The Devil at Large Read Free Page A

young author who had been hurled into a political maelstrom by the experience of publishing a book. I had been called a “mammoth pudenda” in The New Statesman by none other than Paul Theroux, so I had every reason to be grateful to Miller and Updike.
    I remember sending my two books of poems (Fruits & Vegetables and Half-Lives) to Miller in a hurry, but agonizing over what I termed “a real letter.” As I was mulling and brooding about how to respond to a living legend (and reading more of his books to make myself worthy) still another Miller letter arrived.
April 30, 1974
    Dear Erica Jong—
    I’m not very strong on poetry and so I didn’t expect to care for yours. (I do like some poets!) But I was surprised—I like your poems very much indeed. You are like a firecracker going off continually and interesting even when sputtering. You are so bright , so intelligent, so perceptive. You must have had straight A’s all through school, non?
    It was good of you to send me these two books of poems, with your charming dédicaces. I just finished reading the first one. I liked especially “If a woman wants to be a poet.” You mention several times Sylvia Plath. I ought to look up her work—unknown to me. I notice all the good writers you quote or recommend—excellent taste. The French poet “Ponge” was a surprise. I see you are going to write me a letter. I look forward to it eagerly.
    Jong is Chinese, isn’t it? At first I thought it was a variation of the Swiss “Jung.”
    Somehow somewhere I got the impression that Hermann Hesse was a writer who belonged to your youth—and not to be taken too seriously. I am probably wrong. But I hope (why, I don’t know) that you regard him as first-rate writer. For me, in some ways, he is a master. I would love to be able to write a book like “Siddhartha” or “Narcissus and Goldmund.”
    Enough! I wait to hear from you.
    Cheers!
    Henry Miller
    This missive was written on Henry Miller’s black-and-white printed stationery, which bore the address 444 Ocampo Drive, Pacific Palisades, California. At the very bottom of the page, in tiny type, was the Portuguese motto cuando merda tiver valor pobre nasce sem cu ( “ when shit becomes valuable, the poor will be born without assholes) .” Enclosed was a tattered fortune out of a fortune cookie that said: “Your name will be famous in the future.”
    Imagine a young writer receiving this fortune one day and attacks the next. It was dizzying and disorienting.
    Eventually, I summoned the courage to write back, making it appear that I had read more of his writing than I had:
May 4, 1974
    Dear Henry Miller,
    Thanks so much for your delightful and generous letters to me and my publisher. I was absolutely knocked out by them. I love your writing—love its wonderful energy and life and I’ve always felt a deep kinship with it. Also, some of your observations on writing, sexuality, obscenity and literature have taken me through very dark times and have given me courage. All your books attest to the fact that a writer needs great courage as well as great talent and they give courage to readers, too. I thank you for your letters to me and for all your splendid books.
    At one time, Fear of Flying was to have an epigraph from you—about the impossibility of ever telling the truth about one’s life, the impossibility of literal autobiography—but, ultimately, I didn’t want to tip my hand that way. The book is spiritual—if not literal—autobiography. Events and characters are sometimes invented, sometimes not. Everyone takes it for literal memoir—and in a way I find that a compliment. The book is coming out in paperback in the U.S. in November—and it is just now being published in England where some of the reviews read as if they were written by Mrs. Grundy herself. The New Statesman says I am “a mammoth pudenda” and my book “crappy,” “loathsome,” “horrible and embarrassing.” Fortunately your first two letters