Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company: A Henry Miller Blog

Miller in Hydra, 1939

2008-07-03T21:07:00.008-04:00

"Hydra is almost a bare rock of an island and its population, made up almost exclusively of seamen, is rapidly dwindling. The town, which clusters about the harbor in the form of an amphitheatre, is immaculate. There are only two colors, blue and white, and the white is whitewashed every day, down to the cobblestones in the street. The houses are even more cubistically arranged than at Poros. Aesthetically it is perfect, the very epitome of that flawless anarchy which supersedes, because it includes and goes beyond, all the formal arrangments of the imagination. This purity, this wild and naked perfection of Hydra, is in great part due to the spirit of the men who once dominated the island."

--- Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi, p. 55

The passage above, from The Colossus of Maroussi, continues in this same vein for a couple more pages. Hydra makes a strong impression on Miller, as does most of Greece during his prolonged visit in 1939. He leaves Greece due only to the tension of the looming world war, when he is forced out and back to America.

Posted today on the photo blog website Ellopos.org, is the photograph of Henry Miller at Hydra , as seen below.

This photo was taken in 1939, and is credited to George Seferis. Seferis (whose real last name is Seferiades) went to Hydra in the Fall of 1939, along with Miller and George Katsimbalis, who were off to visit the painter Ghika at his ancestral home. Miller writes about this visit over the course of several pages of Maroussi, beginning on p. 52.

"Hydra was entered as a pause in the musical score of creation by an expert calligrapher."

Henry Miller Memorial Library Fire Threat

2008-06-29T18:45:00.009-04:00

“We are experiencing a severe wildfire.”

These words were posted on the front page of the website for the Henry Miller Memorial Library this week. Lightening and dry, windy conditions are being blamed for wildfires that have been fanning out across seven counties in California including Monterey, where Big Sur and the Library are located.

Some encouraging news was posted on the website at 5 PM on Thursday, June 26th: “A lot of fire suppression efforts, using ground crews and helicopter support, has brought the fire under control and left the Library itself unhurt. Crews are still on location monitoring potential flare-ups. It feels good.”

Lisa Kreiger of San Jose's Mercury News reported on June 27th that the flames had “reached the edge of the library, but were beaten back.” She also reported that the local Post Ranch Inn offered use of its “underground concrete storage unit” for safe keeping of the irreplaceable Miller documents and painting that it has in its possession.

A still from video taken by The Mercury News, which may be viewed on-line.

A benefit for the HMM Library, presented by comedian Rob Schneider, was postponed this weekend due to the fire.

On June 28th, the National Interagency Coordination Center reported that “33 large fires” were continuing to burn in California, while the L.A. Times said that the total fires numbered around 1,000. By Saturday night, wrote the Times, the threatening fires around the Basin near Big Sur grew by 3,062 acres and “was only 3% contained.” President Bush declared that a region of the western U.S., in which the HM Memorial Library is located, is now a national disaster area. But the San Francisco Chronicle assures us that the HMM Library is okay: “To the south, firefighters were steering the Big Sur fire away from populated areas and parallel to the coast. The famed Henry Miller library and several other businesses and dwellings appear to have escaped the fire, which has destroyed 16 homes.”

By 8:30 PM on Saturday, the HMM Library remained closed to the public, while most business in Big Sur were already re-opening (ref). But, today (Sunday the 29th), the HMM Library website has updated their message to assure everyone that “the library is OK.”

Helicopters quelling fire around the Library (source: "Stan"/KUSP website)

Contrary to some erroneous reporting in the media, the Henry Miller Memorial Library was never actually Miller’s home, although he did live nearby for 18 years. He lived on Partington Ridge for most of his time in Big Sur. On a website created to provide community updates on the blaze (SurFire2008.org), Karuna Licht reported around dinner time on Saturday that “The path of the fire hit Partington Ridge and is still burning. This was Henry Miller’s perch, the place where he wrote Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.” Magnus Torén—director of the HMM Library—reports on the HMM Library MySpace page that “Partington Ridge is not yet safe, there remains a threat from the canyon below. Thanks to the very cool weather on the coast the fire moves very slowly – everyone is praying for continued cool weather so that 'mop up' ‘burn out’ and ‘back burn’ operations can continue.”

Also on that page, Magnus gives us reason to be optimistic: “I believe it is safe to say that the Library is saved. The canyon behind has burned almost to the back deck. on the hillsides on both sides the fire has in some places burned all the way down to the library grounds, less than 40 feet away from the building. We were down there last night around midnight, met with the fire crew stationed there for monitoring the remaining burning embers, had a chat, then left feeling confident that the Library would remain safe. The firefighters, and a helicopter shuttle going up and down from the ocean, saved the Library.”

Good luck out there.

To view a live webcam of the smoke rising above Big Sur, from the vantage point of Nepenthe, visit the website for the Nepenthe Restaurant.

See video reports of the efforts to save the Library at Associated Press (YouTube copy archived here).

For updated reports on the fire, visit Surfire2008.org, Xasauantoday.wordpress.com, KUSP.org, KSBW.com, and the U.S. Forest Service press releases.

Above left: Firefighter at the Library (c) Patrick Tehan/Mercury News).

on the move ..... (delay)

2008-06-05T21:58:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the recent slow output and for yet another interruption. I am moving, which means a few busy days, and some tranasition time to get my internet back up. Maybe 7-10 days.

In the meantime, feel free to use the comments section of this posting to report any recent Miller discoveries, make suggestions for posts, plan an international Henry Miller meet-up in New York, or whatever.

Also accepting erotic musing and literate passion from any Junes, Anaises or Madamoiselle Claudes.

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Le Sel de la Semaine, Montreal, 1969

2008-05-31T09:58:00.008-04:00

Le Sel de la Semaine ("salt of the week") was a TV program on the French service of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), called Television de Radio-Canada. The program aired 95 episodes [ref.] from 1965-1970, and followed a simple format: distinguished guests were interviewed by biochemist-turned-TV-host, Fernand Seguin. Henry Miller was one such distinguished guest in 1969.

