Tropic of Cancer

by Henry Miller

Paperback, 1971

Status

Available

Call number

813.52

Collection

Publication

Grove Press (1971), Paperback, 287 pages

Description

Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller's masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller's famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s.

Media reviews

New York Times
How shocking Tropic of Cancer was when I got hold of a smuggled copy in the late thirties; how merely charming it is now, redolent of a Paris in which the coffee and Gauloises were alike more aromatic than they’ve been since the war, a genuine vie de bohème, the physical act of love as fresh as
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if the French had just invented it. Miller unbuttoned the fly and tore open the placket with a fiercer gust than Lawrence (who was still mother’s boy) or Joyce (who let language get in the way). Today’s naked generation has learned nearly everything from him – everything, that is to say, except his bookishness, his capacity for recapturing innocence, his sense of wonder, his sense of words.
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4 more
New York Review of Books
What Cancer uniquely possesses is a coherent, animating vision of life—one that justifies the book's disjunctions of form, binds together its stark literalism and its reverie, and spares Miller's adventures the drabness of mere anecdote. The vision is of manic nihilism, of hunger for experience
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combined with scorn for the cowardly, illusion-drugged human race, which has to dream of miracles while "all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off." Miller has given up on value—and, along with it, any obligation to steel his narrative manner against the ironic fates or to tease meaning from the world with modernist devices of myth and symbol. He is simply talking, much as he will talk through thousands of subsequent pages, but with the difference that here the talk is an act of liberation, a registering of the discovery that no care need be taken to seek order, make discriminations, or check one's impulses. "If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself."
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The New Republic
Tropic of Cancer is a good piece of writing; and it has also a sort of historical importance. It is the epitaph for the whole generation of American writers and artists that migrated to Paris after the war... It has frequently been characteristic of the American writers in Paris that they have
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treated pretentious subjects with incompetent style and sordid feeling. Mr. Miller has done the opposite: he has treated an ignoble subject with a sure hand at color and rhythm. He is not self-conscious and not amateurish. And he has somehow managed to be low without being really sordid.
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The Nation
Twenty-eight years have gone by since Tropic of Cancer was first published. Since then its form has become the most fashionable in modern literature. We are being overwhelmed in a pandemic of récits — especially French ones... There is only one trouble with all this stuff. It is soaked in
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unfathomable solemnity and pompous rhetoric. In all Genêt or Kerouac there is nothing to compare with Miller’s Hindu and the bidet, or the Imaginary Rich Girl. I’m sorry. I just don’t believe Henry when he expands and augments Count Keyserling, or recommends a Dream Book, or worries at breakfast over the astrology column in the morning paper. He’s having us all on — maybe himself included — but behind the deep thoughts from Bughouse Square, there is always, however faint, the steady rumble of low-down mockery.
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New Yorker
Henry Miller—probably the funniest American writer since Mark Twain... is the closest an American has come to Rabelais... Tropic of Cancer had a liberating spirit, because it seemed totally without hypocrisy... Miller sees friends in terms of the possible meal or bed he can cadge from them, women
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in terms of their sexual possibilities. Miller seems to bring us closer to "reality," seems to bring art closer to truth. But when we're reading him we don't think of his sexual hyperbole as objective description; we don't assume, for example, that all the women Miller meets are sexy sluts visibly painting for what he can give them... The hero is amazing because he takes such joy in the diversity of possible pleasures; one imagines him as a mild little man with all-embracing tastes, a man eager to try whatever he can get, being excited by even the most unlikely ladies... Miller, one of the great characters in American literature—Huck Finn as a starving expatriate—is... a joyful coward who will always sneak away rather than face an unpleasant scene.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member Smiler69
It's a good thing I'd read some Henry Miller and already knew what a horny toad he was before attacking this novel, so the general crudeness, irreverence and cynicism didn't exactly come as a shock. I do not know whether I could have appreciated this book had I read it at another time. It is bleak.
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It oozes sweat and blood and s**t. It forces us to face things we had rather put aside, ignore, pass by without looking back. That [Tropic of Cancer] was banned and was the cause for an obscenity trial when it was originally published in the United States in 1961 is hardly surprising. Aside from all that, I was amused with Miller's description of his first years in Paris as a struggling writer so poor, he never knew how he'd come by his next meal, yet somehow always had a little bit of change to have a go with whatever prostitute was at hand. Is it an autobiography? Not exactly. It it fiction? Sometimes. It is a stream of consciousness set free of any possible inhibition. It sometimes veers toward the big philosophical questions of man and the world we live in. Of more interest to me were the stories and anecdotes that 'he', or the writer who narrates the story, has experienced with various people he has come across. A few friends. Various employers. Countless prostitutes. Several generous hosts. There is nothing comforting to be found here. Women, which are often mentioned, are systematically referred to as c*nts. Our writer seems to have nothing but contempt for his friends and benefactors. But there is truth. Unvarnished, unadulterated, often very ugly, but absolute and complete candour of the kind that, even by today's standards shakes us out of any kind of complacency. One of my favourite parts of the book comes at the very beginning, when he gives us a general idea about what kind of experience we, the readers, are in for:

