My Friend Henry Miller
Written By: Bezalel Schatz
Henry Miller: to most Israelis his name is new. In Europe he is considered the most vital of contemporary American writers and I often felt a wave of hypnotic elation possess people as they spoke and discussed him — an elation which no other writer inspires. The same feeling goes through me whenever I consider the writing and the man. It is difficult to know what first caused this feeling in me . . . the writing started it and later as he became my good friend, the man himself confirmed it.
It all started when the Second World War ended and I found I had an idea stuck in my head to design a book . . . one of those "never-done-before" little genius kind of things! A friend gave me a book by Henry Miller to read containing a section from "The Rosy Crucifixion" (called Hav-Hav in the Hebrew edition of "Hatzot Vahetzi") ... to me this was and still is the best piece of writing of today's creative spirit. I was living in California at the time and to my great luck found that Miller lived some 125 miles south of San Francisco in Big Sur. He answered my letter by inviting me down to Sur to talk over my illustrating his text. With a ear full of paintings I drove down a winding, dangerous highway along the Pacific till far out in the wilds Icame to a narrow road that lead to his house. There, were torrents of rain which miraculously stopped for the few minutes necessary to unload the paintings.
Landscape
It is a fantastic place, this "Big South" country, on the rim of the continent, where California drops away sheer into the ocean, shimmering in white and turquoise far below the scattered houses perched1,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea. When you climb one of the paths you are captured by the view and the feeling of space takes your breath away. The hills come up straight and wild, there are narrow waterfalls and giant redwood trees . . . no villages, no drug stores, no television. And it is there that Henry Miller lives.
They say Miller looks much like Andre Gide, י a Hindu priest, a Chinaman. He is slight, well-built, springy, and gives one the feeling of a live wire. (He used to run seven miles a day, come rain or hail, in Brooklyn. As a young man he was going to become a gym instructor.) He liked my paintings and the idea of the book. The next years two and a half years we worked together to put this book out and raised the money we j needed by selling whatever could be turned into cash. Miller's manuscripts, my paintings, his watercolours (he paints well, very well — in fact, I was always enthused about these colour fantasies of his and wish they would be shown here, as they were recently in Japan).
If you wonder how a famous American writer would have no money . . . well . . . Henry hasn't any even when he has! It flies beautifully through his fingers into a new studio, helping a friend, helping a few friends, or sharing good things, like a trip to Europe with myself and my wife. A guardian angel watches over him for I remember once in Berkeley, after a fruitless day in search of money, that Henry was taking a bath when the phone rang and a friend called to tell us someone was giving us $2,000 on condition that Miller did not thank him, just please accept the $2,000!
If there is anything Miller loves it's to meet people with the gift of conversation. He is a born master himself and loves a natural joker, clown or magician, the pure gift of gab. One evening, again in Berkeley, we had some scientists over who were alert, alive and indeed loved modern art. Miller was at his best and with fantastic gestures and his marvellous use of English he took apart the whole structure of "science" in the most joyous yet devastating and profoundly clownish, crazy way... they never got over it!
He was born in1891 in Brooklyn into a family and surroundings as far removed from the world of literature as the man in the moon. As a young man he "succeeded" in becoming a personnel director of the Western Union Telegraph Co., with the promise of rising one day to a vice-presidency. It all ended rather abruptly when one fine day he simply picked up his hat and left for good. From there on it was one continuous writer's struggle, living in great poverty, to be reborn in Paris, with his now famous "Tropic of Cancer."
Neighbours
I was his neighbour for five years before returning to Israel, and those were wonderful days and fine trips together into the mountains or down to the low tides to gather the fruit from the sea — abalone, mussels, excellent rock fish — or to the sulphur baths of a cliffside spa six miles off and in the sun and moon above the sea and in the rocks over the ocean. There were crazy parties and wonderful evenings of talk and wine, and work parties clearing our roads, fixing plumbing, water lines, gathering fuel, sharing a deer, mutual aid projects, and shared joys.
Some years ago, I sent Miller a Yemenite silver talisman; it arrived the day he met my wife's sister, and they have neverbeen separated since. He wears the talisman all the time on a silver chain around his neck. He has had the Hebrew words copied and set in ceramics into the wall of his studio. He writes that the appearance of his first book in Hebrew has given him unparalleled joy!