In a letter to his wife Hoki, dated June 6, 1969, Henry wrote that he was leaving his home in California on June 24th or 25th, and would be in Montreal, then London, then in Paris by July 1st for the filming of Tropic Of Cancer [1]. The Montreal plans appear to have been postponed, as a letter to Lawrence Durrell locates him in Montreal on September 3, 1969 (he had just seen the film adaptation of Durrell's Justine) [2].

Montreal was the headquarters for Radio-Canada; I'm guessing that the Sel del la Semaine interview was his reason for visiting. The episode was produced by Pierre Castonguay and hosted, as always, by Fernand Seguin. 77-year old Henry conducted the entire interview in French, with only the occassional call for a translation lifeline. This interview had been available for sale through Radio-Canada, but seems currently unavailable. However, the entire episode has been posted on-line at YouTube. I've embedded Part 1 below.

SUMMARY OF PART ONE

Please note that my French skills are adequate enough that I can translate Henry's interview and provide this summary, but should not be depended upon for accuracy. If you need to quote something, I suggest you find the timecode and translate his words yourself.

[1:05] Host Fernand Seguin [at left] opens by asking, "Why did you leave America, and why did you return?" Henry states that it was impossible for him to live there, where he felt despair and without hope. But Spain was actually his original destination (although he wouldn't see that country for another 20 years). He refers to June as "Mona, in the books," and credits her with inspiring him to leave: "It was a day in February. It was snowing. I was sad. As I stood in front of a window, she said, 'Why don't you go to Europe? I said, 'Great, but how?' She said, 'I'll find the means.' I was surprised, but said, 'If you find it, I'll go.' She gave me enough for boat passage ..."

[2:30] Henry says that he returned to America because of the war. The American Consulate would not let him go anywhere but his native land. "I asked, why not let me go to Buenos Aires or Brazil." He didn't want to return to America. But they voided his passport [Henry makes X strokes with his hand] and that's how he came to return.

[3:05] Henry mentions that he doesn't decide things; he leaves that up to fate or destiny; when the right moment presents itself, he acts.

[3:55] Henry discusses his feelings about America (i.e. he sees its lifestyle as destructive), but admits that he's content enough at present time to not be preoccupied by it. He's well-situated, likes his home, plays ping-pong, has a chauffeur. "I don't live in 'America' in my life. I live in my house with a few visiting freinds and that satisfies me." [5:35] "I've made peace with my compatriots."

[5:15] Henry: "It's difficult for me to make decisions"

[6:08] Henry mentions the pgymies as an example of a society that has been living a simple, contented life for thousands of years: why change?

[7:00] Henry describes himself as a wannabe writer as a young man: "I had very strong doubts about my own abilities. I had no confidence, as a writer or a genius [thinker?] or whatever. I dreamed throughout my youth about becoming a writer, but maybe I placed the life or spirit of The Writer too high. That's why I was always below. Also, I didn't exhibit a great talent as young man. I tried two, three times to write, but it didn't go well. So I said, 'See, I'm not a writer.'"

[8:00] Henry describes the Paris effect: "It was another world, one of culture, you could say. A world with a sensuality too. In all ways, it was another face for me. It stiumulated me, inspired me."

[8:40] Henry: "I had already written three books [by the time I arrived in Paris], and I'm glad these books haven't been published. But in Paris I discovered my proper voice." He also mentions that he had been close to suicide.

[9:37] Henry explains that he managed to survive in Paris through the charity of others. "I asked like a beggar" ... "I asked for aid, and I gave aid ... I don't agree with Shakespeare when he said, 'Neither a lender nor a borrower be.' I think you need to be both."

You can view the remaining five parts of this 60-minute interview on YouTube. I may translate these remaining parts when I get a chance.

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[1] Howard, Joyce (ed.) 1986. Letters by Henry Millert to Hoki Tokuda Miller. New York: Freundlich Books; p. 151; [2] MacNiven, Ian S. (ed.). 1989. The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. London: Faber & Faber, p. 434.

Miller And The Matisses

2008-05-24T13:28:00.011-04:00

“He is a bright sage, a dancing seer who, with a sweep of the brush, removes the ugly scaffold to which the body of man is chained by the incontrovertible facts of life.”
----- Henry Miller on Henri Matisse, Tropic Of Cancer, p. 164

My interest in this subject began with an on-line anecdote about Henry from the granddaughter of the famed French painter, Henri Matisse. My research on this minor footnote soon led to connections between Henry and Henri Matisse, as well as his son, Pierre. These may seem like trivial points individually, but, stacked together, they establish an intellectual and casual personal relationship with a great family of the arts.

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HENRI MATISSE

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a celebrated French painter, noted for his brilliant use of colour. Upon his death in 1954, Andre Berthoin (French Minister of National Education) described Matisse this way: "His was the most French of palettes. Intelligence, reason and the alliance of a sense of finesse and of simplifying geometry gave to all he painted the rare virtue of being truly French" [1].

Although Henri Matisse appears as a passing reference in Miller’s Crazy Cock (which he’d begun in 1927), the true impact of the painter’s work on Miller becomes obvious in Henry’s writings of 1931. In the long-unpublished The New Instinctivism—which was written by early summer, 1931 [2] — Miller gives over a page of high praise for Matisse, of whom he states “touches me profoundly.” “Matisse is the sum of modern painting. Matisse is the epiphenomenona of the new phenomenology. Matisse is the wobbly axis which gives core to the revolutions in plastic, the hub of the wheel which is falling apart, which will keep rolling when all that has gone to make up the wheel has disintegrated.” He doesn’t see beauty in the women Matisse paints, but instead sees “women of the boulevards.”

