Notes On Nexus

The PBA Galleries website contains excerpts from notes left by Miller regarding his book, Nexus. They're found in Lots 81, 82 and 98 of the Personal Archive Of Henry Miller (all items have long since been sold). I've quoted verbatim from PBA; I hope they don't mind.

Lot 81 - "Schema for Nexus." [10] pp. holograph notebook on taped-together versos of reproductions of a Miller watercolor, written during the early planning stages for Nexus, with outlines of plots & charaters mapped out in blue ink. N.p.: [c.1945-50's].

Miller plots outlines for pages 1-100, 100-200, etc., referring himself to some of his other notebooks, including the Bern Porter notebook also in this sale. The notebook also contains memories of real-life events Miller planned to describe: "June - Paris; Varèse, Zadkine, Duchamp, Hotel Müller...Fred and Jeanne - North Africa! Sterling and June - Trip! Clinton Avenue - Dave Elkus, Chess, Learning to drive, Buick throttle - trip to L.I. - June, Writing novel for Pop - Walks and talks, Lexington Ave "L" rides...Trips to negroes Long Island with Elkus..." With list of male and female characters and their real-life counterparts holographed by Miller at rear 2 pp. Yellowing to tape, else about fine, with important outline & character content.

Lot 82 - "Nexus - Censored Pages." 24 pp. carbon typescript of pages censored from the published version of Nexus due to sexual content, describing in detail Miller's weekend romp with "Amy" and "Suzanne," with reflective thoughts on "Mona," in reality his second wife, June. N.p.: [1959]. Truly pornographic (and thoroughly unrealistic) in nature, there is really nothing this cataloguer can quote here - should definitely be seen. (NOTE** See details in the Comments section of this posting).

Lot 98 - Outline notes for Nexus. Printer's dummy of Bern Porter's book of tributes to Henry Miller, titled The Happy Rock and inscribed & signed by Porter to Miller on rear free endpaper, dated 1945. Most of the 160-page book was left blank, so Miller used it as his notebook for very early outlines of The Rosy Crucifixion over the next few years, writing in holograph on 68 pages. N.p.: 1945.

In his "Notes for Nexus" section, Miller writes: "1. Begin by wind-up-en-bloc of all leading to cellar life at Henry St. & Love Lane. Long dissertations on books, music, painting, art and rapid-fire conversations - crazy yet purposeful, with June, Jean, Cohen etc. Develop Jean's pseudo-pregnancy and results of Cohen's examination. Develop morbid hysterical love for June - possessiveness - and wind up with attempt at suicide. Jean raises money for move to Henry St..."

A couple of curious observations regarding names: Miller refers to June as "June" in his notes, although her character's name was "Mona," yet he refers to the Stasia character as "Jean" as if that's her real name, when it's generally known that Jean Kronski's actual name was Mara or Martha Andrews [UPDATE: read this]. Did he only know her by the fictional alias June had concocted for her?

Also, the pregnancy in Nexus was tended to by "Dr. Kronski," who in real life, as I undertsand it, was Dr. Emil Conason. Yet, in his personal notes, he calls him Cohen. Maybe I've misunderstood something, or perhaps that was the name Miller originally planned to use for that character. [UPDATE AUG 4/06: I realize now that Conason's real name was Seymour Emil Cohen. For reasons unknown to me, it was later changed to Conason.].