"It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then, this is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult. A gob of spit in the face of art. A kick in the pants to God, man, destiny, time, love, beauty. What you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak. I will dance over your dirty corpse.*

There were times when I found Miller's conceit absolutely hilarious. There were times when I couldn't wait for him to move on to the next thing, or maybe do so myself. But I must say that what got me through it all was Campbell Scott's excellent narration in the audiobook version. He is impassive, neutral, with a gentle voice that helps smooth over some of the harshness. This was a most welcome quality in the parts where the filth of the places, people, faces, language, seemed to latch onto me too. I couldn't say I exactly loved this book, but I certainly see why it's considered such an important work of literature. Recommended? Yes. But you've been given fair warning.

* This excerpt transcribed from the audiobook version and likely contains many inaccuracies, especially in the punctuation.
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LibraryThing member gbill
I decided to read Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” after watching “Henry and June” again after many years; the movie is excellent, and based on the Anais Nin book of the same name which describes Nin’s frolics in Paris with the bohemian Miller and his wife June.

“Tropic of Cancer”
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is written as a log of Miller’s experiences and thoughts while living as a bachelor in Paris in the early 1930’s; he had left his wife back in America. I found the vagabond lifestyle he led and the style of his prose to be an interesting preview of Beat authors like Kerouac who would come twenty years later. It’s shocking to me that it was published in 1934, and with its graphic descriptions of sex it’s easy to see why it was banned until 1964 in America, and then only after a ruling by the Supreme Court.

I coincidentally saw a reprint of highlighted news from the week of Dec. 12-17, 1961 in the San Francisco Chronicle, and included was the controversy surrounding this novel. “Garbage is garbage and dirt is dirt. .. A beast is a beast – this is bestial. It appeals to the bestial”, grumbled James W. Kirchanski. “An impressionable young man or woman who reads it probably would lose all ideals of the man-woman relationship.”, worried Albert E. Bagshaw, “It might even drive young men to shun women forever.”

Miller eschews all things conventional: getting a “normal” job, the morality of the day, and appreciating history or past artists, with some exceptions to the latter: Whitman, who he admired for his joy and ecstasy, and Dostoevsky, who he admired for the rawness of his life and his emotions. Indeed, Miller eschews being what we call “human”. He wants to not only live in the now, but to be so true to his desires that he is living more like an animal, or perhaps better put, like a “natural” human, untainted by the artifices society has erected over thousands of years.

Unfortunately a lot of the vagabond lifestyle degenerates to Miller and his cohorts getting drunk, having sex with whores, and trying to avoid contracting “the clap”. He is pretty blunt in objectifying women and calling them “cunts”, and in general is the absolute opposite of politically correct. Don’t read it if you’re easily offended, or if reading about this type of lifestyle is not interesting to you.

Also, and perhaps naturally, in seeking autonomy from “the man” and complete freedom in his life, Miller’s issue is oftentimes finding friends who will provide him a place to live or an occasional meal. Don’t read it if you’re likely to judge him for being a “bum” and not getting a job like the rest of us poor shlubs.