In June or July 1931, Henry went to the Galerie Georges Petit at 8, rue de Seze to see a Matisse exhibit that included “Reclinging Nude” (c.1925). The exhibit ran from June 16 – July 25, 1931 [3]. In August, Henry began writing Tropic Of Cancer, which would eventually include a lengthy reference to his 1931 visit to the Matisse exhibit. Much of the reverent language used in this passage has been clearly re-crafted from his New Instinctivism draft. “On the threshold of that big hall whose walls are now ablaze, I pause a moment to recover from the shock which one experiences when the habitual gray of the world is rent asunder and the color of life splashes forth in song and poem” (p. 162); “He it is, if any man today possesses the gift, who knows where to dissolve the human figure, who has the courage to sacrifice an harmonious line in order to detect the rhythm and murmur of the blood, who takes the light that has been refracted inside him and lets it flood the keyboard of color” (p. 164) [4]. (see Raoul Ibarguen’s critique of this passage in Narrative Detours).

Henri Matisse (left) at the 1931 Galerie Geroges Petit exhibit in Paris, which Miller attended. (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; this is cropped from the larger original found here).

With this level of enthusiasm, it’s not surprising that an early edition of Tropic Of Cancer—a Czech translation published in 1938—should feature an image of a naked woman “specially drawn” by Matisse (at left) [5]. According to Ferguson’s Henry Miller: A Life, Miller eventually met Matisse and got into an argument with him about the work of Miró, which Miller thought was intellectual, but Matisse found was the work of a “peasant” (p. 241).

Henri Matisse would continue to be casually referenced in Miller’s later works, as an example of an accomplished artist (often in lists of names like Picasso and Proust).

PIERRE MATISSE

Henri Matisse’s son Pierre Matisse (1900-1989) did not become a painter like his father, but instead took a different angle on the family legacy and became an art dealer. In 1931, he opened the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City, which remained operative until his death in 1989.

In 1936, Henry had befriended Pierre Matisse, although I can’t say anything about the origin or nature of this relationship at that time. They were friendly enough that Pierre shipped a copy of Black Spring to James Laughlin on Henry’s behalf, then wrote to tell him he’d done so [6].

In 1947, Henry published a limited run of Into The Nightlife, which showcased the artwork of Bezalel Schatz. Henry’s ledger book shows that Pierre bought a copy (as referenced in the PBA Gallery archive—see item 33). Late in 1958, Miller needed money and sought to sell some Fernand Léger artwork that he had acquired for The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder. Pierre Matisse bought them for $3500. Henry was happy about the sale, writing to Matisse that “there is indeed a Santa Claus!” In a letter to Bob MacGregor, Henry described Matisse as “a brick” who could be counted on for a favour [7].

ALEXINA SATTLER

Finally we come to the anecdote about the daughter-in-law of Henri Matisse, whose birth name was Alexina Sattler. The brief reference is made by Alexina’s daughter, Jacquline Matisse Monnier on the website for the Tate Museum, and in relation to artist Marcel Duchamp:

“There was something about Marcel Duchamp that people found attractive. My mother thought he had a charismatic allure. She told me a story that at one point Henry Miller had a crush on her, but he was rather vulgar and had no grace in what he was proposing, whereas Marcel just knew how to say and do things. He had a very light touch.”

Yes, this is the minor, paltry piece of gossip that inspired this entire post. I soon found myself on a personal mission to flesh it out with something more substantial. Let me say this: there is no more, other than the context and conjecture I’ll attempt to bring to it.

Alexina Sattler (1906-1995) entered into the Matisse family through her marriage to Pierre Matisse [8]. The American-born artist—nicknamed “teeny” because of her petite stature—went to Paris in 1921 to pursue her artistic vocation. She married Pierre in 1929. In 1939, Pierre went into service for WWII; in his absence, Alexina took over duty at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. She divorced Pierre in 1949, and later married Marcel Duchamp in 1954, although she had originally met him in 1923.

At right: A illustrated portrai of Alexina made by Henri Matisse in 1938. (Source: Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art)

Henry did not arrive in Paris for his extended stay until March 1930, at which time Alexina was newly married as Alexina Matisse. The Matisses then opened Pierre’s gallery in New York in 1931.That leaves a window of opportunity for Henry meeting Alexina in 1930-31. Henry was familiar with NY-based Pierre in 1936, so possibly they’d all met during one of Pierre’s return visits to Paris in the 30s. Alexina was unmarried from 1949 to 1953, but Henry was in Big Sur most of that time, and married to two different women in that period. As well, I don’t have any impression that he really knew Alexina outside of her relation to Pierre. Bottom line: if this anecdote is accurate, then Henry seems to have made a crude proposition to a married woman, whether she was Alexina Matisse or Alexina Duchamp.

Henry, you dawg.

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REFERENCES

[1] NYTimes.com (New York Times). 1954. On This Day. “Obituary-Art World Mourns Henri Matisse, Dead at Home in Nice at Age of 84:” November 4, 1954. LINK; [2] The New Instinctivism was published only recently in Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, Vol. 4. Matisse refs on pages 22-24. With acknowledgement to Karl Orend who had previously explored the Henri Matisse connection in footnote 107 of this published Instinctivism essay; [3] I found the dates for this exhibition in several on-line sources, including a reference to a 1931 commemorative book from the exhibit. See listing at Antiqbook; [4] Miller, Henry. 1987 [1934]. Tropic Of Cancer. NY: Grove Press; [5] Ferguson, Robert. 1991. Henry Miller: A Life. NY: WW Norton, p. 346. I’ve found no other references to this be specially drawn, or simply acquired-- Ferguson does not list his source; [6] Wickes, George, ed. 1996. Henry Miller And James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: Norton, p. 7; [7] Wickes, George, ed. 1996. Henry Miller And James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: Norton, pp. 147-154; [8] Sattler's bio was sourced with Wikipedia, Kubisme.info (in Dutch), Geneall, and a couple fo other minor references elsewhere. Her photo was found here, as part of a group shot from the 1940s.

Letters To Gustav Hellström

2008-05-15T11:01:00.013-04:00

Two years ago, I discovered two letters written by Miller to a Swedish writer named Lars Gustav Hellström, on the HistoryForSale.com website. The following is my own summary of the content of this pair of letters, along with some background information.

