© Sky Blue Press, Paul Herron

“One of your over-recurring and abominable locutions. Study it!See what’s wrong with it—in English, in French, in Spanish,

in any god-damned tongue!”

Miller responds: “ROT!! Cut it! Sounds weepy, teary,

sentimental. NATURALLY she felt these things. Undo all

the heavy stresses. Take out all the inflation and leave the

hard, bare rock of concrete reality—then you get accurate

poignancy. I am laying it on thick, because now you should

see how certain aspects of “diary” writing lead to FALSE

ACCENTS. Because it is a writing behind walls—without

the hope of criticism or of suffering the strong light of day.

GET ME?”

But she admits in another letter to Durrell: “I feel I am

making superhuman efforts to dominate not only a language

that is not mine but to say things which I should have said

with music and dancing. I am deeply and honestly aware of

my faults. I feel like a stutterer at times. Worst of all, I suffer

because when I look at the bad phrase I can’t see it’s bad.

Imagine a painter being color-blind.”

© Sky Blue Press, Paul Herron

© Sky Blue Press, Paul Herron

© Sky Blue Press, Paul Herron