As far as we know, he never wrote a line. Home was where-ever he happened to be. Not where he hung his hat—because he never wore a hat.

  He had no wants, that’s the thing. He didn’t even have to think about such a menial job as wardrobe attendant. After a time he ceased working as a carpenter. Not that he was looking for bigger wages. No, he had more important work to do. He set out to prove the absurdity of living by the sweat of one’s brow. Behold the lilies in the field….

  The other day, glancing through one of our illustrated weeklies, I noticed an advertisement for a new Lincoln. The caption read: “For those who are never satisfied with the ordinary.” The new car was described as one suitable for “modern living and magnificent driving.” Further on, in this same weekly, there was a photograph of a great new bridge, a railroad bridge, I believe, in the city of Calcutta—or was it Bombay?—and on the riverbank, right in the shadow of this engineering triumph, a yogi could be seen standing on his head, clad only in a loincloth. He gave the impression of being able to stand in that position forever, if he chose to. Obviously, he had no need of that new bridge, nor of the new Lincoln “suitable for modern living.” Whatever his needs, they were, like Jesus’, few and far between.

  “The world problem,” said Krishnamurti once, “is the individual problem; if the individual is at peace, has happiness, has great tolerance, and an intense desire to help, then the world problem as such ceases to exist. You consider the world problem before you have considered your own problem. Before you have established peace and understanding in your own hearts and in your own minds, you desire to establish peace and tranquillity in the minds of others, in your nations and in your states; whereas peace and understanding will only come when there is understanding, certainty and strength in yourselves.”*

  If I were running the World Order of Human Merit, I would make Warren Leopold a Chevalier. When Warren has to pack and move (with a wife and four children), and he’s done it time and again, he can do it in an hour or two. After he quit building houses according to other people’s ideas,
Warren traveled up and down the Coast a number of times. Always on the lookout for “a little land and a living.” As he said to me once—“There’s so much land everywhere, surely someone ought to be willing to part with a little. All we need is a half-acre.” In one of the northern counties of this glorious state he one day found a spot of land. The man told him he could have it—for free. With wife and kids helping, Warren cleared the land, built a cabin to live in, started a vegetable patch, and just when everything seemed to be under control he had to clear out. The neighbors didn’t like him. He wasn’t their kind: he wore a beard, he refused to join the Grange, he chummed with the Indians and other no-good people, his ideas were too radical, and so on. Finally it turned out that the man who had given him the land didn’t own it. He only thought he owned it. So they moved on. And always it was the same story: “You don’t belong.”

  Well, nobody belongs who’s trying to simplify his life. Nobody belongs who isn’t trying to make money, or trying to make money make money. Nobody belongs who wears the same suit of clothes year in and year out, who doesn’t shave, who doesn’t believe in sending his children to school to be miseducated, who doesn’t join up with Church, Grange and Party, who doesn’t serve “Murder, Death and Blight, Inc.” Nobody belongs who doesn’t read Time, Life, and one of the Digests. Nobody belongs who doesn’t vote, carry insurance, live on the instalment plan, pile up debts, keep a check account and deal with the Safeway stores or the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Nobody belongs who doesn’t read the current best sellers and help support the paid pimps who dump them on the market. Nobody belongs who is fool enough to believe that he is entitled to write, paint, sculpt or compose music according to the dictates of his own heart and conscience. Or who wants to be nothing more than an artist, an artist from tip to toe.