The Jerusalem Post
My Friend Henry Miller
Written By: Bezalel Schatz
Henry Miller: to most Israelis his name is new. In Europe he is considered the most vital of contemporary American writers and I often felt a wave of hypnotic elation possess people as they spoke and discussed him — an elation which no other writer inspires. The same feeling goes through me whenever I consider the writing and the man. It is difficult to know what first caused this feeling in me . . . the writing started it and later as he became my good friend, the man himself confirmed it.
It all started when the Second World War ended and I found I had an idea stuck in my head to design a book . . . one of those "never-done-before" little genius kind of things! A friend gave me a book by Henry Miller to read containing a section from "The Rosy Crucifixion" (called Hav-Hav in the Hebrew edition of "Hatzot Vahetzi") ... to me this was and still is the best piece of writing of today's creative spirit. I was living in California at the time and to my great luck found that Miller lived some 125 miles south of San Francisco in Big Sur. He answered my letter by inviting me down to Sur to talk over my illustrating his text. With a ear full of paintings I drove down a winding, dangerous highway along the Pacific till far out in the wilds Icame to a narrow road that lead to his house. There, were torrents of rain which miraculously stopped for the few minutes necessary to unload the paintings.
Landscape
It is a fantastic place, this "Big South" country, on the rim of the continent, where California drops away sheer into the ocean, shimmering in white and turquoise far below the scattered houses perched1,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea. When you climb one of the paths you are captured by the view and the feeling of space takes your breath away. The hills come up straight and wild, there are narrow waterfalls and giant redwood trees . . . no villages, no drug stores, no television. And it is there that Henry Miller lives.
They say Miller looks much like Andre Gide, י a Hindu priest, a Chinaman. He is slight, well-built, springy, and gives one the feeling of a live wire. (He used to run seven miles a day, come rain or hail, in Brooklyn. As a young man he was going to become a gym instructor.) He liked my paintings and the idea of the book. The next years two and a half years we worked together to put this book out and raised the money we j needed by selling whatever could be turned into cash. Miller's manuscripts, my paintings, his watercolours (he paints well, very well — in fact, I was always enthused about these colour fantasies of his and wish they would be shown here, as they were recently in Japan).
If you wonder how a famous American writer would have no money . . . well . . . Henry hasn't any even when he has! It flies beautifully through his fingers into a new studio, helping a friend, helping a few friends, or sharing good things, like a trip to Europe with myself and my wife. A guardian angel watches over him for I remember once in Berkeley, after a fruitless day in search of money, that Henry was taking a bath when the phone rang and a friend called to tell us someone was giving us $2,000 on condition that Miller did not thank him, just please accept the $2,000!
If there is anything Miller loves it's to meet people with the gift of conversation. He is a born master himself and loves a natural joker, clown or magician, the pure gift of gab. One evening, again in Berkeley, we had some scientists over who were alert, alive and indeed loved modern art. Miller was at his best and with fantastic gestures and his marvellous use of English he took apart the whole structure of "science" in the most joyous yet devastating and profoundly clownish, crazy way... they never got over it!
He was born in1891 in Brooklyn into a family and surroundings as far removed from the world of literature as the man in the moon. As a young man he "succeeded" in becoming a personnel director of the Western Union Telegraph Co., with the promise of rising one day to a vice-presidency. It all ended rather abruptly when one fine day he simply picked up his hat and left for good. From there on it was one continuous writer's struggle, living in great poverty, to be reborn in Paris, with his now famous "Tropic of Cancer."
Neighbours
I was his neighbour for five years before returning to Israel, and those were wonderful days and fine trips together into the mountains or down to the low tides to gather the fruit from the sea — abalone, mussels, excellent rock fish — or to the sulphur baths of a cliffside spa six miles off and in the sun and moon above the sea and in the rocks over the ocean. There were crazy parties and wonderful evenings of talk and wine, and work parties clearing our roads, fixing plumbing, water lines, gathering fuel, sharing a deer, mutual aid projects, and shared joys.
Some years ago, I sent Miller a Yemenite silver talisman; it arrived the day he met my wife's sister, and they have neverbeen separated since. He wears the talisman all the time on a silver chain around his neck. He has had the Hebrew words copied and set in ceramics into the wall of his studio. He writes that the appearance of his first book in Hebrew has given him unparalleled joy!
The Jerusalem Post