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LETTER TO HELLSTROM - 1949

Henry Miller had been corresponding with poet Hugo Manning since about 1944 [1]. In 1949, Henry received word from Hugo that a Swede named Lars Gustav Hellström had done a translation of one of Miller’s Hamlet letters for a Swedish magazine. On November 28, 1949, Henry wrote a letter to the 62-year old Hellström. Although it seems that permission had not been sought to do the translation, Henry gives Hellström permission to continue to do so, as long as he gets the O.K. from the publisher. “I scarcely ever write anything for magazines,” writes Henry, who is curious to receive a copy of the Swedish magazine in which the translation appears.

This is the actual letter that Miller wote to Hellstrom in 1949. This image is copywritten by HistoryForSale.com, but I hope they don't mind my use of it here, as it draws attention to their merchandise. The original document currently sells for US $ 1, 499.

“How does my 'Air-Conditioned Nightmare' go there?” adds Henry. “Haven't the slightest idea. I rather imagine it doesn't go at all!” With a “Sincerely Yours,” Henry signed his name. As an afterthought, he wrote vertically along the left-hand column, “Presume you've heard that Book I of 'Rosy Crucifixion' is out now in Paris - same publisher.” Henry posted this letter from his home in Big Sur, addressing it to Lars Gustav Hellström at Östervägen 25 in Solna, Sweden.

Gustav (or Gustaf) Hellström was born in Sweden in August 1882 [2]. He worked as a foreign correspondent for a Swedish newspaper until 1935, reporting from the big Western cultural centres of Paris, New York and London. As a novelist, he worked in a realist style, including his 1927 “masterpiece,” a saga of a provincial Swedish family called Snörmakare Lekholm får en idé (Lacemaker Lekholm Has an Idea – full text). According to the Nobel Prize website, Hellstrom was member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and had deleivered Nobel presentation speeches for T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner. It is said that Hellström’s wife was a friend of Marcel Duchamp and Carl Van Vechten (who took the photo of Henry found on the Wikipedia website).

LETTER TO HELLSTROM - 1951

The second letter from Henry to Gustav was written on April 24, 1951, again from Big Sur. In it, Henry asks if Gustav received a book he sent him, which implies that a correspondence existed beyond these two letters. Here is the text in full, followed by notes on the references:

“The rights to 'Picodiribi' belong pro tem to James Laughlin, New Directions, 333 6th Avenue, N.Y.C. Have not sold rights (in English) for the book yet. It will be published in French by Corréa, Paris. Can't believe Girodias has no copies of the 'Tropics'. Will write him to send you them. Must be some mistake. That experience at Döme - reminds me of the unique occasion when I was in a book store and some one asked for one of my books. Have you seen the February and March issues of 'The World Review' (London) which contain chapter from my new book about books - this chapter on Blaise Cendrars? Haven't heard a word about Patchen. Did you get the Hart Crane book I sent you?”

Above: An excerpt of Miller's letter from April 1951.

Picodiribi: Miller actually meant Picodiribibi, which was a portrait he wrote about an “Italian who used to visit our speakeasy in the Village—circa 1925 or ’26—an extraordinary conversationalist, a buffoon, and cultured to the fingertips” [3]. The piece originally appeared as “The Robot Picodiribibi” in the July 1950 issue of World Review magazine (Shifreen & Jackson, C233), then again in December of that year in New Directions 12 anthology (Shifreen & Jackson, B69). It would be incorporated into Plexus in 1952.

James Laughlin: founded the New Directions imprint in 1936, and became one of Henry’s publishers.

Corréa, Paris: Henry’s French publisher, which had released the first edition of Plexus in 1952 (Shifreen & Jackson, A83a), amongst other things. When Henry refers to “the book,” I’m not sure if he means Plexus, or if he’d had planned to release the short “Robot Picodiribibi” as a booklet.

Girodias: Maurice Girodias, heir to the Obelisk Press, which had first published Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.

Döme: Le Dôme is a café in Paris which became Miller’s prime hang-out during his early days in Paris. The way he mentions it here, I get the impression that Henry is referencing Hellstrom’s own experience at Le Dôme from a previous letter.

February and March issues of 'The World Review': “Blaise Cendrars” (Shifreen & Jackson, C239) and “More about Blaise Cendrars” (Shifreen & Jackson, C241) were published in the February and March issues of World Review, respectively.

my new book about books: Miller’s The Books in My Life was first published in October 1952 (Shifreen & Jackson, A86a). Henry had been working “feverishly” on this book since January 17, 1950 [4]. At the time of writing this letter, Henry was struggling with coming up with a better title for this book than what it became [5].

Patchen: Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) was an American writer/poet, who had made a strong impression on Henry (see Miller’s homage to him, “Patchen: Man Of Anger & Light,” which originally appeared in 1946, and was re-published in Stand Still Like The Hummingbird). After five years of living in a little cottage in a small town in Connecticut, Patchen moved to San Francisco in 1951 [6]. Perhaps Miller is referencing his relocation.

Hart Crane: Hart Crane (1899-1932) was an Ohio-born poet who lived one of those tragic poet’s lives, ending with suicide off of a steamship at age 32. Miller was not particularly fond of Crane’s work. Writing to Wallace Fowlie in 1944, Henry wrote: “I can’t read Crane. I mean I don’t find anything in him that others see. My fault doubtless” [7]. (Miller is perhaps being kind because Fowlie had written an essay on Crane). Crane’s suicide is mentioned in passing in Books in My Life (p.217) [he was referenced in a letter written by Sherwood Anderson, which Miller had read]. I’m thinking that Henry unloaded his Crane book on Hellström because he didn’t really care for it. The favour must have been returned by Hellström, because Henry included his name in an appendix in Books in My Life, entitled “Friends Who Supplied Me With Books.”

Lars Gustav Hellstrom died in Sweden less than two years later, on February 27, 1953.

