The Books in My Life

Henry Miller

The Books in My Life

Henry Miller

Alpha Editions

This edition published in 2020

ISBN : 9789354032035

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As per information held with us this book is in Public Domain. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Alpha Editions uses the best technology to reproduce historical work in the same manner it was first published to preserve its original nature. Any marks or number seen are left intentionally to preserve its true form.

HENRY MILLER

THE BOOKS IN

A

MY

LIFE

NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK

4

Pts)

1123460 All rights reserved

New

Directions

Books at

NEW YORK '

OFFICE

are published

Norfolk,

—333

by James Laughliti

Connecticut

SIXTH AVENUE,

NEW YORK

Printed in the Republic of Ireland

1

TO

LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL (Librarian of the University of California at Los Angeles)

L

This

is

the

first

of a several-volume work. Included in the

second volume will be a recall

list

of

all

the books

Henry Miller can

having read. There will also be an index of

references in

Henry

Miller's works.

all literary

CONTENTS pages

Preface I.

II

They were Alive and They Spoke TO

Me

22

3.

Early Reading

3.

Blaise Cendrars

58

4.

Rider Haggard

81

5.

Jean Giono

6.

Influences

7.

Living

40

100 121

Books

127

My

8.

The Days of

9.

Krishnamurti

147

10.

The Plains of Abraham

160

II.

The Story of

12.

Letter to Pierre Lesdain

196

13.

Reading in the Toilet

264

14.

The Theatre

287

My

140

Life

172

Heart

Appendix

The Hundred Books Books Friends

I

Still Intend

Who

317

to Read

Supplied

Me

with Books

320 321

LIST OF Henry Miller

in

ms

ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiea

Studio facing

Blaise Cendrars

page

6i

The Xerxes Socibty

126

The Miller Family

288

QUOTATIONS FROM WRITERS **

All

have written

I

now

appears to

me

much

as so

(Thomas Aquinas on

"When no longer

when

All

is

—he has always the resource

marvellous for the poet, ;

the faney

thoughts are no longer apprehended, and

all is

to live.**

Waldo

(Ralph

great for the hero

straw."

deathbed.)

when

the artist has exhausted his materials, paints,

books are a weariness

**

his

Emerson.)

divine for the saint,

all is

all is

wretched, miserable, ugly and bad for the

base and sordid souL"

(Amiel.)

" Probably, even in our time, an

knew

that anything short

with or without

trial

might find

artist

work

considerably stimulated and his

powerfiilly

his

imagination

improved

if

he

of his best would bring him to the gallows,

by jury ..." (Henry Adams.)

"

me

Apr^

avoir pris

un an de vacances

un peu voyager en

marier,

Angleterre, Belgique, soigner

mes yeux,

d^m^nager,

me

h^las

Petit k petit je vais

!

.

.

.

r^installer

^ Paris—je

comme

— 15

(15 sept. '49

Suisse,

faire trois

me

suis

mois de radio,

remis au travail,

m*enfoncer dans cet univers qui

une goutte d'eau des myriades dc

contient tous

les autres

microbes,

goutte d'encre qui coule de la plume

la

extraordinaire croire

.

.

.

"

et je

n

sept. '50),

Luxembourg, HoUande,

arrive pas k

m*y

.

habituer ni

.

.

.

.

C*est .

^

!

(Blaise

Cendrars

in a letter dated Sept. 16, 1950.)

y

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To

the World Review^ London, for permission to reprint the

chapter

on

Blaise Cendrars

;

New York,

to Survival,

for the chapter

on Rider Haggard. Grateful acknowledgment is herewith made to the following publishers and

individuals for their kind permission to quote

from the following

works: Blackie

&

Son

Ltd., for Life

of G. A. Henty by G. Melville Fenn.

Borden Publishing Co., for The

History of Magic

Coward-McCann,

of Destiny by Jean Giono.

C.

Inc., for Hill

W. Daniel Co., Ltd., for

The Absolute

James Ladd Delkin for Zen by Alan

Doubleday Druid

&

and

The Obstinate Cytnric by

Levi.

by Erich Gudcind.

Watts.

Co., Inc., for The Story of My Life

Press for

E. P. Dutton

Collective

W.

by EHphas

J.

by Helen

Keller.

C. Powys.

& Co., Inc., for Cosmic Conscioustiess by R. M. Bunche

Magicians, Seers and Mystics

by Maurice Magre.

Editions Bernard Grasset for Moravagine

by

Blaise Cendrars.

