Michaux, Henri (1899-1984). A profoundly original and independent writer, Michaux was above all an explorer, by all possible means, of his own inner space, conceived not psychologically but in terms of movements, divisions, subsidences, deviations, encounters, ‘Émergences-Résurgences’ (the title of one of his collections).
Born in Belgium, educated in Flemish, he rebelled against his narrow background and in 1921 signed on as a seaman, making his way eventually to Brazil. He moved to Paris in 1924 (but did not take French nationality until 1955) and was inspired to write by the discovery of Lautréamont and the encouragement of Paulhan (Gide, another admirer, wrote an important essay on Michaux in 1941). Between 1925 and 1939 he travelled extensively in South America, India, China, and Indonesia, reporting on his journeys in Ecuador (1929) and Un barbare en Asie (1933), and at the same time transforming them into an essentially inner quest. This quest is inaugurated in Qui je fus (1927), continued in Mes propriétés (1929), Voyage en grande Garabagne (1936), and Un certain Plume (1930), where the mishaps of the eponymous hero, a Chaplinesque alter ego, are handled with a humour which was to be an important dimension of Michaux's writing. The dominant note, however, is that of an intensely emotional engagement with the minute-by-minute ebb and flow of mental and bodily feeling conveyed in a restless, staccato style which concretizes—in such figures as the ghostly Meidosems—the pockets and currents of inner life.
Writing itself becomes a particular form of experience which may aim to exorcize (Épreuves, exorcismes, 1945) or to achieve a magical serenity. Influenced by Klee, Ernst, and Chirico, and by oriental calligraphy, Michaux also used graphic means to summon up and pin down his inner world, producing a remarkable body of work, regularly exhibited from the 1950s onwards, which was to lead other artists in the direction of what became known as ‘tachisme’. Another important development was the experimentation with drugs, particularly mescalin, recorded in such works as Misérable miracle (1956), L'Infini turbulent (1957), Connaissance par les gouffres (1961), and Les Grandes Épreuves de l'esprit (1966), where drug-induced experiences are seen not as a means of escape but as extensions of a constant quest for knowledge.
[Michael Sheringham]
Bibliography
- M. Bowie, Henri Michaux (1973)
- J.-M. Maulpois, Michaux passager clandestin (1985)