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[1] Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, U. of Texas. Hugo Manning Papers - "Biographical Sketch."http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00083/hrc-00083.html . [2] The bio of Hellstrom has been mostly cobbled together from info drawn from Encyclopedia Britannica and the Hellstrom website (which is in Swedish, but I translated through Translation Guide). [3] Durrell, Lawrence (ed.). 1959. The Henry Miller Reader. NY: New Directions; p. 83. [4] MacNiven, Ian S. (ed.). 1989. The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. London: Faber & Faber, p. 246; [5] Wickes, George, ed. 1996. Henry Miller And James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: Norton, p. 85; [6] Smith, Larry (ed.) "Kenneth Patchen Places." http://members.aol.com/smithcours/Patchen/KennethPatchenPlaces.htm ; [7] Miller, Henry, and Wallace Fowlie. 1975. Letters of Henry Miller and Wallace Fowlie (1943-1972). NY: Grove Press; letter dated March 1, 1944, p. 41.

Filming 'Tropic Of Cancer'

2008-05-11T22:01:00.012-04:00

“The film of Tropic of Cancer will be definitively produced and directed by Joseph Strick, who made Ulysses (by Joyce). He’ll do it the same way. No castration, no modification. Bravo for him, I say!”
---- Henry Miller in a letter to Brassai, July 31, 1968

Henry Miller’s 1934 novel, Tropic Of Cancer, was adapted and released as a feature film in 1970. Although the film maintained Paris as its locale—as it had been in the novel—the action was shifted to contemporary times (1969). Although it remains the only film adaptation of Miller’s classic novel, it had not been the first attempt to do so.

THE FAILED CANCER PROJECT

Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures distributed foreign films in the U.S., most notably Godzilla (1956) and Fellini’s 8½ (1963). It was around this time that Embassy decided to get into the film production business, and in 1962 Levine bankrolled a film version of Tropic Of Cancer [1]. In January 1963, Henry was looking forward to going to Paris for 17 weeks as a “consultant” on the film, which would also yield a substantial payday [2]. But by June 1963, the production was bogged down in litigation [3], with production partners and an actress suing Levine. Due to these troubles, Henry’s contract as advisor was terminated at the end of the year [4]. In June 1964, the conflicts were settled out of court [3] and Levine was ready to forge ahead again with Tropic, but, by the following summer, Henry expressed his concern to Brassai: “I'm increasingly convinced they're going to massacre my Cancer. What can be done? The author counts for nothing” [5]. The project eventually lost steam and died in development.

ROBERT EVANS TAKES A PING-PONG WAGER

Famed Hollywood producer Robert Evans has many saucy stories to tell in his memoirs The Kid Stays in the Picture. Although the dialogue exchange he provides between he and Henry [6] seems apocryphal to me (maybe it isn’t, but it remains otherwise unsubstantiated), Evans tells of a friendly ping-pong game that turned into a hustled wager in which Henry bet him to turn Tropic Of Cancer into a film if he won. The balls fell in Miller’s favour. As the head of production at Paramount Pictures, Evans had the clout to get it made, but, writes Evans, the top brass were less than impressed, and threatened to fire him and burn the negative. “It played in one theater and disappeared for good,” writes Evans. “Because of Henry Miller, I traveled a back elevator for the next two months. Henry, you got the last laugh, wherever you are, and I'm sure it ain't heaven” [6].

Above left: A German poster for the movie.

In another telling of this same story [7], Evans makes no mention of a wager, but instead quotes Henry as challenging him verbally: “'You don't have the guts to make Cancer.'” Is any of this true? In fact, Joseph Strick’s production company Tropic Film Corporation (half backed by a Swiss film corporation) [12] produced the film in 1969, while Evans’ Paramount seems to have been involved only as far as picking up distribution rights [13].

TROPIC OF CANCER – THE PRODUCTION

On December 8, 1968, the New York Times reported that director Joseph Strick would be attached to direct. Strick had previously earned an edgy reputation for his film adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1967), whose raw language caused much controversy, including a ban in Ireland that would last 33 years. Henry initially felt encouraged by the vision of the 45-year old director, whose unorthodox approach got him fired the previous year by the Hollywood honchos who were paying for a conventional adaptation of Lawrence Durrell’s Justine.

Above: A 1971 Japanese poster for the film.

After a visit to London, Miller was sent to Paris in the summer of 1969 as a consultant on the film, an experience he wrote about for a article called “Tropic Of Cancer Revisited,” published in Playboy’s June 1970 issue: “I had hardly arrived at my hotel when I was summoned to the shooting of a scene in a night spot on a narrow little street called Passage du Depart off the rue d’Odessa” (p. 133). The chauffered ride to the set gave Henry a flashback of his bike rides from Porte de Clichy to Louveciennes in 1932-33 to see Anais Nin (135). Paris “looked better to me than it ever had,” wrote Miller, despite the “ugly modern apartments,” but he seemed resigned to the fact that “there would be no attempt to re-create the Paris of the Thirties” for the film(133). Henry’s impressions of Paris was to be the most-asked media question (201) during his nearly-two month visit. He would never return to Paris again [8].

James Decker’s essay “Literary Text, Cinematic ‘Edition’: Adaptation, Textual Authority, and the Filming of Tropic of Cancer” (2007) covers details about the filming of Tropic Of Cancer as well as offering analysis of its adaptation: “Strick attempts to preserve as much of Miller's language as possible, but he hardly follows the novel word-for-word or scene-by-scene, choosing instead to alter those parts of the book that would not translate well to the screen. Strick, moreover, consciously chose to emphasize the book's comedic elements.”

Decker quotes Strick admitting that he “doesn't write well enough to do an original screenplay.” Although Strick is listed as a co-writer--along with associate producer Betty Botley--Strick’s Ulysses writing partner Fred Haines was originally assigned the task. According to Haines’ obituary in The Independent (he died this month, on May 4th), the two men “disagreed on the shape of the screenplay, [and] Haines simply asked that he not be credited as the writer.”