Falcon Press for Babu of Montpamasse by C. L. PhiHppe. Harcourt, Brace

& Co.,

Inc., for

In Search of the Miraadous

by

P.

D.

Ouspensky.

Hermann Hesse for his article which appeared in Horizon, Houghton

Mifflin Co.,

Michel and Chartres

Henry Holt

&

&

Constable

Sept., 1946.

Co., Ltd., for Mont Saint

by Henry Adams.

& Co., Inc., for Nature and Man by Paul Weiss.

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for Men of Good Will by Jules Romain. John Lane The Bodley Head for Autobiography by J. C. Powys. Frieda Lawrence

for

Studies

in

Classic

American

Literature,

and

Apocalypse—hotk by D. H. Lawrence.

Le Cercle

Du

Livre for Krishnamurti

by Carlo Suar^.

Les J^tions Denoel for Le Lotissement du Ciel and Bourlinguer--

both by Blaise Cendrars. Litde,

Brown

&

Longmans, Green

Co., for Schliemann

by Emil Ludwig.

& Co., Ltd., and A.

P.

of My Life by H. Rider Haggard.

Watt

& Son for

The Days

The Macmillan

Co., for Dostoievsky

W. W.

&

J.

Norton

by Edith Hamilton. C. Powys for his book

Random House and for Anna

by Janko

Lavrin.

Co., Inc., for The Great Age of Greek Literature

for

Visions and Revisions.

Deems

Christie

Taylor's introduction to Peter Ibbetson

by Eugene

Routledge and Kegan Paul

O'Neill.

Ltd., for Politics of the

Unpolitical

by

Herbert Read.

Sylvan Press Ltd., for From Puskin toMayakovsky by Janko Lavrin.

W.

T. Symonds for an

The Viking

article

by Erich Gutkind

Press Inc., for Joy of Mans Desiring

by Jean Giono, and

in Purpose, 1947.

and Blue

Boy—both

the Portable Sherwood Anderson.

CREDIT FOR PHOTOS 1.

Henry Miller

2. Blaise

in Studio,

Cendrars

(1950)

Big Sur (1950) by Flair, New York. by Robert Doisneau, Montrouge,

France. 3.

Xerxes Society.

4.

Miller Family

1902-03).

Portrait

by Pach

Bros.,

New York

(circa

—

PREFACE The purpose of

this

book, which will run to several volumes in

the course of the next It deals

life.

study nor does

One of the

Appendix the

of

this

less

my own

not a

It is

and

less,

—for that

—

to

my

critical

a

not more and more.

good.

the " well-educated

Only one out of But even

As

the

a glance at the

much as " man

hundred times more than

of " books."

what

is

the confirmed belief that one

is

the scholar,

—yet

small

Scarcely any one lives wisely or

fiilly.

have

I

should have read

I

five in America,

this

are readers

of

to round out the story

will reveal, I have not read nearly as

bookworm, or even

much.

is

self-examination

book amounts

undoubtedly read for

years,

as vital experience.

contain a program for self-education.

it

results

writing of this

should read

few

with books

it is said,

number read

far too

There have been and always will be books which are truly revolutionary fiir

—that

is

to say, inspired and inspiring.

One

between, of course.

a Ufetime.

is

They

few and

are

lucky to run across a handfiil in

Moreover, these are not the books which invade the

general pubHc.

men of lesser

They, are

talent

thei

hidden reservoirs which feed the

who know how

to appeal to the

man

in the

The vast body of Hterature, in every domain, is composed of hand-me-down ideas. The question ^never resolved, alas is to what extent it would be efficacious to curtail the overwhelming

street.

—

supply of cheap fodder.

One

thing

!

If it

be knowledge or wisdom one

certain today

is

among

are definitely not the least inteUigctit i

!

—the

illiterate

us.

seeking, then

one had

better

.

not the scholar or philo-

j

sopher, not the master, saint, or teacher, but Ufe itself—direct

!

go

direct to the source.

experience of dispense with

be

life. **

sure, another

mind

the sort

.

And

The same

the masters.**

is

the source

is

is

true for

When

I

kind of hfe than that

art.

say

Here, too,

life I

we know

today.

which D. H. Lawrence speaks of in

* Published by Martin Seeker, London, 1932.

we

can

have in mind, to I

have in

Etruscan Places.*

See page? 88-93.

II

\

PREFACE Or

Henry Adams speaks of when the Virgin reigned supreme

that

at Chartres.

In

tliis

which beHeves

age,

that there

the greatest lesson to be learned in the long run, the easiest.

seems so terribly

which

it

vital

and

is

All that

way

difficult

is,

that

all

but an iota of that from

is

within everyone's power to tap.

is

it

most

forth in books,

is set

significant,

stems and which

a short cut to everything,

that the

is

Our whole theory of education is based on the absurd notion that we must learn to swim on land before tackling the water. It applies of the

to the pursuit

Men

are

arts as

well as to the pursuit of knowledge.

being taught to create by studying other men's works

still

or by making plans and sketches never intended to materialize. The ait of writing is taught in the classroom instead of in the thick

of

hfe.

to

fit all

Students are

being handed models which are supposed

still

temperaments,

No

kinds of intelligence.

all

wonder we

produce better engineers than writers, better industrial experts than painters.

My encounters with books I regard very much as my encounters with other phenomena of Hfe or thought. not

figurate,

are as

for

much

being.

If

beheve

status

se.

They

category.

I

a part of Ufe as trees, stars or dung.

them per

Nor do are

I

Uke other men, no

defend them

I

that, in

now

our society

as

have no reverence

better,

—

—

as a class

^it

To

see

myself

of the jungle

I

was never to

live in the

it is

itself is

—

^it

Hke watching a

pas loin," said Napoleon, principal

was to get

enough of a jungle

help, a guide, in fighting

especially,

But,

you

man

sure, living in the heart

not necessary to

instructive one, to say the least.

The

is

To be

learned a few things about the jungle.

firm conviction that

of books. Life

once was

a jungle.

jungle

because

as scapegoats.

as the reader I

way through

is

they have never achieved the

and the consideration they merit. The great ones,

fighting his

They

no worse.

any other order of human

and then

at least,

have almost always been treated

12

I

put authors in any special, privileged

powers given them, just

exploit the

All encounters are con-

In this sense, and in this sense only, books

isolate.

clear

first

!

my

aim

It is

my

inhabit this jungle

—a very ask,

But

of it

may

real

and a very

not books be a

our way through the wilderness ? " N'ira " celui qui sait d'avance ou il veut aller.**

aim underlying

this

work

is

to render

homage

PREFACE where homage

which

due, a task

is

Were

of accompHshment.

I

to

do

know beforehand

I it

properly,

I

is

impossible

would have

to get

down on my knees and thank each blade of grass for rearing its head. What chiefly motivates me in this vain task is the fact that in general we know all too little about the influences which shape The

a writer's Hfe and work.

critic,

author,

however

The

disguises the picture.

of things, only deepens the an exception to the

and disguising the

however, has been I

am on

truth,

work

rule.

facts

—

—

may

he

truthful

if

pompous

in his

beyond

arrogance, distorts the true picture

psychologist, with his single-track

As author,

blur. I,

too,

am

"

facts

" there be.

I

perhaps to a fault

throwing out fresh

altering, distorting

My conscious

opposite direction.

on

the side of beauty,

data, to

I

the books, or even

all

have read in the course of my

(for

me) of

To

be judged and analyzed,

I

know of no

recall

Perhaps is

not

ever reading gives

my

that.

cannot

I

I

do intend

to

go on writing

domain of reaUty.

this

can

Naturally

have exhausted the importance

I

have undertaken the thankless task of

I

In this

perfection.

the significant ones, which

all

But

life.

about books and authors until

eflbrt,

—in the

or accepted and enjoyed for enjoyment's sake.

write about

view

do not think myself

of

guilty

the side of revelation, if not always

am

The

think himself to be, inevitably

wisdom, harmony and ever-evolving I

conceit and

recognition.

all

author

who

me

has been

Those

mad enough

more confusion

Hst will give rise to

who know how

to read a

books

listing all the

extreme pleasure and

satisfaction.

to attempt this.^

—but

its

purpose

man know how

to read

For these the Hst will speak for itself In writing of the " amoraUsme " of Goethe, Jules de Gaultier,

his

books.

quoting Goethe,

I

beUeve, says

etre productrice et cr^er

At the core of

this

book

nostalgia for the past case,

nor

is it

"La

:

vraie nostalgic doit toujours

une nouvelle chose qui there

itself,

as

is

may sometimes

a nostalgia for the irretrievable

moments Uved

to the fullest.

soit meilleure."

a genuine nostalgia.

it is

;

It is

not a

appear to be the a nostalgia for

These moments occurred sometimes

through contact with books, sometimes through contact with

men and women I have dubbed nostalgia for the

with

whom

**

Uving books." Sometimes

companionship of those boys

one of the strongest bonds

I

I

it is

a

grew up with and

had was

—books.

(Yet 13

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

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