Espace Henry Miller
Just around the corner from Henry Miller’s former Clichy apartment is the Espace Henry Miller, a neighborhood cultural center named in the writer’s honor which opened in November of 2003. Inside you’ll find gallery and performance space for art exhibitions, concerts, and dance. Also on offer are classes in yoga, gymnastics and computer skills.
In March 2004, Artists de la Vie, a play by Florence Boog and Jacques Lallié based on the relationship between Miller and Anaïs Nin, had its opening at the Espace Henry Miller.
The Espace Henry Miller is located at 3 rue du Docteur Calmette in Clichy. Visit their website to learn more about current events and course offerings.
Location
3 rue du Docteur Calmette
Clichy, 92110
map
14 comments on "Espace Henry Miller"
I do believe there isn’t a road or square in Paris that Miller’s name is associated with, and to come across this has been a surprise. It brings to mind a passage from one of his books (most probably Tropic of Cancer), where roaming the city’s streets he was amazed to find that there were no roads with poets names like Rimbaud’s affixed to them. I think it’s interesting though how yesterdays rebels in France are always posthumously remembered in one way or another. But I think Miller would have loved this tribute to his name, and where else but in the city that he loved.
It is pleasant surprise that the town of Clichy named this neighborhood center after Henry Miller. I would have assumed the more likely candidate to be Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who also lived nearby. I’m sure Miller would have been proud.
Also of note there is an allée Blaise Cendrars in Paris (basically a footpath through the park at Les Halles) that would have pleased Miller.
Im in Paris right now I think I will check this out
I’m of the opinion that places like this shouldn’t exist. What is there to celebrate about henry miller? No wonder why all the writers of today are such snoozers. Instead of living our own lifes like henry miller did we just act moronic and create little hang-outs with henry miller’s name on it and then sit on the table and drink coffee and say “yeah man this is so cool. henry miller man. dude, henry miller.” Fuck that shit. Forget about henry miller. Henry Miller is dead. Henry Miller didn’t go to places like this. He went to real places. Celebrating the artist or artistry is for suckers. Henry Miller celebrated life. Maybe these suckers should too. When I’m in paris I will shit on this place.
the only way to be like henry miller is to forget henry miller
Well, what can one say? Except it’s not everyday that one gets called a sucker, but it’s a free world we live in and everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But the only thing wrong with an opinion is when the person addressing it, uses the platform they have before them to solely vent their anger. According to this man (and I take it that it is a man) he would like to see a cultural centre torn down because he can’t stand somebody’s name. So it begs the question: what’s in a name? Well according to this sad guy everything that he can’t stand , but what it is he can’t stand is beyond him to answer. The weirdest thing though is after this he then proceeds to inform us that he’s a ‘moron’, that he ‘creates little hang outs for writers’, and that he then sits at tables to drink coffee talking about them. Well then the guy blows it big time, and backtracking on himself he makes himself look more of an idiot by remarking that the whole thing should be forgotten. Well one thing we all know is when someone is making themselves look an idiot, they should just clam up. But this guy is so frustrated by this time that he just loses it. Then he proceeds to tell us that Miller wouldn’t have gone to places like this. I mean what this bozo is trying to tell us, is that apart from the ethical reasons he imagines Miller wouldn’t have gone there for, he’s also trying to tell us that if the author’s friends Brassai or Hans Reichel had been exhibiting he still wouldn’t have gone there. His next comment though has got to rank as one of the most stupid I have ever heard. He then tells us that the subject in question only went to ‘real places,’ only what a real place is seems beyond him to clarify. Maybe he means bars, hotels and cinemas like most of us use, or maybe he was trying to use the word brothel. Who knows. Indeed who cares! But that this guy is obviously frustrated, and is using a platform to vent his sad ideals he makes more than plain. Well Mr blah if you do happen to read this, I have a bit of advice for you. If you want to divert your energy into something more positive, put it into that monosyllabic mate of yours by giving him some spelling and grammatical lessons.
Louis Ferdinand Céline was a fine writer but a notorious racist and anti-Semite who turned in not only Jews during WWII fascist Vichy France but progressive Frenchmen of all backgrounds and stripes.
He made a cottage industry of his vile denunciatory newspaper
articles during the German Nazi occupation.
Robert Desnos, the illustrious surrealist French poet, who worked for the Resistance, was turned in to the Gestapo by Céline. Desnos died of exhaustion in a Nazi concentration camp.
No, I don’t think Henry Miller, who had many Jewish friends, literary colleagues and acquaintances would have appreciated Céline’s name on the “Espace” instead of his own.
I’m so pleased there is somewhere like this with Henry Miller’s name on it. Blah’s comment sounds a bit fanatical and Henry miller was the most liberal man in the world, the most open to all; closed minds and closed systems condemned themselves when he ran into them…. More of a taoist, old Miller, than a fanatic I reckon. Miller is dead. Long live Miller.
