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Henry Miller, Happy Rock

Translated by Jane Marie Todd
"In a world like this one, it’s difficult to devote oneself to art body and soul. To get published, to get exhibited, to get produced often requires ten or twenty years of patient, intense labor. I spent half my life at it! And how do you survive during all that time? Beg? Live off other people until you’re successful? What a dog’s life! I know something about that! You’re always recognized too late. And today, it’s no longer enough to have talent, originality, to write a good or beautiful book. One must be inspired! Not only touch the public but create one’s own public. Otherwise, you’re headed straight for suicide."

That’s Henry Miller’s advice for young aspiring artists, as remembered by his very good friend Brassaï in this lively book. One of two that Brassaï wrote about the man who called himself a "happy rock," this volume covers their lives and friendship from the 1950s to 1973. Over the course of a number of warm, intimate conversations, Brassaï and Miller revisit their careers; discuss art, literature, Paris, Greece, Japan, World War II, and more; and consider the lives and works of many others in their circle, including Lawrence Durrell, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Georges Simenon, André Malraux, Hans Reichel, Paul Klee, and Amedeo Modigliani. Throughout Miller’s zest for life shines through, as do his love of art and his passionate intensity for just about everything he does, from discussing a movie or play he’d just seen to reminiscing about a decades-long love.

Brassaï’s Henry Miller, Happy Rock presents a vivid portrait of two close friends who thoroughly enjoy each other’s company—and just happen to be world—famous artists too.

Read an excerpt.


184 pages | 10 duotones | 6 x 9 | © 2002

Art: Photography

Biography and Letters

Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature, General Criticism and Critical Theory

Table of Contents

Spring 1953
Sunday, April 19, 1959
Thursday, April 30, 1959
May 1959
April 9, 1960
May 7, 1960
Sunday, May 8, 1960
Sunday evening, May 8, 1960
Tuesday, May 10, 1960
Friday, May 13, 1960
Friday, May 13, 1960 (continued)
Friday, May 13, 1960 (continued)
Tuesday, May 17, 1960
October 1960
Friday, April 20, 1962
Summer 1962
Wednesday, August 15, 1962
Tuesday, April 6, 1965
Tuesday, September 19, 1967
Friday, September 22, 1967
Tuesday, October 3, 1967
Friday, October 6, 1967
Wednesday, August 20, 1969
Thursday, June 28, 1973
Notes
Index of Names

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