by Nancy Caldwell Sorel
The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 1995
WHEN, late in December of 1936, George Orwell stopped over in Paris on his way to Spain to fight for the Loyalist cause, the only person he took time to see was the American expatriate Henry Miller. Orwell had reviewed Tropic of Cancer--a plotless, sexually explicit novel based on Miller's own raw experiences in Paris, which the Englishman had praised as "truthful and even moving." He shared Miller's distrust of authority and felt the author understood him, knew the kind of person he was. A correspondence had ensued, and before catching the night train, Orwell paid Miller a call.
Both men were dropouts from mainstream backgrounds. After Eton and five years with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, Orwell had submerged himself in the underclass, had shared the lives of the poor and then surfaced to write Down and Out in London and Paris. But his actions were a means to inspire change, not, like Miller's, an end in themselves, private forays into degradation and anarchy. The profoundly unpolitical Miller had no desire to change anything.
Certainly not in Spain. It was idiotic to go there out of a sense of obligation, he told Orwell, and this idea of defending democracy was plain stupid. Liberty was a personal thing; it allowed one to avoid public responsibility and live as one wished. Orwell, however, argued that liberty and democracy were important--think what fascism would do to the freedom of the artist. He confided his guilt at having aided imperialism in Burma. But had he not punished himself enough? Miller asked. Still, the earnestness of the younger man touched him. In later years they would disappoint each other--when Miller's egoism surpassed his talents, when Orwell's reviews were less flattering and Miller wrote him off as just another dumb English idealist. But that evening, in the studio lighted against the winter dark, Henry unearthed a warm corduroy jacket for George. It was his contribution to the Republican cause, he said, and he refrained from mentioning that he would have given Orwell the jacket no matter which side he had chosen to fight for.
