Miller, Nin, and Proust’s 'Albertine disparue'

Thanks very much to this week's guest writer, Steven Reigns. Here, he writes about a copy of Proust's Albertine disparue, once owned by Anaïs Nin and read by Henry Miller, who took the liberty of writing his thoughts in its margins. The book is now part of Mr. Reigns' personal collection.

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I purchased this book at The Gotham Bookmart in New York in the summer of 2001, two years before they moved. They closed in 2007 and the majority of their collection is now at The University of Pennsylvania.

The staff was kind enough to pull four boxes from the attic. These boxes housed books purchased from Hugh Guiler (also known as Ian Hugo), Anaïs Nin’s husband, before he moved. I sat in the upstairs gallery with a current exhibit of drawings by Patti Smith. Andreas Brown was kind, personable, and talked with me while I reviewed the books. All of them were stamped in blue From The Library of Anaïs Nin and Ian Hugo. I purchased a third of their collection, selecting books I knew were significant to Nin, some even with her handwritten notes in the margin. I was thrilled to find this copy of Proust’s Albertine disparue.

This volume has Nin’s signature on the cover. She, uncharacteristically, signed the cover Anaïs N. Guiler. The notes are in Miller’s handwriting. In December of 1932 Miller wrote to Nin about Proust, “…reading it in the French (and, by the way, I am marking it up with your permission) how orthodox it sounds to my ears.” [1]

Miller in a letter to Nin expresses his feelings towards Albertine. “Naturally, you have divined how precious this 'Albertine' must be for me. Is not June very similar—perhaps much more complicated, orchestrated, as it were? How much more I know, have lived, have endured, suspected, discovered—and yet, how vast the unknowable! That is why reading Proust is a form of ecstatic suffering.” [2] In the this copy of Albertine disparue Miller makes a note on page 124, “This almost hurts too much to read.”

Note in left margin: "This almost hurts too much to read." Underlined within this highlighted passage are the words, "... cette vie qui m'avait tant ennuye [...] avait ete au contraire delicieuse ..." (Roughly translated: This life which has been irritating has also been rather delicious -- RC)

This copy has many passages marked by Miller and numerous notes in the margin. One reads “Recall Fred’s words at Select Bar.” Page 146 has a long underlined passage and the simple note of “June” in the margin. Miller writes of his markings “I want you to go over the passages I have marked and sort of cogitate over them. If I can talk it out with you when I get back to Paris, excellent." [3]

Miller's note in the left-hand margin: "June."

 Albertine disparue is the sixth volume of Proust’s seven-part novel and a book Miller and Nin bonded over. On April 3, 1932, Nin writes Miller from her home in Louveciennes. “Reading Albertine disparue because you asked me to.” [4] Less than a week later, Nin references the book again to Miller “I have found my 'happiness' again. The awareness of the danger which threatened it (which came fully with the reading of Proust and after a talk with Fred) at first tortured me.” [5]

Nin privately wrote in her diary, “I feel hurt while reading Albertine disparue, because it is marked by Henry, and Albertine is June. I can follow each implication of his jealousies, his doubts, his tenderness, his regrets, his horror, his passion, and I am invaded by a burning jealousy of June. For the moment this love, which had been so balanced between Henry and June that I could not feel any jealousy, this love is stronger for Henry, and I feel tortured and afraid.” [6] [7]

Proust’s Albertine character gave Nin and Miller a reference point to talk about June and subsequently their own relationship. A talk about Proust brought this disclosure, recorded in the diary, from Miller: "to be entirely honest with myself I like to be away from June. It is then I enjoy her best. When she is here I am morbid, oppressed, desperate. With you—well, you are light. I am satiated with experiences and pain. Perhaps I torment you. I don’t know. Do I?”

When discussing where to write, Nin suggests Miller might not be able to write in Louveciennes. He states it would bring about a different kind of writing. She recorded her assessment in the diary in March of 1932: “He was thinking of Proust, whose handling of Albertine haunts him.” [8] Miller even wrote in a letter to Nin, “What happens to me after reading Albertine is that I am on fire. It is all I can do not to mark every line. The man seems to take the words out of my mouth, to rob me of my very own experiences, sensations, reflections, introspections, suspicions, sadness, torture, etc. etc., etc.” [9]

Albertine disparue haunted Miller so much he references it over a year later in a letter to Nin. On December 27th 1934 Henry writes Anaïs a very emotional letter about her attempts to shelter him, “what saddens me is that when it comes to a choice you prefer to protect me by a lie rather than confide in me as a man, as an equal, as your partner in life and death. Don’t you know that you can tell me everything? How small I feel when I think of all you’ve had to do—to protect me.” He goes on and ends the paragraph with “Recall for a moment the passage I marked in Albertine disparue. That’s all.” [10]

REFERENCES

[1] Miller, Henry, and Gunther Stuhlmann. Henry Miller, Letters to Anaïs Nin. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1965) 12.

[2] Miller, Henry, and Gunther Stuhlmann. Henry Miller, Letters to Anaïs Nin. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1965) 13.

[3] Miller, Henry, and Gunther Stuhlmann. Henry Miller, Letters to Anaïs Nin. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1965) 21. 2/7/1932

[4] Nin, Anaïs, and Henry Miller. A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953. Ed. Gunther Stuhlmann (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) 46.

[5] Nin, Anaïs, and Henry Miller. A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953. Ed. Gunther Stuhlmann (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) 48. dated April 9, 1932

[6] This entry is labeled March in Henry & June. I suspect this date is an error since Nin states in April she was reading the text. I trust the dates of the letters over the dates published in the diary.

[7] Nin, Anaïs. Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 91. dated March 1932

[8] Nin, Anaïs. Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) 87.

[9] Miller, Henry, and Gunther Stuhlmann. Henry Miller, Letters to Anaïs Nin. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1965) 18, dated Feburary 7, 1932

[10] Nin, Anaïs, and Henry Miller. A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953. Ed. Gunther Stuhlmann (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987) 277.