The Henry Miller Reader

by Lawrence Durrell

  Believe me, it is not impish, roguish perversity which leads me to pronounce, even quasi-humorously, this word “guilty.” As one who thoroughly and sincerely believes in what he says and does, even when wrong, is it not more becoming on my part to admit “guilt” than attempt to defend myself against these who use this word so glibly? Let us be honest. Do those who judge and condemn me—not in Oslo necessarily, but the world over—do these individuals truly believe me to be a culprit, to be “the enemy of society,” as they often blandly assert? What is it that disturbs them so? Is it the existence, the prevalence, of immoral, amoral, or unsocial behavior, such as is described in my works, or is it the exposure of such behavior in print? Do people of our day and age really behave in this “vile” manner or are these actions merely the product of a “diseased” mind? (Does one refer to such authors as Petronius, Rabelais, Rousseau, Sade, to mention but a few, as “diseased minds”?) Surely some of you must have friends or neighbors, in good standing too, who have indulged in this questionable behavior, or worse. As a man of the world, I know only too well that the appanage of a priest’s frock, a judicial robe, a teacher’s uniform provides no guarantee of immunity to the temptations of the flesh. We are all in the same pot, we are all guilty, or innocent, depending on whether we take the frog’s view or the Olympian view. For the nonce I shall refrain from pretending to measure or apportion guilt, to say, for example, that a criminal is more guilty, or less, than a hypocrite. We do not have crime, we do not have war, revolution, crusades, inquisitions, persecution and intolerance because some among us are wicked, mean-spirited, or murderers at heart; we have this malignant condition of human affairs because all of us, the righteous as well as the ignorant and the malicious, lack true forbearance, true compassion, true knowledge and understanding of human nature.

  To put it as succinctly and simply as possible, here is my basic attitude toward life, my prayer, in other words: “Let us stop thwarting one another, stop judging and condemning, stop slaughtering one another.” I do not implore you to suspend or withhold judgment of me or my work. Neither I nor my work is that important. (One cometh, another goeth.) What concerns me is the harm you are doing to yourselves. I mean by perpetuating this talk of guilt and punishment, of banning and proscribing, of whitewashing and blackballing, of closing your eyes when convenient, of making scapegoats when there is no other way out. I ask you pointblank—does the pursuance of your limited role enable you to get the most out of life? When you write me off the books, so to speak, will you find your food and wine more palatable, will you sleep better, will you be a better man, a better husband, a better father than before? These are the things that matter—what happens to you, not what you do to me.

  I know that the man in the dock is not supposed to ask questions, he is there to answer. But I am unable to regard myself as a culprit. I am simply “out of line.” Yet I am in the tradition, so to say. A list of my precursors would make an impressive roster. This trial has been going on since the days of Prometheus. Since before that. Since the days of the Archangel Michael. In the not too distant past there was one who was given the cup of hemlock for being “the corrupter of youth.” Today he is regarded as one of the sanest, most lucid minds that ever was. We who are always being arraigned before the bar can do no better than to resort to the celebrated Socratic method. Our only answer is to return the question.

  There are so many questions one could put to the Court, to any Court. But would one get a response? Can the Court of the Land ever be put in question? I am afraid not. The judicial body is a sacrosanct body. This is unfortunate, as I see it, for when issues of grave import arise the last court of reference, in my opinion, should be the public. When justice is at stake responsibility cannot be shifted to an elect few without injustice resulting. No Court could function if it did not follow the steel rails of precedent, taboo and prejudice.

  I come back to the lengthy document representing the decision of the Oslo Town Court, to the tabulation of all the infractions of the moral code therein listed. There is something frightening as well as disheartening about such an indictment. It has a medieval aspect. And it has nothing to do with justice. Law itself is made to look ridiculous. Once again let me say that it is not the courts of Oslo or the laws and codes of Norway which I inveigh against; everywhere in the civilized world there is this mummery and flummery manifesting as the Voice of Inertia. The offender who stands before the Court is not being tried by his peers but by his dead ancestors. The moral codes, operative only if they are in conformance with natural or divine laws, are not safeguarded by these flimsy dikes; on the contrary, they are exposed as weak and ineffectual barriers.

  Finally, here is the crux of the matter. Will an adverse decision by this court or any other court effectively hinder the further circulation of this book? The history of similar cases does not substantiate such an eventuality. If anything, an unfavorable verdict will only add more fuel to the flames. Proscription only leads to resistance; the fight goes on underground, become more insidious therefore, more difficult to cope with. If only one man in Norway reads the book and believes with the author that one has the right to express himself freely, the battle is won. You cannot eliminate an idea by suppressing it, and the idea which is linked with this issue is one of freedom to read what one chooses. Freedom, in other words, to read what is bad for one as well as what is good for one—or, what is simply innocuous. How can one guard against evil, in short, if one does not know what evil is?