Do read it if you want to see life from a very different perspective. Miller lets it go, lets it rip, lets it fly. He’s not interested in editing, perfect prose, or trying to please people. What he wants to describe are honest, real, true feelings and experiences from a life lived off the beaten track, things that at the time were not spoken of. As he puts it, “There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books.”

I admire his courage for leading the life in the way he did, fiercely and in the way he wanted to; after all, we only have one life to live and this is the time each of us owns. The book certainly held my attention. On the other hand, it’s hard to admire a lot of his actions so I’m a little conflicted, and his writing, while interesting, is not great, and I’m sure Miller himself would be the first to agree. Followed by telling me to go fuck myself.

Quotes:
On living:
“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am.”

“I’ve lived out my melancholy youth. I don’t give a fuck any more what’s behind me, or what’s ahead of me. I’m healthy. Incurably healthy. No sorrows, no regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today! Le bel aujourd’hui!”

“I made up my mind that I would hold on to nothing, that I would expect nothing, that henceforth I would live as an animal, a beast of prey, a rover, a plunderer. Even if war were declared, and it were my lot to go, I would grab the bayonet and plunge it, and plunge it up to the hilt. And if rape were the order of the day then rape I would, and with a vengeance.”

“I’m not an American any more, nor a New Yorker, and even less a European, or a Parisian. I haven’t any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I’m neither for nor against. I’m a neutral.”

“Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy. So much crowds into my head when I say this to myself: images, gay ones, terrible ones, maddening ones…”

“Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity – I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples.”

“It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!
‘I love everything that flows,’ said the great blind Milton of our times. … Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. …”

On art:
“A man who belongs to this race must stand up on the high place with gibberish in his mouth and rip out his entrails. It is right and just, because he must! And anything that falls short of this frightening spectacle, anything less shuddering, less terrifying, less mad, less intoxicated, less contaminating, is not art. The rest is counterfeit. The rest is human. The rest belongs to life and lifelessness.”

On sadness:
“When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into a deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow; it is the abyss into which Satan was plunged. There is no climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand.
How many thousand times, in walking through the streets at night, have I wondered if the day would ever come again when she would be at my side…”

On the difference between Americans and Europeans:
“How could I have foreseen, in America, with all those firecrackers they put up your ass to give you pep and courage, that the ideal position for a man of my temperament was to look for orthographic mistakes? Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it’s different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle. The chances are thousand to one that you will never leave your native village.”

On the machine of society, compare it to Kerouac twenty years later:
“The same story everywhere. If you want bread you’ve got to get in harness, get in lock step. Over all the earth a gray desert, a carpet of steel and cement. Production! More nuts and bolts, more barbed wire, more dog biscuits, more lawn mowers, more ball bearings, more high explosives, more tanks, more poison gas, more soap, more toothpaste, more newspapers, more education, more churches, more libraries, more museums. Forward!”

On religion, describing a church he and his buddies wander into:
“A huge, dismal tomb it was with mourners shuffling in and out. A sort of antechamber to the world below. Temperature about 55 or 60 Fahrenheit. No music except this undefinable dirge manufactured in the subcellar – like a million heads of cauliflower wailing in the dark. People in shrouds were chewing away with that hopeless dejected look of beggars who hold out their hands in a trance and mumble an unintelligible appeal.
This sort of thing existed I knew, but then one also knows that there are slaughterhouses and morgues and dissecting rooms. One instinctively avoids such places. In the street I had often passed a priest with a little prayer book in his hands laboriously memorizing his lines. Idiot, I would say to myself, and let it go at that.”

Lastly this one on sleeping in, which made my smile:
“I was always hungry myself, since it was impossible for me to go to breakfast which was handed out at some ungodly hour of the morning, just when the bed was getting toasty.”
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LibraryThing member thesearch
A foul-mouthed exploration of 1930s literary hipsterism in Paris. Miller rails against everything and nothing in particular in a cowardly-rebel-without-a-cause romp through whorehouses and hotels in Montparnasse. MIller describes it best himself. "A man... must stand up on the high place with
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gibberish in his mouth and rip out his entrails. And anything less shuddering, less terrifying, less mad. less intoxicated, less contaminating, is not art." Well, the gibberish part is dead on. Tropic of Cancer is 300 pages of an aesthetic-snob mad with existential forlornness howling at the moon. It's like reading The Scream. Dostoyevsky said it the most cleverly, Sartre said it the most clearly, and Miller said it the loudest and most coarsely. The only thing interesting about this book is the depth and breadth of Miller's egoism.
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LibraryThing member AlCracka
Here a cunt, there a cunt, everywhere a cunt cunt

""Art consists in going the full length. If you start with the drums you have to end with dynamite."

