SubscribeCloserie des Lilas
The Closerie des Lilas (The Lilac Arbor) dates to the seventeenth century. Inside, the tables are affixed with small brass plates, each bearing the name of a prominent artist or writer who frequented the establishment. One of the plates is inscribed with Miller’s name.
In the nineteen-twenties, this was the favorite café of Ernest Hemingway, who often came here to write, completing the story “Big Two-Hearted River” while seated at one of the corner tables. In the thirties Miller worked on his own manuscripts at the Closerie as he described in a letter to Emil Schnellock:
Well, we must be getting on to a nice, quiet café, and so we go along the Boulevard Montparnasse, past the insufferable idiots at the Dôme and the Coupole, until we reach the Closerie des Lilas. I take a seat near the window facing the Bal Bullier, and as I sit studying my manuscript, I can see on the greensward outside a weight-lifter, clad in full tights amusing the crowd with his stunts. After awhile I go downstairs to the lavatory and by mistake walk straight into the ladies’ room. The ladies smile and take the faux pas good naturedly.
In his October 14, 1931 “La Vie de Boheme” column for the Chicago Tribune, Wambly Bald published a short biographical sketch of Miller which claimed that he occasionally spent the night sleeping on the bench outside the Closerie:
A couple of days ago he woke up on a bench outside the Closerie des Lilas. The only thing that bothered him, he said, was that he didn’t have a tooth-brush. “Being on the bum is all right if you can clean your teeth occasionally—say every third day. Otherwise you feel bad.”
Miller, who often ghost-wrote Bald’s column, likely wrote the sketch himself. Bald appears in Tropic of Cancer as the “cunt-struck” failed writer, Van Norden.
This caricature of Miller, drawn by Brassaï,
accompanied the “La Vie de Boheme” column
Notes
Visit the Closerie des Lilas’ website for more historical information and imagery.
Location
171 boulevard du Montparnasse – See it on Google Maps
Next Stop
To reach our next stop, continue walking in the same direction along the boulevard du Montparnasse and take your second left onto the rue Henri Barbusse. Here you’ll find the former home of Walter Lowenfels …
