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One of the funniest books I've ever read. Also contains amazing, moving passages, unique in their perception and creativity. It's just an incredible piece of writing, knocked my socks off.
The preface is supposed to have been written by Anais Nin, but many believe Miller wrote it. Three of us became even more determined to become "real" writers. Time magazine lists it in their 100 Best English-language novels from 1923-2005. This "not really a book" plot-less, stream-of-consciousness, anti-everything, self-indulgent, crudely-rudely-gimme-some-boody, was one of the novels in the 1960s that tested USA laws about pornography. I admit, I'm no Miller scholar, but I think I can say anything I damn well please about this novel---Henry Miller couldn't care less. One girl reviewed the book with her own curt one-liner, saying that "Tropic of Cancer was confetti of seediness" in her opinion.
One girl said she got a sexually transmitted disease from reading it---and she announced that she was going to stop engaging in one night stands, even with cute guys.
I've never been as impressed with Henry Miller and Henry Miller is impressed with Henry Miller, but I do appreciate his staggering (specifically chosen word) literary talent, his abrupt/curt one-liners, and some of his intoxicated poetic rantings/ramblings.
Maybe Jerry got his "nothing" idea from Miller.
It is also regarded as a masterpiece of 20th century literature.
Jerry Seinfeld had a successful TV show about nothing.
I first read Tropic of Cancer in a teen reading club.
One boy in our group insisted that it is "an awesome read" if you are falling down drunk.
In a Seinfeld episode Jerry is accused of not returning Tropic of Cancer to the library after checking it out when he was in high school.
If I could forget that all women in his world are whores, then I could gladly rejoice in his joy of language and living. It took me ages to finish this book. Miller's wandering style which while absolutely beautifully and shockingly singular is also hard to keep a bead on. Not for a second. So this might be my first and last Henry Miller book. I also found myself frequently beset by the thought that women have a long way to go to write a book as selfishly self centredly female as his is male.
But that's the thing. This was partly my own lazy fault and partly Mr. I don't think I've read many writers who have his gift of the written word, and his bitter yet appreciative apprehension of the world around. Yeah yeah, all the critics pan him as misogynist and all the fans praise him saying that's not the point, he's a misanthrope but a lover of life, and so on. But the adorable follies of the deliberately poor white artist man have been documented, dare I say it, ad nauseum, and I'm not quite nauseated but a bit bored - with the content of the Tropic of Cancer, but NOT with the writing or his purpose. I can't forget.
And I have to say, too bad for me.
there was a saying once that went,"one must choose between travel or literature",quite obviously this isnt true,we have the tropic of cancer.standing beside celines journey to the end of the night this iconic mega-bio-fictioary bonanza may no longer raise debate yet it has in no measure lost any of its vitality either.it pulses and writhes with the juices and aromas of dauntless engagement in the matter of life.not life as it is commonly accepted,but as it should be,a dangerous obsession. henry once expressed his disatisfaction for all "literary"creations.his gripe was with the deliberate,the staged,the contrived.he said his only interest had come to be the "musical enchantment" of the words,there power to revive the spirit,to talk directly to the soul.he not so much placed priority on sex as saw it as a another means to achieve immediacy.when life is embraced sex must surely take up its rightful place amongst it.henrys war was not with society or church but with anything and everything that barred the way to life truly lived.read at own risk.or as hermann hesse would have it,"for mad-men only".
Writing 300 pages about nothing much probably was too. Works that were revolutionary and important in their day often fare better as cultural artifacts under the scrutiny of later generations, when the novelty is gone and the art must stand or fall on its own merits. Between that he talks about his string of jobs, his periodic starvation and lack of lodgings, and complains of the decline of Western civilization -while he cheerfully wallows in decay. Not sexy, but debauched, absurd, and comical. Tossing stylistic conventions out the window and talking incessantly about "¢unt" was daring at the time. Revolutionary in both style and substance when it was published in 1934, this stream-of-consciousness, semi-autobiographical account of an impoverished, over-sexed expatriate writer in Paris of the 1930s is tedious and self-indulgent today. It distilled the intellectual fashions of its time.
Only its humor stands the test of time -if you don't mind the profanity."Tropic of Cancer" is written in a first-person voice that one might use in keeping a journal. The author rambles on about himself, his lovers, his friends , and their lovers. When speaking of a "classic" or influential piece of literature, it is difficult to know whether to view it as literature or as a cultural artifact. They are either despairing about something or oblivious to everything. Stories of their sexual exploits are truly funny, though. It's all pretty meaningless, and that's what Miller intended. Sade is an important figure in French intellectual history, and his books are still provocative today. One can debate whether art should strive to be revolutionary or to be good, but the work of the Marquis de Sade was banned for using sex to illustrate the intellectual fashions of its time 150 years before "Tropic of Cancer" met a similar fate.
Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" is such a work. But doing these things for their own sake doesn't have lasting value. We get a filthy but romantic impression of Paris as a lecherous, squalid place that nonetheless has plenty of room for indolent artists of all kinds. Those are Miller's friends, and his accounts of them vacillate from pitiful to hilarious. If it accomplishes what it aims to, it quickly loses its potency. "Tropic of Cancer" is dull, and the author simply writes about himself, an insufferable habit that has plagued literature ever since.
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