But if you begin with masturbation, you don't necessarily end with sex.

Here's a guy who exemplifies the stream-of-consciousness mode of writing; he
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joins in the most-modern movement and he refuses to let anything be too dirty for him to explain - one time I heard someone ask of Star Wars, "But when does anyone go to the bathroom?" Here is a novel that covers when people go to the bathroom. I appreciate what he's doing. Unfortunately he does it very badly.

There are books you have to read at a certain age. There are others that are ageless, and those are better. This should be read when you're young and stupid. Are you young and stupid now? Read this and hate me. Are you older? Then don't.

It's not a very good book. Neither is On The Road. Rebellion is wonderful, and there have been some great rebel books. This is bullshit. It's self-indulgent. It's not good writing. Fuck it all.
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LibraryThing member Katie_H
I thought this fictionalized memoir was highly overrated, and mostly tedious. It is a tale of ex-pat Henry Miller's time in Paris - the people he meets, the money he spends, the places he stays, the books he reads, and the sex, sex, and more sex in which he participates. The prose is an erratic and
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meandering stream of consciousness, and I have to sheepishly admit that if it weren't for the gratuitous erotic sections and profanity, I would have stopped reading out of boredom. In saying all of this, the book DOES have great value and I still believe it to be worth reading. After being released in France in the 1930's, the novel was finally published in the United States in 1961 and promptly led to an obscenity trial. America's laws on pornography were tested, paving the way for future authors to do what they do best. For this reason, it is a truly important and landmark piece of literature and should be experienced, but don't expect too much.
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LibraryThing member santhony
Tropic of Cancer is the latest in my effort to upgrade my reading list. Rated 50th on the Modern Library list of 100 Best Novels, this work was widely banned upon its publication in 1934. Upon learning this, I was not overly impressed. After all, how dirty did a novel have to be in order to be
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banned in 1934?

This book is absolutely filthy! Not 1934 filthy; I’m talking 2009 filthy. Not filthy only in a sexual sense, but filthy in virtually every conceivable sense. Excrement, disease, lice, bedbugs, blood stained dirty sheets, and yes, extremely graphic sex. Some may also be offended by the author’s penchant for referring to almost all females as c**ts.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not easily offended and I enjoy a good dirty book. My problems with this book have absolutely nothing to do with the filth or the political incorrectness. In fact, the filth was a welcome diversion. My problem is the fact that there is no story here. The book consists of random musings by a dirt poor, American expatriate whose daily life consists of finding a place to lay his head, finding enough food to survive and dedicating essentially all of his meager income on pox ridden prostitutes. Much of these musings are stream of consciousness in nature and mind numbing in their ability to induce sleep.

I very nearly gave up on the book around page 50. Either the action picked up at that point or I became more comfortable with the author’s style. In any event, the prose became at least tolerable and at times, even amusing. I certainly acknowledge the possibility that I’m simply not philosophical or “artistic” enough to appreciate the work. It is definitely aiming for a target audience of which I am not a member.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
It's clear pretty much from the start that Henry Miller is a contested and contentious character. Always worse than scholarly introductions are those "this book is a big deal!" popular-edition freeform essay introductions, and here we get one from somebody Shapiro that makes Miller a prophet of
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joy--blurgh, followed up for lagniappe by the foreword by Anaïs Nin, who does her love a solid in her rickety prose by--ricketily--making him sound like one hell of a party (which is better.)

Is this a song of joy? Shapiro, writing in the sixties, seems willfully blind a bit in a hippie way—Miller’s joy is barely sublimated rage, as his curses are Biblical—“I will spit upon your corpse.” All that is, is good, and hey shove it up your ass for good measure. I get that. And sure he had plenty of sexy times, but it strikes me that this is less a song of the uncoiling snake or whatever than the reverse—it’s the sex that’s the pretext—for the stories, for having something to talk about, for the up your face to bourgeois Amerika on some level obviously but much more about the homosociality for which the “cunt” is pretext. Moldorf may be word drunk, lost in the w-hole, but Miller himself is word-tipsy and feeling gregarious. Less libidinist than raconteur.