  But it is not something evil, not something poisonous, which this book Sexus offers the Norwegian reader. It is a dose of life which I administered to myself first, and which I not only survived but thrived on. Certainly I would not recommend it to infants, but then neither would I offer a child a bottle of aqua vite. I can say one thing for it unblushingly—compared to the atom bomb, it is full of life-giving qualities.

  Henry Miller.

  CHRONOLOGY

  CHRONOLOGY

  1891 Born in Yorkville, N. Y., December 26th of American parents (German ancestry). Transplanted to Brooklyn in first year.

  1896–

  1900 Lived in the streets: “the old neighborhood,” Williamsburg, Brooklyn, known as The 14th Ward. Influenced by first friend Stanley J. Borowski, a Pole, and by the older boys who were “models”: Lester Reardon, Johnny Paul, Eddie Carney, Johnny Dunne, et alii. Had, besides Stanley, two friends from the country in Joey and Tony Imhof of Glendale, L. I. Visited cousin Henry Baumann, whom he adored, during summer vacations in Yorkville.

  1901 Transplanted to Bushwick section of Brooklyn (Decatur Street) “the street of early sorrows.”

  1905 Met ideal image of woman in person of Miriam Painter.

  1907 Met first love, Cora Seward, at Eastern District High School, Brooklyn.

  1909 Entered City College of New York and left after two months—rebelled against educational methods. Took job with Atlas Portland Cement Company, financial district, N. Y. Began period of “athleticism” lasting about seven years: rigorous discipline. Took up with first mistress, woman old enough to be mother (Pauline Chouteau of Phoebus, Virginia).

  1912 Met with Robert Hamilton Challacombe of the Theosophical Society, Point Loma, California. Decisive event. Led to meeting with Benjamin Fay Mills, ex-evangelist.

  1913 Traveled through the West. Worked at odd jobs in endeavor to break with city life. Met Emma Goldman in San Diego: turning point in life.

  1914 Returned to New York, working with father in tailor shop; tried to turn business over to the employees. Met here first great writer, Frank Harris. Influenced by father’s cronies, all interesting and eccentric characters, mostly drunkards.

  1917 Married Beatrice Sylvas Wickens of Brooklyn, a pianist. Worked a short time in Washington with the War Department, sorting mail and reporting on the side for a Washington newspaper.

  1919 Daughter born, named Barbara Sylvas, now known as Barbara Sandford. Worked for short time with Bureau of Economic Research and with Charles W
illiam Stores as sub-editor of catalogue. Took many odd jobs after being fired here.

  1920 Became employment manager of the messenger department, Western Union Telegraph Company, N. Y., after working several months as a messenger.

  1922 Wrote first book (Clipped Wings) during three weeks’ vacation from Western Union duties. (Began March 20, 1922.) Began tremendous correspondence with Harolde O. Ross, musician, of Minnesota.

  1923 Met June Edith Smith in Broadway dance palace.

  1924 Left Western Union, determined never to take a job again, but to devote entire energy to writing. Divorced from first wife and married June Smith.

  1925 Began writing career in earnest, accompanied by great poverty. Sold prose-poems (“Mezzotints”) from door to door.

  1927 Opened speak-easy in Greenwich Village with wife June. Worked for Queen’s County Park Commissioner. Compiled notes for complete autobiographical cycle of novels in twenty-four hours. Exhibited water colors in a Greenwich Village dive.

  1928 Toured Europe for one year with June on money donated by a “victim.”

  1929 Returned to New York where the novel This Gentile World was completed.

  1930 Returned to Europe alone, taking ms. of another novel which gets lost by the editor of This Quarter (Paris), Edward Titus. Left New York with ten dollars loaned by Emil Schnellock; intended to go to Spain but after staying in London a while went to Paris and remained there. Befriended by Richard G. Osborn and Alfred Perlès; stayed with Osborn during the winter and spring of 1931–32 at Rue Auguste Bartholdi. Made friends with Ossip Zadkine, John Nichols, Frank and Paula Mechau, Bertha Schrank, Brassai, Tihanyi and Fred Kann.

  1931–

  1932 Met Anaïs Nin in Louveciennes. Began writing Tropic of Cancer while walking the streets and sleeping where possible: a day by day existence. Worked as proofreader on the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. Taught English at Lycée Carnot (Dijon) during winter.

