Volume 9, Issue 5, page 4

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND DIARIES -- ARE
/i0e2e 62/lef(I
SOME REFLECTIONS ON AN ASSIGNED STORY THAT DIDN'T GET WRITTEN -- IN WHICH
I NOUGHT you might be interested in this collop from an otherwise mostly- nowhere
piece of commercial fiction -- almost an
augury of Delphic significance; as I acne
by it reading otherwise only the beatified
generation of poets and Aberreers nowadays.

From a book by Hans Habe: "The Devil's Agent"
"Dr. Lu Wang had encouraged me to write an
account of my life and thoughts and he had
prophesied that a strange change would come
over me in the writing...that everybody should
write his autobiography -- or better still, he
ought to write two: the first confessing his
life, to the best of his knowledge and ability,
and the second recording the strange changes
which came about during the writing of the
first. Nobody who lays bare his life or a part
of his life remains the same person at the end
of his communication. Dr. Wang's 'institutionalist' theory proceeds from the austere reality of our personality as a part of our society: We are only what we are in our society. But
if this is so, then communication means change ,
since a communicated secret ceases to be 9.
secret, and since, moreover, the communicant,
by making his communication, ceases to be the
receptacle of a secret and becomes, as it were,
an empty vessel ready to receive some new contents. No life story is a frank confession except by intention. Its execution invariably
changes, if not the truth of the confession
itself, then at least the person undertaking
the adventure of truth (Author's Note -- e.g.
Hubbard : "Change the future by changing the
past.") But as the character of the person confessing changes, so does the life he confesses
-- so that in the end what he has confessed in
good faith no longer seems real to him (true
to him), even tho his new realization is no
more than a consequence of his earlier co$fessions and the truth no more than a supprement to the earlier one,tho seemingly at odds
with it... But, to record facts is the same as
to understand them... even while I was balancing them the events changed their character:
success revealed itself as failure, and profit
as loss... "
And from "The Black Book", by Lawrence Durrell, Cardinal edition GC-760, Pocket Books,
Inc., New York :
"learned doctor" thinks about it... so long as
one is not staging for effects and withholding.

From "The Wisdom of the Heart"; by Henry
Miller, New Directions Paperbook No. 94, 1960,
published by James McLaughlin, New York:
The title source from the Balzac essay, pg.
223: "Nobody knew better than Balzac that it
is the wisdom of the heart which must prevail
..that it is the heart of man which will rule
in the ages to come...but the heart must first
be purified!" ( By facing life and confronting
the truths of oneself, Miller goes on to expound thruout the essay as thruout all of his
works. l
From Reflections on Writing, Pg. 19; "Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery...a way of approaching life indirectly, of
acquiring a total view of the universe... The
writer takes the path in order to eventually
become that path himself.
"I began in absolute chaos and darkness, in
a bog or swamp of ideas, emotions and experiences. Even now I do not consider myself a
writer in the ordinary sense of the word. I am
a man telling the story of his life... it is a
turning inside out, voyaging through X dimensions, with the result that somewhere along
the way one discovers that what one has to tell
is not nearly so important as the telling itself (Author's note: telling -- sending out a
communication and having it received) ... it is
this quality about all art which lifts it out
of time and space, which integrates it to the
whole cosmic process, which is therapeutic...
"From the very beginning, almost, I was
deeply aware that there is no goal...because I
am digging deeper and deeper into life... digging deeper and deeper into past and future...
with the endless burrowing a certitude develops ... I become more indifferent to my fate as
a writer and more certain of my destiny as a
man...
"I began assiduously (dedicated) to style
and technique... finally came to a dead end of
despair and desperation which few men have
known...I failed. I realized that I was nothing -- less than nothing... It was at this point
that I really began to write... It didn't matter to me if what I wrote should be considered
good or bad. Good and bad dropped out of my
vocabulary... now I can as easily not write as
write... there is no longer any compulsion...
whatever I do is done out of sheer joy... what
the reader or critic makes of it is not my
concern. I am not establishing values.
"...the real problem i s... o f establishing
one's own destiny... "
He goes on to say that in his search for
truth of self and full knowledge and understanding of all experience... "like a spider I
return again and again to the task fully conscious that the web I am spinning is made of my
own substance..." coming to live by a code expressed succinctly by Rene Crevel that "No daring is fatal"'and that... "Nobody can drown in
the ocean of reality who voluntarily gives
himself up to the experience... (that)... what"I offer him those portions of Gregory which
contain nostrums against the literary evil eye,
and canons for novices: 'Books should be built
of one's own tissue or not at all. The struggle is not to record experience but to record
oneself.' The book, then, does not exist. There
is only my tissue, my guilt, transmuted by God
knows what alchemy (intol this being we call a
book... and when I talk to you in this knowing
way I intend you to imagine the work of genius
I could write if I put my own principles into
practice. Alasl I am too well read to make the
attempt -- or, perhaps, too well bred... "
Henry Miller said that writing it (without
self-deceit and no secrets) is an important
action -- not what is written or what the
4 The ABERREE SEPTEMBER, 1962