He also uses words to subjugate, of course, and I’m not talking about “cunt,” though it is indexical. It’s when he gets all “Stick a lizard up your ass! Shitza blitza!” and frothing at the mouth like something out of The Exorcist that it’s a downer. He’s taking an aggressive pose, and I won’t dwell on the misogyny because, again, the women are by the by and the point is to talk tough and turn hard livin’ heartily embraced into a literary regalia—to peacock. He would have lasted long in the torture chambers if he’d looked good and gotten ladies and had other aspiring poets say things like “Ol’ Hank Miller, hooo boy” within earshot. I wish I’d been younger when I got to this book and it would have hit me all different like in interesting ways, but then I also wish he’d been younger when he wrote it, and it would seem less belligerent in its self-conscious solipsism.

But the self is still previous, and the story of the self and the world is still one of survival against the odds, for the transient and for the suburbanest accountant with his RRSP—thus is Rimbaud the flip side of Goethe. And sorry, Henry Miller of “Brooklyn, Paris, and Big Sur,” you will not get away with pretending you’re not another arm of the capitalist millipus, the one whose whoring and anti-Semitism and weird rage about the gays show the most exquisite concern with propriety, the one who launched a thousand gap years. Some parts of this are just so “I am a massive penis other men are faggot jew betas” and he might as well be trolling on the internet and we are supposed to kiss his dick just because he writes with swears.

And even when there’s a crash in his careful balance and he ends up stealing the baby’s food or whatever, this should be hangover catharsis, but not so because he’s trading in glamour and the mood of self-aggrandizement has already been set. Shapiro quotes Orwell’s essay on Miller semi-approvingly except that he doesn’t like that Orwell doesn’t like that Miller doesn’t like to talk about “the social,” because it’s all about the centre of the mind, man! Wavy gravy! And I guess I don’t blame Miller for that, but it’s nevertheless true that a little excursion into the third person or so would have done him well.

BUT NEVERTHELESS. Miller is very, very, very good for paragraphs at a time. And the level of visious blaggery mellows throughout. And then sometimes he cuts through it completely and produces something sensitive like his vignette of Van Norden and the woman who won’t sleep with him—and then it’s back to autonomy through this needy-ass, diffident, never entirely convincing misanthropy.

Tho you know it’s not just Van N., his people are quite good often—the Irish painter and his wife who is more talented who he hates, a whole heartbreaker of an I-remember-this-guy where the only thing that goes wrong is that all the characters regardless of idiom say the word “cunt” in exactly the same way. This is Miller’s way of being undone by cunt, I guess.

He is worse on places than people; has something to prove. Blasé on China one minute, exoticizing it the next, in the way of so many people from our big continent who take their one trip to Rome or Hawaii and present it like a sailor’s logbook. His Paris is jolly and reeking and cruel and all that, but it’s limited both by the persona and by the fact that he’s writing what he knows, which is whoring and apes-together male shit leavened with moments of joy … and, let me say, this postlapsarian wist that goes with the Paris trip too, for Proust and Matisse—and of course Miller’s followers had their attenuated experience too, it’s in the nature of this stuff, like vampires weakening by the number of their generations from Cain—but still, Miller came in the thirties and not the twenties and he could have easily been a balding John Glassco and you should thank him for putting his balls into it.

Like, that magnificent scene two thirds in with the two women, the one he meets outside the café and the one he goes home with—short, spare, self-loathing without exploiting or apologizing for it. Cunt only used once.

And cunt drops precipitously from then on in fact and the last part of this book is so special—a paean, a soulsong. Starting with the bit on Goether and Whitman, through the loving and magnificent description of one particular cunt (his wife’s), and then into a description of Dijon that’s architectural and painterly, laying down roads like bones like rock and splattering them with sickish greys. The book should have started with Goethe, we should have seen a young Hank Miller go over to France to teach English and then go off the rails—instead it’s not till he’s proved whatever it is he had to prove and stopped with the Tourette’s that he can show us what a writer he is.

