Customer Reviews

Quiet Days in Clichy

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4 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been a huge Henry Miller fan since I was a teenager in the late 50s, but his infamous and banned books (the Cancer and Capricorn ones) are not my favorites. I far prefer this one, along with The Colossus of Maroussi and Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.
Quiet Days in Clichy is a memoir, a nostalgic love story of life in Paris before WW II, a celebration of the Bohemian life Miller lived when he was a poor unknown writer. It's wonderful, rollicking, hilarious, and introduces fans to a whole cast of characters who became Miller's lifelong friends, people who influenced his writing and his art forever.

In Quiet Days, we have a re-written "Paris Days" story which reads smoother and faster (it's also very short) than many of Miller's other novels. It's also hilarious and full of the expected (infective) Miller exhilaration. Parts are deliberately "erotic" and those part (for me) often seem like pandering. Parts almost read like a literary version of Porkies or American Pie. Still, I enjoyed the polished writing and would recommend this short, funny, lively novel to anyone. I also agree with the other reviewer who recommended, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. These two novels Quiet Days and The Losers' Club are my favorite Amazon picks of the last month.

"When I think about this period, when we lived together in Clichy, it seems like a stretch in Paradise. There was only one real problem, and that was food. All other ills were imaginary. I used to tell him so now and then, when he complained about being a slave. He used to say I was an incurable optimist, but it wasn't optimism, it was the deep realisation that, even though the world was busy digging its grave, there was still time to enjoy life, to be merry, carefree, to work or not to work."

This quote was enough to inspire me to quit my awful job and start living my life. Since then I moved overseas myself and I haven't looked back.

Quiet Days in Clichy, amazing as it sounds after reading the book, was written originally in 1940. At that time, Henry Miller was 49 years old. He rewrote it 16 years laters. At 65 years old, Miller, was able to recapture with mastery the magic of his youthful adventures with his hilarious and memorable sidekick, Carl, during the Paris years. Even now, some 60 years later, the book is still as relevant and inspiring as it ever could have been.

For anyone remotely interested in Miller but have been put off by the intense tangent-rambling in the Tropic books, I would suggest picking up this lesser-known edition. It's straightforward, hilarious, and at times shocking, but undoubtedly it will continue to be an inspiration to those who long to live life to the fullest.

An interesting and nostalgic reminiscence of Henry Miller's early days in Paris.
Miller seemed cold and detached, a poor writer, yet gave all his money to a stranger, a cool, French prostitute, who left him alone with hunger in the middle of the night, a hunger that pushed him to search for food from his garbage can, a desperate and heartbreaking search. This vivid description of his wild search and miserable discovery is striking, emotional, absurd, dazzling.
This is not the most fascinating book, yet it is a pleasure to read it. It is charming, fresh, original, direct, moving, very masculine, strong and humble at the same time.
"Tropic of Capricorn" is a more remarkable and unforgettable book.

This is one of Miller's shorter works and an excellent companion piece to the earlier books set in Paris. While the sexual content is unmistakably Miller, it is not as lascivious as say, the series "The Rosy Crucifixion", but offers profound sensory images of the period. It's like actually being there. "Quiet Days" was made into a film with Miller's consultation and won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. There is an earlier Grove (Evergreen Black Cat) movie tie-in edition. The book highlights the life of the literally often starving writer and his constant search for food, a few francs, and his frolics amongst French prostitutes. In terms of literary value, it falls short of the "Tropic" and New Directions titles, but is a must for every Miller fan. Vintage Miller, originally composed in the early 40s and re-written at Big Sur circa 1956.

Clichy stands alone in the works of Henry Miller. While being another semi-autobiographical romance, it lacks the deep introspection, commentaries on art & literature and the constant "I am an artist, I am an artist. I am! I am! I am!" so often found in these type of Miller works, which makes this short volume so refreshing and enjoyable. It's mostly about sex, food & fun in Miller's Paris days while living with good buddy Alfred "Joey" Perles. It is erotic & stimulating without being pornographic or "filthy". It's more akin to mind candy than food for thought, which is A-OK with me. A very enjoyable, entertaining read.

Miller, in his masterful way, gives us an account of Paris like it was...and is. Far from our clichés of a saccharine city as portrayed in fairy tales like "Amelie", "Quiet Days at Clichy" mingles the picturesque with the down-and-out for a portrait that would have pleased Emile Zola. Whores and cafes, venereal disease and breakfasts of Roquefort and white wine, poetry and squalid prose, Miller dissects Paris in the brilliant way Roman Payne writes about Paris in the novel Crepuscule, the way Zola writes in Therese Raquin... presenting a city that is a filthy beast deserving not less than all our love and praise.

