50
PARTISAN REVIEW
Henry Miller:
I.
I find the expression "a usable past" a strange one. I cannot conceive
.of a past that is not usable, especially for a writer-that is, one which
is
not alive and fecund. Born in America, and having lived there the greater
part of my life, naturally this past is American. It would be queer if it
were Chinese or Senegalese, no? The figures who make up the elements of
my past are practically unknown; they are the ordinary, every day people
whom I lived and worked with. Exceptions are Emma Goldman, whom I
heard lecture several times in San Diego, about twenty-five years ago,
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Arturo Giovanitti, Carlo Tresca, Jim Larkin,
Benjamin Fay Mills, none of whom I knew personally, but all of them had
a great influence upon me. As regards the comparative influence of Henry
James and Walt Whitman, I can speak only for myself. For me Henry
James is nil; Whitman I believe is more alive than any American ever was
and will, in my opinion; live forever. I say this because he was more than
just a writer.
2. I never think of an audience when I write. In the first place I don't
even know what I am going to write when I sit down to the machine. No
doubt every writer has his own definite audience, which he cr eates as he
goes along. I think this audience is intangible and undefinable. Part of
the great joy of writing derives from the discovery of this unknown and
unsuspected audience. As to whether the audience for serious American
writing has grown .or contracted in the last ten years it is difficult for me
to say, since I have been abroad all that time and have not kept in touch
with things American. However, unless America has been miraculously
spared the fate of the rest of the world, I should be inclined to think that
the proportion of intelligent, discriminating readers is constantly dimin·
ishing. Mass consumption, mass action, mass literature, mass suicide–
that seems to bet he world trend.
3. I place no value whatever on the criticism my work has received.
Criticism is for the critics, not for the writer. Serious literary criticism
has always been rare; one has only to take a glance at the opinions of the
critics concerning the great writers of the past-1 mean the critics who
were contemporary-to see what rubbish it is, for the most part. Criticism
today, though we have more of it than ever before, is practically non·
existent. Like many other forms of our activity, it has become a racket.
4.
No, I have not yet been able to make a living from my writing; I have
to borrow and beg to keep alive, a practice I find more effective than using
such crutches as teaching or editing. I believe, however, that a very sue·
cessful living can be made from writing, especially in America, if only
one can be reconciled to giving the public what it likes. And sometimes