And after we’ve grown eyes all over and fallen to bits in a mystic apotheosis, it’s back to cunt, but this time with a wink and a barrel of previously withheld charm, instead of coming on like a … fuck, dog track crack addict or something. Miller at his best woos with smiles and box wine invincibility. You can see why cunts go for him.
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LibraryThing member andreablythe
Basically an expatriate, living in Paris, louses around while often dirt poor, mooching off his friends, visiting brothels, getting drunk, and so on. Despite the poetic and rather beautiful language, there was not much to endear me to this book. The narrator is cynical and scummy and degrading to
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women -- in other words, not very sympathetic (all of which is made worse by the fact that this novel is semi-autobiographical). His entire outlook is pessimistic about the world and the human race, and while he has moments of supposed enlightenment and peace, they tend to come at the great expense of someone else. I read horror stories all time, full of guts and gore and darkness and violence, but none of them has left me as mildly disgusted and feeling dirtied as reading this literary classic.
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LibraryThing member clothingoptional
A great first novel.

In this age of formulaic prose and plots crafted in seminars and workshops, it is a guilty pleasure to find a book written by a man who had precious little instruction and still managed to get something of his raw experience on paper.

Do not approach this book looking to find
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linguistic talent. You will be disappointed. What you will find here is an artist, young and inexperienced, trying desperately to give voice to the thing that burns his eyes from the inside out.

Do not approach this book looking for sex. Yes, you will find it. However, I doubt that it will meet your expectations. At one point in his career, Miller tried to write 'proper' pornography. Everything he did was rejected because there was too much thinking and not enough screwing.

Miller's style not only uses the first person, but the main character is also named Henry Miller. It's a nice trick, one that was used before, and it puts the reader into a frame of mind that what they are reading may in fact be non-fiction or memoir. It is of course still fiction though. Miller may have screwed a lot, but not that much. He may have been hungry, but he wasn't that hungry.

If you are interested in Henry Miller's life, I recommend reading Erica Jong's biography of Miller. It's sad to think that he slipped into demensia in his final years, especially when you discover how alive this man was in his youth. Such vigor!

As for Cancer, it was the start of the life journey for an artist. Approach it in this light and you will see why I gave it five stars.
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LibraryThing member DinoReader
Extraordinarily interesting in places, it is extremely patchy with a sentence, or even several paragraphs, of excellent writing followed by pages of wasted paper and ink. The verbosity is maddening. Miller needed a good editor.

His moment of existential satori, which is described at page 97 et seq.,
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in this edition, is followed by an intellectual leap of faith that is not rational; I think Miller would argue the absence of rational thinking on this issue was his point.

My other criticism would be that Miller tries to paint himself as a down-and-outer when he was a spoiled American, slumming in Paris with the Pound, Woolf and Hemingway crowd, who occasionally didn't get his American Express payment on time and had to borrow from American friends. He was never truly on the bum. In no way did he ever approach real destitution like Hamsun, Fante, Celine or Bukowski experienced. That difference in experience is significant and substantial because it makes him a poverty dilettante for whom being poor is an interesting experience that he can claim to embrace with joy and celebration. He did not experience the horror of contemplating death by starvation. It's easy to see why a later generation of upper middle class youth, who temporarily rejected their parent's wealth, identified with him.

