The Time of the Assassins Quotes

“Conditioned to ecstasy, the poet is like a gorgeous unknown bird mired in the ashes of thought. If he succeeds in freeing himself, it is to make a sacrificial flight to the sun. His dreams of a regenerate world are but the reverberations of his own fevered pulse beats. He imagines the world will follow him, but in the blue he finds himself alone. Alone but surrounded by his creations; sustained, therefore, to meet the supreme sacrifice. The impossible has been achieved; the duologue of author with Author is consummated. And now forever through the ages the song expands, warming all hearts, penetrating all minds. At the periphery the world is dying away; at the center it glows like a live coal. In the great solar heart of the universe the golden birds are gathered in unison. There it is forever dawn, forever peace, harmony and communion. Man does not look to the sun in vain; he demands light and warmth not for the corpse which he will one day discard but for his inner being. His greatest desire is to burn with ecstasy, to commerge his little flame with the central fire of the universe. If he accords the angels wings so that they may come to him with messages of peace, harmony and radiance from worlds beyond, it is only to nourish his own dreams of flight, to sustain his own belief that he will one day reach beyond himself, and on wings of gold. One creation matches another; in essence they are all alike. The brotherhood of man consists not in thinking alike, nor in acting alike, but in aspiring to praise creation. The song of creation springs from the ruins of earthly endeavor. The outer man dies away in order to reveal the golden bird which is winging its way toward divinity.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“We live entirely in the past, nourished by dead thoughts, dead creeds, dead sciences. And it is the past which is engulfing us, not the future. The future always has and always will belong to—the poet.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“He will never be satisfied,” writes one biographer...I know because I suffer from the same disease...I don't believe for a minute that the flowers ever faded or the stars were ever dimmed in Rimbaud's eyes...It was the world of men that his weary glance saw things pale and fade. He began by wanting to “see all, feel all, exhaust everything, explore everything, say everything.” ...He had no choice of fighting for the rest of his life to hold the ground he had gained or to renounce the struggle utterly. Why could he not have compromised? Because compromise was not in his vocabulary. He was a fanatic from childhood, a person who had to go the whole hog or die. In this lied his purity, his innocence.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“The real renegade is the man who has lost faith in his fellowman. Today the loss of faith is universal. Here God himself is powerless. We have put our faith in the bomb, and it is the bomb, which will answer our prayers [...] it takes time for doom to spread throughout the corpus of civilization. But when Rimbaud walked out the back door, doom had already announced itself.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“Acts are demanded, suicidal acts perhaps, but acts fraught with meaning.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“رامبو وزمن القتلة
هنري ميللر
ترجمة: سعدى يوسف
آفاق الترجمة، 12
الهيئة العامة لقصور الثقافة، 1996








عانى رامبو أزمته العظمى عندما كان في الثامنة عندما كان في الثامنة عشرة ، حينها بلغ حد الجنون، ومنذ ذلك الحين غدت حياته صحراء لا تنتهي. أما أنا فبلغت الحد بين السادسة والثلاثين والسابعة والثلاثين ... العمر الذي مات فيه رامبو. ومنذ ذلك الحين بدأت حياتي تزدهر. رامبو تحول من الأدب إلى الحياة. أنا فعلت العكس. رامبو هرب من السعالي التي خلقها، أما أنا فقد عانقتها. لقد صحوت على حماقة وضياع الممارسة المجردة للحياة. هكذا توقفت، وجهت طاقتي كلها وجهة الإبداع.


واندفعت في الكتابة، بنفس اللهفة والحرارة اللتين وسمتا اندفاعي في الحياة. وربحت الحياة بدل أن أضيعها، وحدثت المعجزات، واحدة إثر الأخرى، وبدَّل كل حظ عاثر خيرًا، أما رامبو، فبالرغم من اندفاعه في أرض مناخات ومشاهد لا تصدَّق... في عالم فانتازيا غريب وبهيّ كقصائده، إلا أنه غدا أكثر مرارة وانغلاقًا وفراغًا وأسى.


رامبو أعاد الأدب إلى الحياة. أنا أردت أن أعيد الحياة إلى الأدب. ولدينا نحن الاثنين تقوى الخاصية الاعترافية، والانشغالات الأخلاقية والروحية. كما أن التلذذ باللغة والموسيقى أكثر من الأدب، صفة مشتركة بيننا. مع رامبو أحسست بطبيعة بدائية تعبر عن نفسها بطرق غريبة. وصف كلوديل رامبو بأنه "صوفيٌّ في حالة متوحشة"، وهو وصف ليس له مثيل. إن رامبو لا "يعود" إلى أي مكان. وكان لديَّ هذا الإحساس ذاته إزاء نفسي.


التناظرات لا تنتهي، وسوف أتناولها ببعض التفصيل، ذلك لأنني في قراءة السير والرسائل رأيت وجوه الشبه واضحة إلى حد جعلني لا أقاوم تدوين ملحوظات عنها. ولا أظنني فريدًا ... في هذا، بل أعتقد أن في العالم، الكثير من رامبو، وأن عددهم يزداد مع الزمن، وأرى أن النمط الرامبوي سيحل في المستقبل محل النمط الهاملتي أو الفاوستي.


إن الاتجاه سائر نحو انشطار أعمق. وإلى أن يموت العالم القديم نهائيًا، فإن الفرد "الشاذ" سيكون، أكثر فأكثر، هو النموذج. ولن يجد الإنسان الجديد نفسه إلا حين تنتهي الحرب بين الجماعية والفردية. آنذاك سوف نرى النمط الإنساني بكل امتلائه وبهائه.”
― هنري ميلر, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud

“Baudelaire merely laid his heart bare; Rimbaud plucks his out and devours it slowly.”
― Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud