Mirni dani na Clichyju
An autobiographical novella written in 1940 (later revised), set in the early 1930s in the Parisian suburb of Clichy. The work is a nostalgic, sensual, and vivid depiction of the bohemian life of a poor American immigrant in Paris.
The main character (obviously the author's alter ego) lives with his friend Carl (inspired by Alfred Perlès) in a small, modest apartment. Without money, work, and constant obligations, their days are spent in search of pleasure: cheap wine, a good meal when available, walks through Paris at night, visits to brothels (e.g. Club Melody), and numerous sexual adventures. Women are the central motif – from prostitutes, to chance encounters, to short-lived romantic episodes (e.g. with the young Colette). Everything is described explicitly, vitalistically, and without shame, in typical Miller style: life as a celebration of the body, hunger, sex, and freedom.
Behind the apparent carefreeness lies hunger, misery, and a sense of transience. Paris in the 1930s is not glamorous – it is dilapidated apartments, cheap cafes, and the streets of Montmartre, but Miller finds in it the pure joy of life, contrasted with the puritanical world of America.
The book is shorter and more gentle than Tropic of Cancer, but shares the same energy: rejecting convention, celebrating instinct and art as a way of survival. It is an ode to a time when the world was “simpler and slower,” and life was reduced to basic, raw pleasures.
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