Customer Reviews

The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder

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I give everyone a copy of this I meet. Henry Miller does more in a few pages than most authors can do in a lifetime. I'm not even going to attempt to write down my thoughts on what all the symbolism means to me. I will just say this. Get 10 dollars out of your wallet and buy a classic. Whenever I am down I read Smile, when I'm really happy I read Smile. The blood trickling down his face.............

Amidst millions of words of autobiographical writing, stands this lonely book, or rather a novella, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder, Miller's one and only composition that drew inspiration "from the blue", as Miller himself put it. However, do not be mistaken...this novella shines with brilliance. Apart from the exceptional writing Miller's readers are accustomed to, this story is far more complicated than any other novella I had read, ever. Auguste, the centerpiece in this intricate work, is the embodiment of human suffering, a man who carries out his duty until the last breath. His duty being to bring a lasting joy to his audience. For Auguste, there is nothing easier than to make his audience smile, for he is a clown, but the brief moment when he on stage, is not what he is after. His aim is far superior -- Auguste's desire is to unite people with endless joy, the kind that comes only through God himself. But this task, this task bigger than any one human, was a difficult one. When Auguste takes his "trick" to a new level, the audience, as humans tend to do when faced with something they do not comprehend, went up against him. Auguste abandoned the circus and took to wandering. Nevertheless, a man can escape his surroundings, but a man cannot escape himself. For Auguste, his shadow was always with him, in him, unsatisfied, longing. And so, after a nightmare where Auguste was faced with end of his life, he stumbles upon a circus on the edge of the town. His past, his shadow, catches up with him and Auguste is given a new chance to fulfill his task -- one of the clowns fell ill and the circus needs a replacement. Auguste agrees, partly because he wants to relieve his old life, partly because he wants to kill his old life off by making his "persona" more famous than he ever was as himself. With great success, Auguste is back in his element, until the clown, whom he replaced, suddenly dies. It is then, that August discovers reality. The reality of himself, the world, the humankind. The reality that joy is much more than the limited experience he allows his audiences within the boundaries of the circus. Auguste dives deep into himself, into the darkness of the world and he finds the light he was searching for all his life, becoming one with it.

The intricacy of this story, the world in which we live, filled with suffering and joy, the two primary contradicting emotions, is so wonderfully portrayed here. Auguste, complicated like life itself...a man, strong and weak, but above all, vulnerable for he is too human. One of the most fascinating books ever written. Do not be fooled by its size...it will sneak up on you from nowhere, without warning. One of the best works by Miller.

This is a very short read but so intriguing that you will lust for the last few words so you may complete the mission. Henry Miller nurtures a childhood fantasy of becoming a clown and uses this vehicle to convey a perspective on life that you will find invaluable. Though short and full of entertaining imagery, the complexity and the symbolism (along with the epilogue) will blow your mind. Godspeed, Mr. Miller!

An acquaintance loaned me her copy of this 1958 novel. "Read this," she said. "It's one of my all-time favorite books."

The "everyday world will one day become ours," Henry Miller (1891-1980) writes in the Epilogue to his truly sublime fable. "It is ours now, in fact, only we are too impoverished to claim it for our own" (p. 50). Miller's forty-page novel begins and ends with his clown protagonist, Auguste, smiling (pp. 3; 40), and it will leave you smiling on every page in between. Auguste cavorts through Miller's tale "like a crazy goat" (p. 24), aspiring to "endow his spectators with a joy which would prove imperishable" (p. 5). On his hero's journey, he discovers a very important lesson: "To be yourself, just yourself, is a great thing" (p. 22). This is the central theme of Miller's short, but deeply profound novel. Miller's clown is a "poet in action," an emancipated being "untouched, unsullied, by the common grief" of the world (pp. 46-7). Drifting "unknown" and "unrecognized" among the millions he taught to laugh (p. 6), Auguste lives "in the moment, fully" with the radiance of a "perpetual song of joy" (p. 48).

G. Merritt

Henry Miller was really tuned in for this short (about 50 pages) novelette. Tuned into what? With certainty he was tuned into his more poetic and esoteric side, but more significantly, he has magnificiently shown how, while others may question your ability to reach your dreams, or discount your dreams period, in holding to your dreams and what you believe in, you in fact are already there. This is brillaint literature, short and sweet. It is fantasy, but rooted in a different and real sort of hero's journey of self-acceptance and affirmation in the face of doubters. Henry Miller tops this concept off with the underlying idea that, as artists of life, we are all qualified from the get-go, as art places no limits on how it is expressed. It is a liberating concept for anyone struggling against the pigeon-hole.

Bought this book in an earlier print at antiquarian book fair. Beautiful design by Merle Armitage, reminding of Black Sparrow Pressbooks from the 80ties.

Still this dates back to the late 40ties. Stripes like Daniel Buren. Color circles at the beginning and end of the story. Strange fairytale like short story which could be experiienced as kitsch. I don't know really. With nicely reproduced monochrome clownesk pictures by Picasso, Segonzac, Klee, Rouault etc most from the designers private (!) collection.

This book is good, in fact, very good. However, I fet it was very very deep and I would like to have some sort of analysis to help me fully understand it.

Like all writers who are ultra-realistic, Henry Miller definitely had a bent of surrealism and magic lying underneath his style. Check out such books as The Cosmological Eye to see that part of him in action. Unfortunately, most writers like Miller are never able to effectively embrace this part of themselves. They are too busy trying to get to the "truth" of human life and thereby do not want to be "unrealistic".

The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder is an example of Miller trying to get to realistic truth through unrealistic means. It was originally written as a story to be placed in a collection of circus and clown drawings by the artist Fernand Leger. It was later rejected by Leger, so Miller decided to publish it himself with his own crude but perfectly suited water paint illustrations.

The story is about a famous clown named Auguste who has become a prisoner of his own celebrity. Unlike most entertainers, he wishes not only to delight his audiences, but to bring them to an inner peace hitherto only realizable through God. He is a master of his trade but one day as he is sitting in front of his mirror, he realizes that he has no life outside of his career. This triggers an attempt to flee himself by wandering through the country anonymously, searching for the meaning of life.

While an admirable try, this short fable on the question of identity and purpose is not very effective. Its very brevity defeats Miller's usually rambling and wayward prose. If he had wished he could probably have made a Don Quixote type novel out of this story but Miller probably got frightened from making something so removed from his own experience and the inborn romanticism of its plot. He should have given it a try. This is a minor work. Seek out his Rosy Crucifixion to get Miller at his zenith.