A worthy read because of its reputation but not nearly as good as he frequently credited because his experience is less than genuine and the writing is so verbose.
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LibraryThing member HankIII
When I first read this book many years ago, I loved Miller's unabashed words, his hedonistic embracement, his utter lack of shame. I thought it was pretty cool--the whores, the lack of commitment to anything, as well as the obscenties that abounded throughout the book. He hooked me, and I went on
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to read his other works.But now? Now, Miller sounds so selfish, depraved, and grossly immature. I guess I should be more tolerant and accept Tropic of Cancer as a great work because of its profanities and its egocentric theme.On a upside: I think the last line of the novel is a real gem.
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LibraryThing member datrappert
First, this rating is based on listening to the audiobook, which I don't think was a good idea. There is nothing wrong with Campbell Scott's reading. He's easy to listen to and his French pronunciation sounds fine to a non-speaker like me. However, because this book consists of episodes and not
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really much plot to speak of, except the continuing experiences of a mostlly down-and-out American in Paris (and briefly LeHavre and Dijon), it's easy to drift away while you're driving down the road listening. I think Miller's prose would work better on the printed page where you have to pay more attention, because by and large it is worth paying attention. You'll have to get over any repulsion about how women are described and treated in the book, of course. It is despicable. And then there is the language, which got the book banned for quite a while. There seems to be more focus on sex acts in the first part of the book but perhaps you just get used to it. In any case, there is nothing erotic here. Depressing sex is just a part of the whole, mosty depressing story. But at times, even listening to the audiobook, there are passages that are seriously well done and that would benefit from a rereading. I'm intrigured to do more reading of Miller--if I ever find the time.
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LibraryThing member ndolson
I read this on a recommendation from a friend. This was the first time in my life that I just couldn't bring myself to finish the book.
LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
I'd read Of Henry Miller in various letters, diaries, and memoirs, but hadn't gotten around to reading his work--after this, I'm honestly not sure whether or not I'll be searching out his other work or not. While some of the prose was wonderful, even poetic, and enjoyable reading as I went along,
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there was no narrative drive to keep me reading. The characters were presented and treated almost as if I already knew of them and cared for them, but I never learned enough to make me care...or even necessarily become really curious. The narrative's preoccupation with sex and sexuality was entertaining at times, in the same vent, but never seemed to have a real place or purpose other than, again, being a preoccupation of a character I knew little enough else about.

In general, I probably would recommend this to readers who enjoy Kerouac's On The Road (another work that, while I can appreciate it for moments, I don't enjoy or return to of my own will) or to readers who want to know more about the books that broke ground in their incorporation of sexuality. Otherwise, it wasn't a Bad read...it just wasn't one which left a mark or really drew me in any way either.
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LibraryThing member jmoncton
Listening in audio and only on disc 2 of 10 so far. I really can't stand this book! Torn on whether I should finish it (allows me to cross this off the 1001 list and there must be some reason why people like this book) or spend my time doing something less painful ... like income taxes. Yikes - so
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tempting to skip a few tracks...

I decided not to finish this. In general I don't like these 'train of thought' meandering books and this author seems to be incredibly conceited and hates women. After I deleted this off my ipod I noticed that it's on many other lists of 'must read books'. I might pick it up later when I feel particularly masochistic...
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LibraryThing member fillechaude
I rarely give up on a book before finishing it, but it got to the point where I was avoiding reading because this book was going nowhere, and had been going nowhere for the last few hundred pages. The writing was great, but I can only take so many pages of tangents and rambling before I lose
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interest. Perhaps I'll give it another shot in ten years or so.
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LibraryThing member TheEllieMo
I'm not going to say I liked this book. The protagonist is, by today's moral standards, quite vile. I certainly did not like him.

I admit, it took me longer than normal to 'get into' the book; initially I was reading it because I had set myself the task of reading it.

And at times, there were several
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pages of stream-of-consciousness rants that, to be quite frank, bored me.

But I can not deny that this is a brilliant piece of writing. At its best, in my opinion, when recounting tales of events, I found myself actually caring about what happened to the characters, even though I never liked any of them.

Though not a pleasant story, this is a superb depiction of a life lived in the seedier end of Paris society.
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LibraryThing member ljhliesl
I hated this book so fucking much. It's like A Moveable Feast -- told in the first-person, published 1932, a Usan male writer in Paris -- and unlike A Moveable Feast in that the narrator and the book have no claim to any merit whatsoever. He is not interesting in any way; in fact, he's hateful. He
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likes his sexual partners compliant and varied (like Hemingway); unlike Hemingway, he does not recognize, let alone appreciate, them as people, but instead refers to them only by the only attribute that matters to him, their sexual organs. Well, he might prefer the wealthy ones, because then he can satisfy his stomach as well as his penis. He is anti-semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, and lazy, and he contributes absolutely nothing to literary, social, or cultural thinking or to Franco-American relations. No insight into writing practice, no appreciation of others' writing, not even any porn. What a waste of space (him) and time (mine).