Although Henry uses the Playboy article to express admiration for Strick’s directing demeanor, Rip Torn’s vitality (playing Henry 30 years younger), and Ellyn Burstyn’s penetrating understanding of Mona/June (whom she portrayed), Henry was most pleased to socialize with a short, hunched French bit-actor named Alfred Baillou, who played a minor part as a night watchman at the lycée at Dijon (a role that essentially ended up on the cutting room floor): “the most interesting person I had the pleasure of conversing with during my visits to the set,” wrote Miller. “We talked as people talk who have known each other for years […] like myself, he was drawn to the arcane and the occult” (Playboy, 200).

Henry also had the company of his son Tony, who got some work on the film [8]. His young wife, Hoki, was to join him in Paris, but chose to stay away most of the time, even though Henry got Strick to call her to offer her a small part in the film [9].

Henry was invited to view the raw, unedited film dailies, but he found the process “tedious and confusing” (Playboy 134). He also made a fleeting appearance in the film as a “spectator” in a wedding scene. His tenure as advisor ended around August 10th [5].

'X' FACTOR

“Cancer film opened in N.Y. at the Paris Cinema on 58th & 5th Ave. last week. Mixed reviews by critics,” wrote Henry to Lawrence Durrel on February 27, 1970 [10]. Some critics felt that the faithful narration slowed the action down; parts of the film were considered unintentionally funny, or even sexist [8]. Pauline Kael, however, seems to have appreciated it: “This series of vignettes and fantasies, with bits of Miller's language rolling out, may be closer to Russ Meyer's THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS than to its source, but at least it isn't fusty. It makes you laugh” [from Kael’s 5001 Nights at the Movies, and online here]. (Kael had originally written a longer review for The New Yorker on March 7, 1970. For a full analysis of the use of sex in this film, and a thorough breakdown of its content, read Decker’s essay.)

To make matters worse, the film was saddled with a “X” rating. Strick, as the Producer, immediately took antitrust legal action against his own distributor, Paramount Pictures, who refused to release the film without a rating (which Strick wanted); being branded with an "X" severely restricted its sales potential. (Tropic Film Corp v. Paramount Pictures Corp. 319 F Supp., 1247 (S.D.N.Y. 1970).

Regardless of the accuracy of Robert Evans’ ping-pong anecdote with Henry, perhaps he had made a bad wager after all; perhaps he was hoping to cash in on the “X” cachet that had reached its peak with the Academy Award wins for the X-rated Midnight Cowboy in 1969. The Paramount publicity packets for theatre owners in 1970 reveals their eagerness to cash in on scandal: "One of the things that you can do to heighten [the] controversy, thereby bringing attention to your engagement, would be to screen the film for a number of local dignitaries, judges, lawyers, college professors, and students and let them debate on their pro and con feelings" [14].

I am not clear that the film was originally X-rated due to sexual portrayals or for language. However, when re-classified in the 1992, Tropic Of Cancer was labelled with the new NC-17 rating: “for strong language and sex-related dialogue.”

Miller, 1970: “[It’s] possible that a public that has been feeding on raw meat will find [the movie] Tropic Of Cancer tame, even innocent, like the author himself. One thing that I suspect audiences will not find tame, however, is the narration, taken word for word from the book” (Playboy 201).

___________________________________

REFERENCES

[1] Martin, Jay. 1978. Henry Miller: Always Merry And Bright. NY: Penguin; p. 471; [2] MacNiven, Ian S. (ed.). 1989. The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. London: Faber & Faber, p. 392; [3] Wickes, George, ed. 1996. Henry Miller And James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: Norton, p. 226; [4] Decker, James. 2007. “Literary Text, Cinematic ‘Edition’: Adaptation, Textual Authority, and the Filming of Tropic of Cancer” in College Literature, Summer 2007; n12; [5] Brassai. 2002. Henry Miller: Happy Rock. U. Of Chicago Press; p. 155; [6] Evans, Robert. 2002. The Kid Stays in the Picture. New Millenium Press, p. 176-177; [7] Grobel, Lawrence. 2000. Above the Line: Conversations about the Movies. US. Da Capo Press, p. 24; [8] Dearborn, Mary. Happiest Man Alive: Biography of Henry Miller. NY: Simon & Shuster; p. 296; [9] Howard, Joyce (ed.). 1986. Letters by Henry Miller to Hoki Tokuda Miller; pp.155; [10] MacNiven, Ian S. (ed.). 1989. The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. London: Faber & Faber, p. 438; [12] Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1971), pp. 74-85; [13] U.S. Federal Trade Commission: http://www.ftc.gov/reports/violence/Appen%20D.pdf , p.28; [14] Decker, James. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200707/ai_n19434698/pg_14, Note 22.

delay...

2008-05-03T12:34:00.002-04:00

I've been insanely busy with other things. I hope to get back to posting by May 9th.

Kerouac Lets Miller's Dinner Get Cold

2008-04-23T15:04:00.007-04:00

“[Jack] Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, among others, admired Miller greatly, no doubt recognizing in spiral form’s figure-like flights like jazzy improvisation that marked their own compositions,” writes literary professor and author, James Decker [1]. Miller’s free use of language and subject matter helped inspire that beat generation, and Jack Kerouac was no exception. In the summer of 1960, an opportune moment for the two iconic writers to meet was thwarted by the deteriorating mental state that Kerouac tried to medicate with alcohol and would soon after lead to a Big Sur personal breakdown.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was propped up as the “king of the beat generation” whether he liked it or not; such was the impact of his On The Road (1957) and the mystique of the scene of the beatnik elite with whom he associated. By 1960, The Dharma Bums, Dr. Sax and The Subterraneans had been published, the latter being prepared for release as a major Hollywood film. His celebrity was at its peak, everyone wanted to know him, and alcohol helped him deal with the attention and the increasing feeling that everyone was trying to use him (he would eventually die of cirrhosis of the liver at age 47).