  1933 Took apartment with Alfred Perlès in Clichy and visited Luxembourg with him. The Black Spring period: great fertility, great joy. Began book on Lawrence. Saw June for the last time.

  1934 Entered Villa Seurat (No. 18) same day Tropic of Cancer came out: a decisive moment. Original ms. three times size of published book; rewritten three times. Frequent bouts with Lowenfels and Fraenkel on the death theme. Met Blaise Cendrars. Visited New York from December 1934 to March 1935. Divorced from June in Mexico City by proxy.

  1935 Aller Retour New York published in October. Met Conrad Moricand, the astrologer. Began the Hamlet correspondence in November. 1st edition of Alf Letter appeared in September.

  1936 Visited New York for the second time—January to April. Practiced psychoanalysis. Began correspondence with Keyserling after reading Travel Diary. Black Spring published in June.

  1937 Met Lawrence Durrell. Scenario published with illustration by Abe Rattner. Began publication of The Booster and Delta with Alfred Perlès. Went to London during the winter for a few weeks to visit Perlès. Met W. T. Symons, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and E. Graham Howe.

  1938 Began writing for Volontés in January, the publication month of Money and How It Gets That Way. Second edition of Alf appeared in June; Max and the White Phagocytes published in September. Went to Bordeaux, Lourdes, Marseilles (Munich Crisis) intending to go to Italy.

  1939 Tropic of Capricorn published in February. Georges Pelorson’s Volontés ceased publication in May with thirteen articles by H. M. Left Villa Seurat in June for sabbatical year’s vacation. End of a very important period: close association with Anaïs Nin, Alfred Perlès, Michael Fraenkel, Walter Lowenfels, Betty Ryan, Hans Reichel, Hilaire Hiler, Abe Rattner, David Edgar, Conrad Moricand, Georges Pelorson, Raymond Queneau, Roger Klein, Henri Fluchère, Radmila Djouckic, et alii. Toured south of France. Made pilgrimage to Giono’s home with Henri Fluchère. Last reunion with French friends in Marseilles. Left this port for Athens on July 14, arriving at Durrell’s home in Corfu, Greece, in August. Back and forth to Athens several times, visited some of the islands, toured the Peloponnesus. High water mark in life’s adventures thus far. Met George C. Katsimbalis (the Colossus); George Seferiades, the poet; Ghika, the painter, et alii. Found real home, real climate. Source of regular income stopped with death of Paris publisher (Jack Kahane, the Obelisk Press) the day after war was declared.

  1940 Returned to New York in January and visited friends in the South. Stayed with John and Flo Dudley at Caresse Crosby’s home in Bowling Green, Va. during summer. Met Sherwood Anderson and John Dos Passos. Wrote The Colossus of Maroussi, The World of Sex, Quiet Days in Clichy and began The Rosy Crucifixion.

  1941 Met Dane Rudhyar in New York. Made tour of U. S. A. accompanied part of the way by Abraham Rattner, the painter, from October 20, 1940 until October 9, 1941. Met Dr. Marion Souchon, Weeks Hall, Swami Prabhavananda, Alfred Stieglitz, Fernand Léger and John Marin. Father died while in Mississippi. Returned to New York. Left for California in June 1942. Continued with The Rosy Crucifixion (finished half of it) and with The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (finished about two-thirds).

  1942 Offered home with Margaret and Gilbert Neiman at Beverly Glen, Los Angeles, where I remained until 1944. Wrote numerous essays, reviews and began correspondence with Claude Houghton. Daily correspondence excessive and burdensome.

  1943 Made two to three hundred water colors. Exhibited at Beverly Glen (The Green House), American Contemporary Gallery, Hollywood, with success. Met Jean Varda, the Greek painter, and Geraldine Fitzgerald, the movie actress; also Renée Nell, psychoanalyst. Began correspondence with Wallace Fowlie; began voluminous correspondence with Eva Sikelianou regarding her husband’s (Anghelos) work.

  1944 Stayed a few weeks with Jean Varda at Monterey; house guest of Lynda Sargent at Big Sur; offered home on Partington Ridge by Lt. Keith B. Evans, ex-mayor of Carmel. Exhibited water colors at Santa Barbara Museum of Art and in London. Seventeen or more titles edited for publication in England and America. Overwhelmed with gifts by friends and strangers. Year of fulfillment and realization. First “successful” year, from material standpoint, in whole life. Emil White arrives in May from the Yukon to offer his services. June Lancaster arrives in June from New York to stay a few months. Made acquaintance of Jean Page Wharton. Called to Brooklyn in October by the illness of mother. Toured colleges in the East and exhibited at Yale. Married Janina M. Lepska in Denver, Colorado, December 18, 1944.