Yes, I read this just to mark it off a list. Next up, goddamn Henry James, whom I find tedious but not despicable.

Just to clarify, it is not the worst book I ever read, only the most worthless. Faux Jane Austen from vanity presses is often worse on many scales and but not worthless because amusing. Pudgy, a Puppy to Love was bad, bad, bad, but the kids I read it to didn't seem to mind, so it wasn't worthless. But I won't be reading Tropic of Capricorn any time soon
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LibraryThing member blanderson
One of those bizarre cases of a book with brilliant style and language that for whatever reason never grabs me. It's slow and meandering, which I generally do not mind, but I've tried to read this a few times and haven't gotten more than 60 pages. I mean, I love Hunger and Ask the Dust, and those
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don't have any more direction than this, but Miller seemed all to pleased with his philosophical musings to actually write a good book.

It's unfortunate for me, anyway, because the 60 pages I read contained hundreds of amazing lines or quips, but they never seemed to gel into a compelling whole.
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LibraryThing member Myhi
Another book on living in Paris.
Miller's life there was rather tough, the most money coming from the wife in US, and that meant lots of trouble for him - definitely not a man of a single woman (he had about 5 wives, numbered 1..5 in his books).

The Tropics are probably the best works about the time
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Miller spent in Paris, very well written, even though using rather obscene language.
What I clearly recall:
- the way women are ALWAYS objects to be used by Miller (and yes.... he's been using them A LOT!)
- the 'collection of failures', the museum Miller built during his entire life, few bookshelves where he gathered small things to remind him of every single failure he's been through (and there were MANY of those!)

Very realistic, 100% authentic - hard to tell where's the fiction in Miller's books (all autobiographical). A tough guy. Sometimes difficult to pick the subject of a book between the long list of obsessions described and the colorful language...

What impressed me most and got me really curious was his lifetime friendship with Lawrence Durell (who I personally couldn't read), and the intensive correspondence they kept the entire life. It's now all published... and parts of it, some of the letters, are very descriptive and full of details on the books they both wrote. Makes it a lot easier to get what Miller intended to say through his novels.
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LibraryThing member kjharrison
Miller has a deep understanding of men and how they interact with each other. Although far from a light read, it is still delightful. It's about letting go and allowing the world to take you where it will. It's very Zen. The ending is lyrical and beautiful without losing its masculinity. This is
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the closest thing to "guy lit" that I've ever read.
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LibraryThing member kenand66
One of the best novels of the last century--a real groundbreaking work in erotic/sensual writing.
LibraryThing member angela.vaughn
This was very much the typical Miller book. It was set in Paris and his mood was a little different than when he is in America. There seemed to be a little more of a story line, but his usual rants are present through out the book. He is not one of my favorite authors by far, but something about
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his work makes me come back to him time and again.
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LibraryThing member cataryna
By page 5 I was confused and disgusted; by page 50 I was slightly less confused, still disgusted and oddly interested; by page 150 I was only mildly confused, still disgusted, and strangely excited; by the final page I was enlightened and hooked. You will be shown the soul of an utterly depraved
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main character (some say Henry Miller himself) and his friends and what it must be like to live in the underbelly of society in all its crassness. This is definitely not a happy, life is honky dory story and the language is in the extreme of extremes but its saving grace is that it is as real as real gets. Henry Miller pulls no punches, and there is no such thing as sugar coating in his descriptions of a life on the streets of Paris. The harsh meanderings of Henry Miller's mind, at first will probably make you want to toss this book aside within the 1st 20 pages, but I promise if you slow down and see it through you will be greatly rewarded.
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LibraryThing member jddunn
I read this in high school because it was supposed to be obscene and controversial, but didn't get much out of it at the time. Re-reading now to see where it stands in light of everything since. Relevant: "This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in
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the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants of God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will."

The first punk novel? Has many of the problems that dog me about the early punk years too, eg, rampant sexism and solipsism and Peter-Pan-ism and so on.
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Language

Original publication date

1934 (France)
1961 (US)

Physical description

287 p.; 7 inches

ISBN

0394177606 / 9780394177601
Page: 1.4956 seconds