Some Notes On Henry Miller

This isn’t going to be a long article– it’ll probably be one of my shorter ones, in fact. But since I haven’t written anything in a while, I figured it was time to make some kind of effort at an update.

I recently picked up a copy of Henry Miller’s The Air Conditioned Nightmare. Miller is famous for a few other of his books– Tropic of Cancer got on the Modern Library’s list of the top 100 books of the century. I had planned to buy that, on the recommendation of Henry Rollins, but it was out of stock.

So I browsed through the stack and chose this book. Let me quote the back, as it’s a pretty accurate description:

In 1939, after ten years as an expatriate, Henry Miller returned to the United States with a keen desire to see what his native land was really like– to get to the roots of the American nature and experience. He set out on a journey that was to last for three years, visiting many sections of the country and making friends of all descriptions. The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is a result of that odyssey.

You might see an instant resemblance to Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. There is, superficially, in the sense that this is a journal of one man’s trip through America. I have to say, though, there are many more differences than similarities. Primary among these is that while On The Road was a celebration of vitality, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is depressed and hateful.

Where Kerouac wrote, “The only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time …," Miller is more likely to say "Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak."

Beat Change

I didn’t start writing this to compare Kerouac and Miller, however. I started writing it to share a few particularly onerous passages. Here’s the first:

Money had nothing to do with the production of these treasures. Money will have nothing to do with the art of the future. Money will pass away. Even now we are able to realize the futility of money. Had we not become the arsenal of the world, and thus staved off the gigantic collapse of our economic system, we might have witnessed the spectacle of the richest nation on earth starving to death in the midst of the accumulated gold of the entire world. The war is only an interruption of the inevitable disaster which impends. We have a few years ahead of us and then the whole structure will come toppling down and engulf us. Putting a few millions back to work making engines of destruction is no solution of the problem. When the destruction brough about by war is complete another sort of destruction will set in. And it will be far more drastic, far more terrible than the destruction which we are now witnessing. The whole planet will be in the throes of revolution. And the fires will rage until the very foundations of this present world crumble. Then we shall see who has life, the life more abundant. Then we shall see whether the ability to make money and the ability to survive are one and the same. Then we shall see the meaning of true wealth.

Well, did we, Henry? Did we see?

When I read something like this, I can’t help but wonder if the author had a "MY BAD!" moment a few years down the line. Henry Miller is obviously intelligent, and so I wonder if he recanted his position when America didn’t collapse after the war. Did he change his mind, or did he keep amending his prophecy of doom like some third-rate cult leader?

My friend Rob dismisses all this with a simple statement: "He was a communist." I hadn’t thought of it in such simple terms; I had never read a biography of Miller or given thought to classifying (and labeling) his political beliefs. Here’s another passage, though:

If it takes a calamity such as war to awaken and transform us, well and good, so be it. Let us see now if the unemployed will be put to work and the poor properly clothed, housed and fed; let us see if the rich will be stripped of their booty and made to endure the privations and sufferings of the ordinary citizen; let us see if all the workers of America, regardless of class, ability or usefulness, can be persuaded to accept a common wage; let us see if the people can voice their wishes in direct fashion, without the intercession, the distortion, and the bungling of politicians; let us see if we can create a real democracy in place of the fake one we have been finally roused to defend; let us see if we can be fair and just to our own kind, to say nothing of the enemy whom we shall doubtless conquer over.

And this brings me to my next grievance with Miller: his attitude on World War II. To him, it seems, World War II was a pointless conflict between two morally equal parties. That is, our fighting Nazi Germany was no more justified than a schoolyard brawl between two little boys. You can read it as an underlying assumption. It makes him write things like, "The most healthy, the most intelligent, the most promising ones are rounded up, given a number and sent to the open slaughter house on sixty-nine fronts." Or this:

To be a victim of one’s one mistakes as well is too much. Moreover, I see no reason why I should lose my balance because a madman named Hitler goes on a rampage. Hitler will pass away, as did Napoleon, Tamerlane, Alexander and the others. A great scourge never appears unless there is a reason for it. There were a thousand excellent reasons for the emergence of the European and Asiatic dictators. We have our own dictator, only he is hydra-headed. Those who believe that the only way to eliminate these personifications of evil is to destroy them, let them destroy. Destroy everything in sight, if you think that’s the way to get rid of your problems. I don’t believe in that kind of destruction. I believe only in the destruction which is natural, incidental to and inherent in creation. As John Marin said in a letter to Stieglitz once: "Some men’s singing time is when they are gashing themselves, some when they are gashing others."

I can’t abide this attitude. I can’t stand it at all. If there can be such a thing as a "moral" war, then World War II was that war. Miller’s words reflect such a totality of amorality and– I don’t use this word lightly– apathy towards real human life that it actually, really, pisses me off. It makes me want to reach through the pages and grab the man by the head– scream at him. I am going to get a shovel and dig up Henry Miller’s grave, so that I can grab his skeleton and shake some sense into his bones.

It may sound strange, but I feel compelled now to read every one of Henry Miller’s books. Every one. Because I must know whether a man so well respected can have stayed so profoundly wrong for his entire life.

Now, one
more passage, for comic effect. I don’t mean to destroy Miller’s credibility completely, but the man loved France. He lived there for ten years before coming back to America (because of the war he was so apathetic toward) and constantly compares his experiences to his time there. But let him say it:

But even if everything is demolished, even if every city of importance is destroyed, levelled to the ground, the France I speak of will live. If the great flame of the spirit be extinguished the little flames are unquenchable; they will burth through the earth in millions of tiny tongues. Another France will be born; another holy day will be added to the calendar. No, what I saw cannot be crushed under the heel of the conqueror. It is a libel against the human spirit to say that France will be no more. France lives. Vive la France!

Stinky, vichy, French.