While there is no doubt Celine held political beliefs uncomfortable to many, there is absolutely no proof he turned anyone in to the authorities of occupied France …. certainly not Desnos. This is a canard perpetuated by the likes of that old commie Sartre. (There is, however, proof that he offered medical help to various Resistance members – as much out of caprice as anything else, one imagines).
Since Miller frequently avowed his huge debt to Celine, in terms of style and subject matter, I don’t think he would have begrudged the old boy a monument or two.
What’s in a name? A cultural centre by any other name would smell as sweet. To live is always to remember, as Proust understood. To have the heft of a window smashing brick in your hand, bits of lettuce from a sandwich under your fingernails and mayo oil on your palm…to release a thoughtful belch and catch the whiff of the outcome, this is all one thing. But to muse on other belchers, other sandwiches, the dead and gone is also part of the present as Miller knew from Proustt. So heave up your statues, without which our well intentioned iconoclasts may as well drop their crowbars.
For me Cacophonus’ phrase “to live is to remember,” sums up the objective that makes us take such an interest in the past. But I think the converse is also true in that it could also be said that to remember is to live, and while the title of a building may not bare the remembrance of a particular subject, it is the the spirit that it invokes that gives it life. But I also think that when a particular boulevard has given up the ghost to its previous life in terms of awnings, signs, and the ghosts of the famous personages that once inhabited them, I think it is still saturated with the ether that once lined its length. I think only the truely sensitive can be attuned to vibrations of this kind, and that while people may balk at whether history in this sense is important, I think that at the end of the day there is undoubtedly a certain pleasure in being aligned with this. So, and as readers can see, there doesn’t have to be importance, or substance, or even a higher objective to enjoy the past. Sometimes to live and to remember is all that you need.
I daresay Henry Miller read and to some extent emulated the authors he admired. If that weren’t the case, he would not have been in Paris in the first place. So Blah’s assumption that nobody worthwhile should bother remembering Henry Miller is pretty idiotic.
If I ever get to Paris, I’ll visit this place and enjoy it, whores or no. And I’ll consider it living.
D comme diffamation
Décidément, les légendes ont la vie dure. Dans la dernière édition du Guide Michelin consacré à Prague, figure, au bas de la page 265, un petit encadré consacré à Robert Desnos qui mourut en déportation dans le ghetto de Terezin, ville à 65 km au nord de Prague : ” Résistant, il publia sous un pseudonyme des articles antinazis dont Louis-Ferdinand Céline le désigna pour auteur. Arrêté et déporté à Buchenwald, il fut transféré au ghetto de Terezin où il mourut. ”
La vocation de ce Bulletin n’est pas de se faire l’avocat de Céline, mort en 1961 et dont le procès eut lieu dix ans auparavant. Mais le rétablissement des faits peut ne pas être vain, étant donné la large diffusion des Guides Michelin.
Rappelons donc ici que la polémique Desnos-Céline eut lieu en mars 1941 (voir Cahiers Céline 7, pp. 112-115). Aucun lien donc avec l’arrestation de Desnos qui se produisit en février 1944. Ajoutons que Céline ignorait les activités clandestines de l’auteur du Pamphlet contre Jérusalem. Et lorsque ce dernier le prend à partie, à la parution des Beaux draps, c’est dans… Aujourd’hui, journal collaborationniste auquel il donna des articles jusqu’en 1943.
Céline n’est donc en rien responsable de l’arrestation de Desnos, et ne l’a jamais dénoncé comme résistant. L’affirmer constitue une diffamation patentée. Contre Céline, tout serait-il permis ? Au moins, Marie-Claire Dumas, présidente de l’Association des Amis de Robert Desnos, reconnaît-elle que Céline n’est en rien à l’origine de cette arrestation.
Pour mieux connaître le fond de cette affaire, on se reportera à l’enquête de Jean-Paul Louis qui a montré de manière pertinente que ” l’innocent Desnos et le monstrueux Céline sont deux fabrications aussi vaines l’une que l’autre “.
M. L.
* Jean-Paul Louis, ” Desnos et Céline, le pur et l’impur ” in Histoires littéraires, n° 5, janvier-février-mars 2001, pp. [47]-60. Voir aussi Marie-Claire Dumas, ” Droit de réponse. La “police littéraire” de M. Jean-Paul Louis ” in Histoires littéraires, n° 6, avril-mai-juin 2001, pp. [56]-60.
Of course henry miller celebrated the authors he loved! it consumes a large part of his books! maybe he’d go there, and think it was a load of shit, or maybe he’d go there and have a fuck in the elevator… who cares? id rather have henry miller there than alot of other punk ass celebrates going around…
