Dear Ms. Miller,
I discovered Mr. Miller’s work when I was eighteen years old (I am now 31.) I picked up Sexus because I liked the cover and the title intrigued me. Back then I had never heard of your father or his work, although I had always been an avid reader.
After the first page I soon found out why! I can only say that this was one of those rare moments where fate must have been at work. At that time in my life growing up in Philadelphia your father’s words were the only proof I had in the world that I was not completely insane, that there were others out there like me, who perhaps saw something else, something different, something more ethereal in all things, yet more concrete as well. The sheer daring of your father to embrace this extra sensory experience and the will to express it… I could not articulate it then, but it was nothing short of awe inspiring for a young, naive man on the verge of beginning to live his own life.
Since that time I have gone on many travels and adventures, both physically as well as mentally, intellectually and spiritually. There have been periods where I have not looked at your father’s words and works for years, but I’ve always returned, and they have always served not only as inspiration to continue seeing and experiencing the world and my life in my own unique way, but as an anchor for me to return to myself when it seems I have lost my way.
Just wanted to take a moment express my undying debt and gratitude to you as I did not get a chance to thank him for his work. I wish you and your family the best of everything.
Yours,
Lee Sternthal
Mrs Miller,
I thought to pass this one along, since i always was a great admirer of your dad’s work. Read a lot and even collected some first editions for some time, but that was a long time ago. I stumbled upon your website through the Big Sur Library, and funny thing is that i saw a cd on the internet of Sounds of Big Sur (the sea and waves breaking rock) a couple of days ago and found it yesterday in the shop, so i had to listen to it. Got back some memories about reading Henry Miller in my early twenties and having the books. It was always like a quest going around the country from bookshop to bookshop. So there came the poem which is below. Art as in writing and painting has always been my outlet for coping with life. I only started writing in english a couple of months ago, hadn’t in some 18 years.
Anyway, i hope you enjoy the poem. I never was in Big Sur by the way, but hope to do so once. Beautiful! place from what i hear and see.
All the best,
Peter Janssen (Netherlands)
BIG SUR SOUND WAVES
No coincidence,
finding it.
Saw it the day before yesterday,
on the net,
and this afternoon,
in the shop.
Bargain time.
I listen. I watch.
I remember the
book.
I remember the smell, the aura
surrounding it.
Furious orange, dust wrappers fine.
1st edition.
It’s when one becomes art,
instead of
doing tricks.
Fulfillment through
complete surrender,
sucking up life and
passing it along.
’Cose inspiration,
belongs to the
world,
just as it is
given.
Early morning rise.
Coastline blues.
Where war is from
another planet.
Happy rock, looking over
happy cliffs.
Fully drained, born anew.
Drinking one more cup,
of ever nourishing love.
Val
I just wanted to send you a brief note to tell you how much your father has meant to me over the last 15 years. I never met him. In fact he died when I was 13 years old. But he has influenced and inspired me as much or more than any one I’ve ever known personally. I think he once said that he only went to Greece because of a conversation he had with a friend. Well, your father sent me to Greece and France and Prague and Hungary and the far east. So much the free spirit. So way ahead of his time intellectually, politically, spiritually, preceding the beats and hippies and Ashramites. And he did so humbly and without pretense; simply by virtue of virtue.
Not only have I read (almost) all of his books. But I have read many of them several times over, including the same books for different purposes. For you can read Henry Miller for lessons on inspiration or laughs; for being an artist or a writer; unmasking yourself; being a bad husband or a pure soul; for an understanding as to how to communicate with yourself and your emotions.
I know I haven’t said anything you haven’t heard before, or that you don’t know better than I do. But I just wanted to share these few thoughts with you. Your name came up fairly frequently in his correspondence so I feel like your almost a member of the family I haven’t communicated with in years. And if I don’t hear from you or speak to you, I wish you and your family well.
Joshua Abeles
Brooklyn, New York
Hello
I’m writing you to thank you to keep your father’s site…
My english could be a little funny as I am portuguese, but I just like to teel you that I’ve found his books many years ago, and since there I consider him as my main reference in life… I will call him my master if he hasn’t told me in one of his books "I’ve come in this world not to teach a lesson but to say that the school has finished…"
I admire him so much and allways I feel a little bad or weaker I return to his books and I find again my self confidence and I my love for life restaured…
I really don’t know what more could I say but I understand very well your feelings when you say each year you missing him more…
Maybe it’s time to remember his words again "one day I’ll be back with another name another body…" as you and I…
Best regards
Joakim Paz
Val,
The very thought that I am writing to you right now gives me chills. I have been an avid reader of your father for years and have finally found my place in this world based on his astonishing stories, he is truly a man of great stature. Henry to me represents the necessary balance the world needs in order to sustain itself, the other end of the social pole that allows all the tight asses and shallows to exist as they do. Every time I found myself broke, lost or alone I would think to myself, “what would Henry do?” this has gotten me pretty far in my life. His poetic exaggerations and his amazing ability to write down what his eyes and his ears have seen is uncanny, he is truly a cultural leader and a biblical figure of our century. When I think of American writers, ironic he had to flee to France, I can only see your fathers face, his smile and his ability to take life and make it his own. I have many things in common with your father, I am also from Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn, I also fled my home town and NYC to find bigger and better things abroad, I too have strange friends whom I love and adore for their unique character and richness of life, I write, I struggle yet I’m completely fine. I read your fathers works and I get charged and inspired to carry on a legacy that has been looked down upon by the masses because of his unconventional ways of living. How many of us can grab life by the horns? How many of us can identify our passion and seek it with an equal passion, who else could capture the raw, erotic, playful and sometimes painful scenes of life as well as your father? He was truly gifted and is an icon for any writer who seeks truth in himself and others. I cannot even find the words to fully capture my admiration for him, he is my hero in a world lacking heroes. He made mistakes, he fell, he rose, he begged and borrowed from those who adored him and his expansive mind and they loved him because he was simply alive. I envy him in so many ways, I envy his passion and his ability to write, I would write for days and never even come close to his simplicity and how well he was able to capture his life in words. What was he like in person? Was he loving? How did you manage as his child to deal with his chaotic ways and his many twists and turns? Please share with me some small memory so I can feel that much closer to my hero.
Thank you
— Craig
Good afternoon!!
There are no enough strong words to express what Mr. Miller means to me, to my life. The first time I read him , I was ’bout 14 years old, the book Tropic of Capricorn, i read it in english ( I’m from Chile) and I must say it rock my little and dull life, Mr. Miller showed me a new type of human being, he showed that we can still find beauty in this world, even in the darkest moments… Evey item I had the chance I tell someone about him, ’bout his works, what he meant or at least what I think he meant!! Anyways, I’d probably write for hours making no sense at all… I just wanted to say THANKS, to your father, THANKS to you, ’cause I know for sure I’ll keep discovering secret meaning in his words ’till the end of times.
THANKS.
Muchas Gracias por levanatarme cada vez que me perezosa existencia se queja sin saber que es la vida en realidad!!
Mauricio Sanchez Arevalo