The Dharma Bums (1958) impressed Henry Miller, who had been sent a review copy at his home in Big Sur. Miller was moved to write the publisher, Viking Press, and express how he was “intoxicated” “from the moment I began reading.” “No man can write with that delicious freedom and abandonment who has not practiced severe discipline …. Kerouac could and probably will exert tremendous influence upon our contemporary writers young and old … we’re had all kinds of bums heretofore but never a Dharma bum, like this Kerouac” [2] Henry forwarded the book to Lawrence Durrell, pleading for him not to dismiss it (as he did the Beats), adding: “I say it’s good, very good, surpassingly good. The writing especially. He’s a poet. His prose is poetry. Or, shall I say, the kind of poetry I can recognize” [3] Kerouac was thrilled with the news of Miller’s letter: “a real breakthrough for us,” he wrote to Allen Ginsberg [4]. In the following months, Henry kept sending mail to Kerouac, who reported in a letter to a friend that Miller “writes to me every week” [5].

Later in 1959, Miller was commissioned by Avon to write the preface to the paperback edition of Kerouac’s The Subterraneans. In it, Miller praised Kerouac’s voice as being representative of a movement against self-destructive nature of the Atomic Age: “Let the poets speak. They may be 'beat,' but they’re not riding the atom-powered Juggernaut. Believe me, there’s nothing clean, nothing healthy, nothing promising about this age of wonders—except the telling. And the Kerouacs will probably have the last word.”

Jack Kerouac (left) with Lawrence Ferlinghetti in a 1959 photograph taken by Kirby Ferlinghetti (Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley).

In 1960, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919) was a Beat poet, publisher, and founder of San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore. He was also the new owner of a cabin in Big Sur, which he offered as a retreat for Kerouac, who was “at the end of [his] nerves” [6] about the impeding opening of the MGM film version of The Subterraneans and the resultant publicity machine. As well, he fled west to “basically to get out of New York and to get out of drinking so much,” recounts Ferlinghetti [7]. “Talking to admirers over Jack Daniels all night won’t lead to writing a new novel,” wrote Kerouac [7] before his departure; yet that's exactly what happened upon arrival.

Kerouac arrived in San Francisco by train on or around July 22, 1960 [6]; “really happy for the first time in three years,” wrote Kerouac in his 1962 novel, Big Sur (p.5). Plans had been made a week before for he and Ferlinghetti to have dinner with Henry Miller upon Jack’s arrival: “Miller was going to drive up the coast from where he lived on Partington Ridge, to Carmel Highlands, to the house of a friend named Effron Doner. We were going to drive down the coast and meet there for supper,” remembers Ferlinghetti [8]. But Kerouac snuck into San Francisco without first notifying his sponor, and was found in the early-afternoon drinking next door to City Lights Books at Versuvio’s bar.

A contemporary view of the interior of Vesuvio's (image from Vesuvios' website).

As time passed, and Kerouac drank and socialized with “old buddies,” Ferlinghetti did the math and realized they had to leave for the three-hour drive if they were going to make it in time for dinner. Kerouac kept putting off the departure, beginning a series of courtesy phone calls to Miller with apologies and assurances like, ‘‘I’ll tell you what, we’re leaving now, we’ll be there by eight o’clock, for sure.’ “[H]is voice on the phone just like on his records,” wrote Kerouac of Miller in Big Sur, “nasal, Brooklyn, goodguy voice” [9]. At 10 PM, Kerouac made his final appeal to Henry, of which he would write, “we’re all drunk at ten calling long distance and poor Henry just said, ‘Well I’m sorry I dont get to meet you Jack but I’m an old man and at ten o’clock it’s time for me to go to bed, you’d never make it here until after midnight now.” [9].

Ferlinghetti “gave up on the whole scene” and drove back home without Kerouac, to his cabin at Bixby Canyon in Big Sur. Kerouac would later feel “awful guilt” about standing Miller up, “because he’s gone to the trouble of writing the preface to one of my books” [9]. But, he admits that what he was really thinking at the time was, “Ah the hell with it he was only getting in on the act like all these guys write prefaces so that you dont even get to read the author first,” a perspective of thought that Kerouac defines as a “remorseful paranoia” and “an example of how really psychotically suspicious and loco I was getting” [9]. Kerouac remained at the bar until late, took a taxi into Big Sur, stumbled through the Pacific darkness with a lantern to find Ferlinghetti’s cabin, and was found sleeping in a nearby meadow the next morning [7].

Kerouac would write of the rest of his stay in Big Sur in his novel of the same name (1962), in which the natural utopia surrounding him is just a backdrop for his alcoholic binging and a nervous breakdown, in what the Literary Kicks website calls his "most depressing (but fascinating) novel." In 1961, Kerouac wrote of plans to return to the coast and “See Henry Miller this time” but, as far as anyone knows, a meeting between the two writers never happened.
The Vesuvio bar still exists and seems to sustain itself, in part, on the ghost of Kerouac's drunken night here . At its intersection stands a since-christened Jack Kerouac Alley.

Eric Lehman reviews The Dharma Bums and Big Sur at Empty Mirror Books, and has written a travel essay about Big Sur, which includes references to both Kerouac and Miller.

References

[1] Decker, James M. Henry Miller and Narrative Form: Constructing the self, rejecting modernity. New York: Taylor & Francis Inc, 2005; p. 155.
[2] Charters, Ann (ed.). Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1959. New York: Viking Press, 1999; p. 157.
[3] MacNiven, Ian S. (ed.). The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. London: Faber & Faber, 1989; p. 331: Letter, Oct. 30, 1958.
[4] Charters, Ann (ed.). Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1959; p. 158, letter of October 15, 1958.
[5] Charters, Ann (ed.). Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1959; p. 177, letter to Philip Whelan, January 10, 1959.
[6] Charters, Ann (ed.). Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1959; p. 260, letter to Ferlinghetti, July 8, 1960.
[7] Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. “How Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac Never Met” in, Anctill, Pierre, et al. (eds.). Un Homme Grand: Jack Kerouac at the Crossroads of Many Culures. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1990; p. 70-71. All of the unsourced assertions made in the telling of Kerouac missing the meeting with Miller come from this account.
[8] Ferlinghetti (ibid); in the memoir, Big Sur (1962)—written closer to the actual events than Ferlinghetti’s memoir—Kerouac states that Henry's friend lived in Santa Cruz (p. 185).
[9] Kerouac, Jack. Big Sur. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1962; p. 158.

The Annotated Nexus - Pages 49, 50

2008-04-19T20:59:00.003-04:00

49.0 In the basement apartment, Dr. Kronski prepares to give Stasia a physical examination, but his assumption that this is all some set-up for sexual mischief is apparent. Mona’s concern, for the sexually predatory nature of Kronski’s words, is justified when Stasia cries “Rape!” from behind closed doors.

49.1 hermaphrodite
Before Stasia’s examination, Dr. Kronski (9.2) rather rudely jokes that he may discover that she’s a hermaphrodite. See 17.2 for Miller’s previous description of Stasia being both male and female.

49.2 rudimentary tail
Along with the statement above, Kronski jokes that he may detect basic evidence of the existence of a tail on Stasia. As with any human, he would find her tailbone (coccyx), perhaps even an elongated one, which some evolutionists believe is a vestigial organ: a useless remnant of our biological past. Kronski is not being scientific, of course; his exaggeration is a dehumanizing insult, implying that Stasia is a freak of nature, probably meant as a judgment of her sexual orientation or nature. One can’t be sure of this reflects the opinions of Kronski (Emil Conason) or are simply those of Miller, embedded in Kronski’s characterization.

49.3 examination
The whole point of this physical exam was due to a challenge initiated from Stasia in 48.6, for Kronski to “explore [her] anatomy” (instead of her submitting to a psychological exam). I don’t quite understand her motivation, so I don’t really get the surprise and offense that propels the psychodrama of this whole scene. Are the women (and Henry) playing childish games with Kronski (i.e. is he being baited and misled), or is Kronski a straight-up rapist? (p.50)

49.4 “if were a fancy house”
I have only one edition of Nexus (Grove Press, 1987) from which to compare Kronski’s line “You’d be better off if were a fancy house.” My knowledge of technical grammar rules is not perfect, but it seems to me that there’s a typo here: it should be, I think, “this were a fancy house.” This is Kronski’s sneering response to Mona’s criticism that he’s acting as if he were in a bordel, and not a doctor’s office. A fancy house is just another term for brothel or whore-house; according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, it was used from the late 19th-century to the 1930s. By saying that Mona would be “better off,” Kronski is calling her a whore, although he states that Stasia is even more suited to the role.

49.5 long room
As Kronski continues his examination from behind closed doors, Mona nervously paces in the apartment with Henry. I mention this here merely to help construct the dimensions of their Henry Street apartment (see note 9.15). As a basement apartment, it would be long, as it would extend the length of the house above them.

50.0 Henry and Mona catch Kronski in the act of trying to forcefully mount Stasia. Defending himself against criticism that he’s a bastard and sadist, Kronski threatens that, if he were mean, he would have them all locked up in a mental asylum for this farce of moral turpitude. Embarrassed, Stasia snaps at Mona, whom she feels is treating her like a child.

50.1 landlady
The landlady at Henry Street is first mentioned here on page 50, although she will re-appear on several pages of Nexus: 173, 182, 186, 191, 195, 223-225, 274, and 305. Her name is Mrs. Skolsky (p.195), and she will be examined later for the more significant references. Here, Henry is simply worried that the commotion of Mona and Stasia screaming at Kronski will prompt the appearance of the landlady with a clever.

50.2 “too normal”
Kronski doesn’t understand why he is being verbally and physically assaulted by Mona and Stasia for his apparent sexual assault. He doesn’t understand "the fuss," stating that her exam proved her to be “normal.” In fact, he admits, he was “excited” by the fact that she was “too normal.” This phrase is up for interpretation, but my guess is that he thought he was being used to test for her heterosexual tendencies and found, he believed (we don’t know what happened behind those doors) that those sexual impulses for men were more than normal, they were actively enthusiastic. Explaining his excitement, Kronski shouts, “What’s wrong with that?” Again, Stasia either encouraged him behind closed doors, or he is rationalizing his sexual assault with a false, deluded “she was asking for it” defense. We’ll see, with Stasia’s bizarre reaction to follow on page 51, how it’s quite possible that she presented Kronski with a schizophrenic scenario.

50.3 “I chimed in”
Henry comes to Kronski’s defense by agreeing, “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” I’m not sure what to make of Henry’s reaction. Either Henry is playing his part in this somewhat surreal psychodrama (as is Stasia, apparently), or else, presented with an apparent rape-in-progress, is indifferent because he’s in agreement with the “she was asking for it”-type, jerk mentality. Again, page 51 will seriously put sympathy for Stasia into question, as she may just be playing games (or maybe she's crazy). It’s worth noting as well that Kronksi tells Henry that, by doing this, he was doing him “a good turn,” implying that his actions were motivated by a request for a favour from Henry.

50.4 belfry
This is, of course, a reference to the “bats in the belfry” metaphor for insanity: the top part of a church steeple (head) is occupied by bats (disprution). “It’s her belfry that needs looking into,” says Kronski regarding Stasia. He offers to look into her belfry, but is not sure what it would prove.

50.5 moral turpitude
Kronski then threatens to have all three of them locked up in an instant, for moral turpitude. This American legal concept is still being used to deny foreign travel or immigration entrance to the U.S., described as “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty, or good morals,” such as behaviour deemed to involve “inherent baseness or vileness, shameful wickedness, depravity….” Kronski claims they wouldn’t have a “leg to stand on” in defense, but states that his lack of meanness and their friendship prevents him from taking this course of action.

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