In "Quiet Days in Clichy," Henry Miller tells the story of Joey, an American writer living in Paris with his roommate Carl, who is also a writer. Amidst bouts of poverty, the two have a series of erotic and romantic encounters with a diverse procession of women: a runaway teen, a Danish widow, and other lusty, strange, and/or tragic characters.

Miller skillfully evokes the seedy side of Paris, with its prostitutes and cafes. His prose is clear and direct; he portrays the sex scenes with graphic confidence. The book as a whole has a loose, episodic feel.

I was intrigued by Miller's irreverent, rather ironic presentation of writers and writing in "Quiet Days." Overall, I enjoyed this book: Miller writes with an earthy energy, and his story is punctuated by striking glimpses of human longing and frustration.

According to notes in the text, "Quiet Days" was written in New York City in 1940 and revised in Big Sur in 1956. The book would, I believe, make an interesting complement to some of the poetry of Charles Bukowski (I'm thinking specifically of his volumes "What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire" and "Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument [...]").

Though Miller is very known for his direct, almost brutal kind of writing and his very boemic perspective of life and love, this book seems even more disorganized then his others, it almost reads like some kind of itinerary. You have the feeling like he made certain journey throught the country, did some things and now he is sitting with you at small pub on the end of the town and is talking to you about the things, drinking fifth pint of beer at your account. Comments on content are almost unnecessary. If you know what kind of erotic prose Miller writes, you know what you'll find inside. If it bears it's signature, it cannot be anything else. The interesting thing about Miller's books (and maybe especially this) is his way of thinking. We are so pressed by the pace of life nowadays that this type of ilfe, when you really don't know what you'll be doing next day, seeking leisure and pleasuer all the time, laying down almost everything what comes on your path seems so extraordinary, out of space, but appealingly attractive. More you think about, more you realize that it is even possible if you would be prepared to live your life like this. The main dilemma in you is: Do I have the guts? But on the other hand, you must have your mind turned that way, be a freak that cares little for today and even less for tomorrow. Miller was, we are not. I'm, however, very surprised that many people I know like his style far more than fine art of Anais Nin. Perhaps I prefer Anais, but Miller's book is still fascinating.

Much has been written about the interwar period in Paris, particularly by expats, who, of course, did not realize it would be a period between two world wars when they wrote. There was Hemingway's book, referenced in the subject title, George Orwell, Gertrude Stein and many others, including Henry Miller. The `20's were a more optimistic time, the `30's far less so, due to the Depression, and the "gathering storm" of another war. Though he does not state it directly, by referencing the Spanish Civil War, this book is set in the late `30's. Miller fled Paris when the war commenced, so this is a "swan song" for that era. The backdrop is the bohemian setting of Montmartre, and the bars around the Place de Clichy. Miller and his companion apparently lived in the small village of Clichy, just outside the old walls of Paris.

This is my first reading of this book; but I first read Miller for the titillation value, shortly after his better known "Tropic of Cancer" was no longer formally banned in the United States, in the early `60's. I was quite young at the time when I placed the book on the cashier's counter. I felt she had given me a knowing look; guiltily I hastily blurted out that it was "for a school assignment," to which she simply chuckled. For me, having grown up in a conservative suburban milieu, "Tropic" was a stunning view of another world, and at the time I wondered how much was sheer fantasy, or did real people actually live this way? With the perspective of life experience, post-suburb, I realize that people very much do live this way, even the women. And they are probably the poorer for it.

The work is largely autobiographic; Miller is played by a character named Joey. At times he is so poor and hungry that he goes through the garbage searching for food. Trying to support oneself by writing is an arduous task, but checks from America arrive from time to time. Naturally there is much philandering, the Miller "trademark," graphically described in words that would be banned in this review. There are affairs with prostitutes (Joey is the one who seems to have the "heart of gold"), underage kids (that would have resulted in jail sentences even in more permissive Paris), ménage a trois (er, ah, if you'll excuse my French), and sad scenes with mothers.

What is missing is the "why"? There really is no insight into the motivations to his actions, or should be assume we are dealing at a basic level of hierarchy of needs, like food and sex, and that is sufficient. And if there are not insights into the central characters, for sure, all the women are simply "props," or, as more commonly described, they are indeed objectified. As Miller says: "Sometimes, out of sheer boredom, I would take one on, even though it left the taste of ashes." Of all the sections, I found their brief trip to Luxembourg the most interesting, and his observation, true then, and probably more so now: "...the faces of the inhabitants were stamped with a sort of cow-like bliss."

Miller broke a particular shell of conventions with his books, and deserves much credit for that. Many others have followed in his steps, so his work now lacks the "shock" value that it did in an era where presidential and political affairs where kept hidden by the media. As another reviewer indicated though, I prefer "Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch."