The New Directions Link

James Laughlin, founder and editor-in-chief of New Directions publishing in New York, was instrumental in putting Thomas Merton and Henry Miller in touch with each other, having published both during the 1940s and 1950s. Laughlin urged Miller to visit Merton in his monastery in Kentucky, as he often did himself. In turn, he arranged for Miller's "forbidden" books to reach Merton in the cloister by means of the monastery's consulting psychiatrist, Jim Wygal, in Louisville.

It is apparent in the correspondence between Merton and Laughlin that Merton had already read the book by Joseph Delteil (in French) on St. Francis of Assisi that Miller was later to send him. In a letter to James Laughlin dated April 20, 1960 Merton writes, "I can see where Henry Miller would like it, and I like it too in the same way."

In a letter dated February 27, 1961 from Miller to Bob MacGregor of New Directions, Miller concludes by saying, "And my best to Thomas Merton (a sort of 'Father Brown')." Father Brown is a priest-detective in a number of novels by G.K. Chesterton.

In October (Oct. 5, 1961) Miller again writes to MacGregor saying, "I found that 'duologue' between Merton and Suzuki very, very exciting. What Merton has to say about Paradise and Heaven - most interesting. Do send me the finished product, when out. If you have published Merton, send me one, won't you, that you think I'd like. Not a novel - the metaphysics. I like his thinking. Give him greetings from me some time. Never read a line of his before. . . ." The piece "Wisdom in Emptiness: A Dialogue by Daisetz T. Suzuki and Thomas Merton" was to appear in New Directions 17, an annual anthology.

On October 24, 1961 Merton tells Laughlin he was encouraged to hear Miller's comments when he received a number of Miller's books from Bob MacGregor later that month; books which, he says, he "read mostly with a good deal of interest and sympathy, especially the essay on bread which is one of the best" ["The Staff of Life" in Remember to Remember. ND, 1961]. He also tells Laughlin, "[Miller's] 'Murder the Murderer' is in many ways like something I wrote at the time, on a much smaller scale, in the Secular Journal. . . ."

On November 13, 1961 Miller writes to MacGregor: ". . . Was happy to get the new annual with Merton's fragment on the Desert Fathers. Do give him greetings from me whenever you write him. I feel closer to him, his way of thinking, than any other American writer I know of. By the way, the man he ought to read is, Erich Gutkind. Author of The Absolute Collective (one of my very great favorites, along with Berdyaev's work) and Choose Life. Merton might find Gutkind as enthralling to grapple with as Suzuki. Of course he is thoroughly anti-Christian, but in another sense closer to Merton than the so-called Christian apologists."

James Laughlin passed these comments on to Merton who responded in a letter dated December 1, 1961: "Thanks for the quote from Henry Miller. Well, that is a testimonial. I am really warmed by it. To me that is an indication that I am perhaps after all a Christian. I believe that this inner recognition that cuts right through apparent external barriers and divisions is of crucial importance today. It is in this kind of recognition that Christ is present in the world, not just in the erection and definition of barriers that say where He is and where He isn't. There are no such barriers. Those who imagine them too literally are in illusion." These comments in turn were passed on to Miller in a letter from Laughlin dated December 12, 1961. Laughlin continues, "Isn't that fine? You and Tom have so much in common and your wonderful spirit of understanding humanity, that I hope some time the two of you can get together. If you are ever down there in Kentucky, you ought to go see him. I suppose that Father Abbot would bar the door if there were too much advance publicity on your visit, at least if he has been reading the newspapers, but I think if you just turned up there would be no trouble about seeing Tom and that you would enjoy him greatly." Laughlin tells Miller that Merton is indeed interested in the Gutkind books he had mentioned and that he was going to "round them up for him."

The next month on January 17, 1962 Miller replies to Laughlin, "It was nice to get Thomas Merton's note about me, but I don't think I'll ever get to his neck of the woods." So it proved, he never did.

In April (April 20, 1962) Miller writes to Merton from Paris expressing admiration for Original Child Bomb, Merton's poem about Hiroshima, as well as Wisdom of the Desert, and promises to send Joseph Delteil's book on St. Francis. On May 10, 1962 Merton tells Laughlin, "Henry Miller wrote. I am very glad to hear from him and will write." He adds that he will take a look at the Deteil book again which "seemed quite good" when he glanced at it before (in 1960). In July he tells Laughlin he is reading it seriously and that it has "plenty of life and imagination and it wallops hard." He says that it ought to be published, though says nothing about who should translate it. He adds, "I think all decent clean living American hundred percent beatniks like you and me would like it. I think the squares and the cardinals might not like it but who cares? It is a religious book that calls horsedung by its popular name, which is one of the things it has in common with St. Francis." I want this book.

August 1962 finds Merton reading Miller's Wisdom of the Heart which he had recently received and he tells Laughlin (August 16, 1962) that it "is extraordinarily good & I'm discussing it with a priest poet here who is a fine guy and thinks like Gutkind (it is Dan Berrigan, the Jesuit - know his work?)" In June 1963, he tells Laughlin he has read "a life of old Henry Miller, which was really interesting. I really like him" (June 14, 1963). This the book My Friend Henry Miller: An Intimate Biography by Alfred Perles.

On February 27, 1964 Merton asks Laughlin about the new Henry Miller book, Stand Still Like The Hummingbird, and the next month (March 20, 1964) thanks him for sending it. He says, "As usual, I am completely in agreement. He is wise and persuasive and I think is one of the very few people who really makes any kind of sense." Merton writes to Miller expressing his appreciation of Hummingbird enclosing the picture of himself and Miguel Grinberg, and when he receives Miller's response (dated July 4, 1964) he writes to Laughlin on July 8 to say: "I got a very good letter from Henry Miller. I had sent him a snapshot of me and Miguel Grinberg and he said I looked like an ex-convict and also like him (Miller) and also some like Genet. These are all compliments and I am pleased."

Miller and Merton's names then disappear from the published correspondence of each of these men with New Directions until after Merton's death (December 10, 1968). Then Miller concludes his April 22, 1969 letter to Bob MacGregor by saying: "By the way, I admired Merton greatly. He was a real radical, a true anarchist, even if a Christian." Then he adds in parenthesis, "(Was St. Francis a Christian - or a great revolutionary spirit killed by the Church?)"

Sources:

Cooper, David D. (ed.) Thomas Merton and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1997.

Laughlin, James. Random Essays: Reflections of a Publisher. Mt. Kisco, New York: Moyer Bell Limited, 1989. p.7. (See "Thomas Merton and his Poetry" pp.3-31).

Laughlin, James. Byways: Memoir. Edited with an introduction by Peter Glassgold. New York: New Directions, 2005. p.221

Wickes, George (ed.). Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1996.