The Black Book

THE DURRELL OF THE BLACK BOOK DAYS BY HENRY MILLER

Always merry and bright! Always coming toward you with countenance a-gleam, the heraldic (his favorite word then) gleam of the blazoned escutcheon. The golden boy. Or a water sprite. Anyway, youth incarnate. Plus brains, plus an amazing critical acumen. Plus so many things. Il avait tout à gogo. Above all, he could laugh as no man has a right to laugh in a world so sick and troubled. “For all your ills, laughter!” Was there ever a Britisher who could laugh thus? I have never met one since. But then, could you really call him British?

If I remember rightly, The Black Book was already finished by the time we met up. All that remained was to find a publisher for it. And we found him — in the person of Jack Kahane (Obelisk Press). The same Jack who had published the Tropic of Cancer. The only man in Christendom who had the guts to take a chance on dubious works of genius. (Curious that today one can’t find a copy of the book anywhere except in the padlocked vaults of libraries or in the private archives of collectors.)

For all the bubble and laughter, he had his serious side too. A devil of a worker, for one thing. And, like Flaubert, a stickler for the right word, the precise image, the Gongora effect. A poet primarily, he could have become, like Claudel, a diplomat as well. I could make further analogies and comparisons. The bourlingueur, for example, à la John Paul Jones, Blaise Cendrars, Jack London. The man with a nose for “place”—who could write of Patmos, Corfu, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Alexandria and make you wonder what ancient god guided his footsteps, cleared his vision. An epistolary genius as well, tossing off his missives like so many banana peels: gems drenched in sunlight, tipped with Mediterranean blue and the gold of Mycenae.

Even then — how old was he? twenty-three perhaps? — he had everything one needs to make a name and a place for himself. How is it that it has taken so long for the world to recognize him? How fortunate, let me add, that he had one faithful publisher throughout the period of eclipse! (Faber and Faber). We should all be grateful to them, and especially to T. S. Eliot, his mentor.

In those early days the writing man took secondary place. It was the person who counted with us, the unquenchable, indomitable cock-o’-the-walk who, by a slight rearrangement of the personality, might just as well have made a name for himself on the vaudeville stage or in the Olympic tryouts. I say “us,” for we were usually three then, the musketeers of the rue de la Tombe-Issoire: alias Perlès, Durrell, and myself. Sometimes incremented by the company of Edgar, the beloved David Edgar, or by Hans Reichel who, alas, has just passed away. What were we up to? Fun. “It makes fun,” Reichel used to say. Everything made fun. (Perhaps that’s why it took so long for any of us to make the grade.)

Perlès, our editor-in-chief, has written about The Booster, which Durrell insisted we call The Delta, and which we recklessly ran into the ground. One ought to have a look, these days, at the contributors to this hilarious and most unorthodox review whose back cover we used as a vehicle for texts no one could decipher — in Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Pali, and so on. We even included poets and poetesses then unknown, if they paid us to. Of course we had to give the copies away. But what matter? We had everything to lose. It was fun. Show me the editors today who permit themselves such luxury!

I said he was a hard worker, Durrell. He was, but he was always available when it came to a lark. He took his work seriously, not himself. Today it seems to be the other way round. With poets especially.

It was only a matter of months that we spent together in Paris. Looking back, it seems like years. On the other hand I don’t think of this period in the manner of Max Jacob writing of the rue Ravignan and of the Picasso then unknown. My worst days were already past when Durrell arrived; his were yet to come. Besides, the whole episode never faded into a past; it’s as much alive in my memory now as if it happened yesterday.

There’s another thing it seems important to stress. When Durrell knocked at my door at the Villa Seurat a quarter of a century ago—think of it! — I felt that I had known him all my life. We didn’t have to become acquainted first. He came with his aura, which was familiar to me. We spoke as if resuming a conversation broken off centuries ago.

What different worlds we hailed from! Try to connect Brooklyn — the 14th Ward — and Darjeeling! Or the Ionian Sea and the East River! As well try to yoke Homer and Dostoevsky. Or Hannibal and Arthur. How well I remember his amazement when he learned that I had never read the Odyssey or the Iliad. Yes, there were roadblocks now and then. Stendhal was one; Laurence Sterne another. (I’ve never been able to read either to this day!) But we could share enthusiasm for Blavatsky, for Petronius, and for dear Knut Hamsun, among others. Not Shakespeare.

He was an exceedingly well read man even then. I could sit back and listen to him by the hour. The great link between us was Lao-tse and that disciple of his, the gay old dog, who followed some centuries later. (The man John Cowper Powys delights in referring to.) By comparison I was just a Brooklyn boy, an inculte who reached for his revolver whenever he heard the word Culture. Which is why, most likely, we got on so well together and could spend days on end getting drunk on Spengler.

(It’s strange, but I don’t recall any lengthy discussions about Rimbaud then. I’m sure he had read him, of course.)

How I enjoyed it when he laced it into me! No man who ridiculed me ever gave me more pleasure in the doing of it than Larry Durrell. It was like having your nine-year-old make a monkey of you. (“Put up your dukes! Not that way! Lead with your left!”) Yes, he could polish the floor with me — culture-wise. Besides, I was congenitally slow-witted, if not half-witted.

The one thing I never did learn from him, though I’ve never regretted it, was to improve my style. It’s amazing, too, because no one ever put his finger on my weaknesses more unerringly than Durrell. But I’m stubborn and recalcitrant. (I still lead with my right; I still stick my jaw out.) But it gives me infinite pleasure to add that the chap who talked improvements has worked them on himself, has demonstrated in his own work that it pays off. I know of no greater stylist today among contemporary writers of English, than the author of those unknown books which he had the good sense to sign with another name. The Black Book was not his first book. But it was the first book he wrote with his right hand. He had been at it, I would hazard, since grammar school days. (How lucky he was to have been “wasting his time” traveling about the world instead of going up to Cambridge or Oxford!)

In a few weeks I shall be seeing him again. It was just about twenty years ago that we parted, somewhere in Arcadia (Greece). What prodigious things he has accomplished in the interim! It will be like meeting Victor Hugo now. What I keep wondering is — will he have that same belly laugh? I don’t care what mistakes he may have made, what sins he may have committed, if only he has retained that infectious laugh! Books are forgotten, fame passes, but laughter is something you take with you to the grave. I don’t want him to die, but when he does — for he must one day! — please God, let him die laughing!

Big Sur, California

Feb. 9th, 1959