  1945 Returned to California in February 1945. Finished Sexus at Keith Evans’ cabin, Partington Ridge. Started translation of Season in Hell. Daughter Valentine born November 19th. Bezalel Schatz, Israeli painter, arrived December 26th (my birthday).

  1946 Moved to shack at Anderson Creek in January; shack built and occupied formerly by convict laborers during construction of Coast Highway. Began work on Into the Night Life book with Schatz. Unable to translate Saison; began book about Rimbaud: The Time of the Assassins. Between times frequent trips to Berkeley and San Francisco to raise money for Night Life book. Met George Leite, Norman Mini, Walker Winslow, Bufano and Bufano’s friend, Leon Shamroy, who bought over thirty water colors. Received news from Paris that forty thousand dollars had accumulated to my credit. Jean Wharton offered us her home on Partington Ridge, to pay for whenever we could. Received visits from boyhood friends, William Dewar and Emil Schnellock. Last time I was to see latter.

  1947 Took possession of Wharton’s house on Ridge in February. More trips to San Francisco to raise money. Began writing Plexus. Conrad Moricand arrived end of December from Switzerland.

  1948 Moricand left in March. Visit from Père Bruckberger of France and first of many from Raoul Bertrand, French Consul. Visits from Stephen Spender and Cartier-Bresson. Wrote The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder for Fernand Léger. Son Tony born August 28th. Gerhardt Muench, German pianist and composer, arrived in Big Sur to stay a few years.

  1949 Finished Plexus. Visit from Eileen Garrett and from Laurence Planck, ex-Unitarian minister. Began writing The Books in My Life.


  1950 Met Albert Maillet of Vienne, France, in Berkeley. Schatz left for Jerusalem.

  1951 Separation from wife Lepska; children go to live with her in Los Angeles. Finished Books in My Life.

  1952 Eve McClure arrived April 1st. Began writing Nexus. Divorced from Janina Lepska. Left for tour of Europe with Eve December 29th. Arrived in Paris New Year’s Eve.

  1953 Big year; best since Clichy. Invited to stay at home of Maurice Nadeau, former editor of Combat and chief organizer of the “Defense of Henry Miller.” Tremendous reception chez Correa, Paris publisher. Short stay at home of Edmund Buchet in Le Vesinet, then off to Monte Carlo for several weeks. While there visited Albert Paraz, writer, in Vence. Received invitation from Michel Simon, French actor, whom I had met only briefly at Correa reception, to make use of his house in La Ciotât. Remained there one month, then went to stay at home of Albert Maillet in Vienne. Visit to Geneva and Lausanne with Maillet and his wife; met Albert Mermoud at La Guilde du Livre in Lausanne. While at Vienne met Fernand Rude, Sous-prefet and Dr. Louis Paul Couchoud, once physician and secretary-companion of Anatole France. Schatz and his wife arrived from Jerusalem to stay with us until we left for America. Back to Paris, then to Brussels to stay two weeks with Pierre Lesdain; met his brother, Maurice Lambilliotte, who took us to Ghent and Bruges. Returned to Paris, then to Perigueux to visit Dr. De Fontbrune, author of Nostradamus books; then to Les Eyzies and Lascaux. From Les Eyzies went to Albi for ten days with Schatzes. Then to Montpellier to stay with Joseph Delteil, French writer. Made acquaintance of Frederic Temple. Met Denise Bellon and husband who lent us car to go to Spain. Left in two cars for Spain; with Delteils, Schatzes and Denise Bellon. In Barcelona had reunion with Perlès whom I hadn’t seen since London, 1937. Visited Granada, Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia and other cities, returning to France by way of Andorra. From Paris we went with Maurice Nadeau and family visiting the Château country. Visited Rabelais’ house outside Chinon. Back to Paris, then to Wells, England, to see Perlès and wife. Took in Shakespeare’s house at Stratford-on-Avon, with Schatzes. Flying visit to John Cowper Powys in Corwyn, Wales. Back to Paris. Visited Vlaminck with the Buchets at his home in Normandy. While in Paris reunions with old friends—Georges Belmont (formerly Pelorson, editor of review Volontés), Hans Reichel, Brassai, Man Ray, Zadkine, Michonze, Mayo, Max Ernst, Eugene Pachoutinsky. Met Carlo Suarès, Gerald Robitaille and Vincent Birge. Returned to Big Sur end of August. Laurence Planck arrived and stayed several weeks. Married Eve McClure in Carmel Highlands, chez Ephraim Doner, December 29th.