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| Henry Miller |
We will be meeting at noon on Wednesday, May 1st at Constance's charming home. The highly popular Lit Club Not Lunch will be served. Joanna will ring the bell promptly at 1pm to begin our meeting.
At the moment it looks like it will be a beautiful day, so those who will be walking to avoid the tight parking around the high school will have a lovely time of it. Constance says you are welcome to park in her driveway. I hope to see many of you there! x Jacquie
Christine's Minutes Fourteen members of the Literature Club–as well as Gita’s daughter, Ilse Willems, flown in from Paris for just this event–gathered in Connie’s living room. A not-lunch, that did not include Connie’s famous poached salmon, was enjoyed by all. (Though there was smoked salmon, lest anyone go home in despair.)
Our President, Joanna, rang the bell at precisely 1 pm, and thanked our gracious host. Vice-President Laura passed out copies of her doctoral dissertation (said to be in the style of Henry James)–either that, or those pages comprised the directions to her home in Ossining, famous for its views. In the spirit of E.B. White, Linda simplified: drive north, then turn left.
Our treasurer reported that we currently have $422.73.
Joanna reminded us that the library’s annual gala will be held on June 9th, from 5:30 to 8pm. The theme will be “Songs that Tell a Story.”
Lori, in her capacity as head of the Hastings Youth Council, told us about her youth group’s plan to do something intergenerational, specifically to engage with senior citizens (a demographic to which some of us qualify). They have had one successful event and would like to do another in June.
Christine related a recent news item about the theft of numerous first editions of Pushkin from libraries all over Europe.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted.
Onward to Gita’s riveting presentation on Henry Miller, a writer we all know about, but few have actually read. This was about to change. In the spirit of full disclosure, Gita told us that if you read the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn, you will likely come away thinking that the world is about to end, that all men are horrid alcoholics, and all women are prostitutes. To set the mood, Gita read us a section from the Tropic of Cancer, describing Olga, a prostitute with warts and halitosis.
However, Henry Miller was greatly admired by young writers; they were drawn to his complex prose, his character studies, his surrealism and mysticism, his use of stream of consciousness and explicit language.
It was 1934, and our Gita was born in Latvia, while Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was published in Paris. It would be banned in the US for the next twenty years; but it was frequently stolen from libraries. (Miller and Pushkin have this in common.) To the dismay of those of us with prurient minds, Gita announced that, in our assigned readings, she would be skipping the sexual passages and focusing on passages revealing Miller’s bipolar personality.
Although Cancer was the first to be published, Capricorn comes first, chronologically, when seen as his autobiography. Thus, Gita began our readings with the Tropic of Capricorn.
Miller on himself: “I was a philosopher while still in swaddling clothes.”
Members read a wide array of selections, dealing with topics such as his Christmas birth, his father the Congregationalist deacon, Dostoyevsky, how Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn is like Dante’s vision of hell, his shame when a Black man doffs his cap to him, Strindberg, and Babylonian whores.
From the Tropic of Cancer, we read passages about Miller’s time living at the Villa Borghese, his friends Boris and Carl, his decision not to seek perfection, his view of Paris as an artificial revolving stage, Germaine the whore, the therapeutic effects of proofreading, his “menagerie of a brain pan,” the idea of America, and returning to America.
Only once we were well-acquainted with his writing, did Gita give us a brief (and perhaps sanitized) view of his life. Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891, to German-Lutheran parents. They lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In 1924 he worked at Western Union in NY, while he struggled to become a writer. In 1930 he moved to Paris, where he would write his two great novels. He became friends with many surrealists. He returned to the US in 1940 and settled in Big Sur, California. He was married five times and had three children. At the age of eighty he published a collection of essays. In 1973 he was nominated for the Nobel in Literature. He died in 1980 in Pacific Palisades.
Members all expressed their delight at getting to know the work of Henry Miller, all in one lovely afternoon.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary
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