This week, while scouting out interesting rare books in the Archives & Special Collections, I came across a beautiful rendition of Order and Chaos chez Hans Reichel created by Loujon Press, an independent publishing company in Tucson, Arizona. Published in 1966, Miller wrote this short book for his friend Reichel, a starving and depressed German water colorist – both men lived in Paris in the Villa Seurat on the Impasse du Rouet amongst intellectual friends such as Anais Nin and Alfred Perles. Lawrence Durrell introduces Order and Chaos chez Hans Reichel by contextualizing the book as a happy, festive work bringing light to the ominous world of pre-invasion Paris. The book consists of many letters, doodles, photographs, and some copies of Reichel’s water colors collected by Miller, expounding upon the arts, the human condition, and the adventurous happenings of their bohemian lives. This excerpt encapsulates Miller’s overarching philosophical message in Order and Chaos chez Hans Reichel:
“Everything’s fine and dandy – until the end. Death is salvation, liberation. Long live death! One gets along alright with death… One is habituated to dying since thousands of centuries. As for life – we have not yet become accustomed to living. Why? Because we have never fully lived… One just begins to get used to life – and pouf! One is already dead… This real life always begins with renunciation of life… In becoming a human being one loses his humanity… the ‘you’ of whom they speak – where is it? Who are you?”
This artists’ book is the third in the Gypsy Lou Series published by Louise and Jon Webb of Loujon Press. Order and Chaos chez Hans Reichel provides an escape into the harum-scarum, blithe artistic community of 1930s Paris, and is a great read for anyone interested in wartime writing and philosophy.
By Maya Steinborn