Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tropic of Cancer
Book Review: A Necessary Evil...
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not going to debate the literary merits of Henry Miller's book, hailed by some as one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. I'll make a few points.
1. Tropic of Cancer is a semi-autobiographical book about a man in Paris in the early 1930s, an American ex-pat writer, living on the edge of subsistence, detailing his adventures among the French, sexual exploits, nights of drunken revery, etc...
2. Miller creates vivid, seedy imagery. Certain passages will leave you wanting to take a shower. A compliment to the power of his writing? I don't know-Rob Zombie movies can have the same effect.
3. For the most part, the characters are unheroic, amoral, living directionless, shallow lives. (Somewhat semi-autobiographical, being Miller fled France before the second world war, hiding out in California for the rest of his life.)
3. The writing can be self-indulgent: " The town was a shambles, corpses mangled by butchers and stripped by plunderers, lay thick in the streets; wolves sneaked in from the suburbs to eat them; the black plague and other deaths crept in to keep them company, and the English came marching on."
This type of writing goes on for pages and pages at a time.
4. At about page 120, the book becomes less indulgent and more coherent. (The change was so drastic i thought I was reading a different book.) Most probably throw the book down at about page 80, but you need to trudge on to the end to honestly say you've read the book.
5. I think most who rave about Miller haven't really read Miller: they'll display his books, or read certain passages while consuming alcohol, or learn some of his pithy one-liners, but to read one of his novels cover to cover obviously requires mental rigor. (I'd like to see even one of these critics write "Displayed sparks of literary genius, but could have used an editor!"
6. Miller is a necessary evil. Every student of literature should probably be familiar with his writing. I respect him for having the cajones to write like this over 60 years ago. Will people still be reading Miller 100 years from now? The verdict is still out.
Book Review: A Novel Ahead of Its Time
Summary: 5 Stars
"Tropic of Cancer" is more than a novel, in the ordinary sense, like some of these other review say. As an author, it has changed the way I see novels can be written, or structured (or not structured). True, there's not really a plot in the traditional sense, but plots are overemphasized these days anyway. That's all we seem to care about, like sitcoms and dramas on TV. Nothing, it seems, is allowed to stew in its own juices, is allowed to be a work of art--like this book. One might say that Henry Miller did to writing what Jackson Pollack did to painting. He broke it wide open; the way people talk and think are not perfect, they're not always in the proper tense, or eloquently worded. And should we care? I always believed that the aim of literature was to capture reality, our consciousness, otherwise we have something a little more fluffed up than a screenplay. And only literature is the closest art-form to consciousness that we have.
Richard Beckham II, author of "Frog in the Pot" and "The Tale of Mu" both available on Amazon.com. Frog in the Pot The Tale of Mu
Book Review: A blood transfusion!
Summary: 5 Stars
Tropic of Cancer is Miller`s first book and remains his greatest book. Miller wanted to be a writer, but he could not find any publisher. When he was 37 years old, he was sent to Paris to start living in artist's life. Here his anger was reached the limit and he exploded. I have never read such deep expression of one's true feelings and emotions. While this book became international best seller, it had been burned for 30 years in his own country.
If you are not satisfied your life and if you thirst for life, you must read this book. The last 20 pages are purely masterpiece.
Book Review: A down-and-dirty classic
Summary: 4 Stars
The back cover of Henry Miller's novel "Tropic of Cancer" notes that the book was first published in Paris in 1934, but banned as obscene in the United States for 27 years until a historic court ruling was made. Thus, "Tropic of Cancer" is significant as a historical artifact in addition to being a literary work of art. The book tells the story of an American writer named Henry Miller who lives in Paris. Henry definitely lives in the seedy underbelly of the city; the book follows him to the bars, cafes, and whorehouses and details his encounters with a number of colorful characters."Tropic of Cancer" opens on a grungy note as the narrator discusses the lice infestation of his friend's armpits. Early on the narrator promises that this will not be a polite book: "This is libel, slander, defamation of character [...] a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art." Miller largely succeeds to deliver on this promise. The book is full of profanity, and there are frank discussions of sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and other such topics.
The book has a crude charm and energy throughout, even though at times the prose seems wildly self-indulgent. Miller depicts Paris as a magical place, a pilgrimage site for artists and wanderers. The narrator often reflects on writing and literature in general, and on his own artistic goals and theories in particular. There is also reflection on America and American identity. Miller's prose sometimes attains a Whitmanesque revelatory quality.
To me the main question about this book is thus: Is it merely an important historic artifact, or does it still sing as a work of living literature? My own reply to this question: the book does still sing, delivering (to quote the book itself) "bloated pages of ecstasy slimed with excrement." If you like it, also check out the writing of Charles Bukowski.
Book Review: A good, honest novel
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a novel about Miller's experience bumming around Paris in the early 1930's. A large part of the incidents related in it deal with his experiences with the people who let him stay with them and feed him. He was more often than not in desperate straits, and was often forced to sleep on the streets.Perhaps the most appropriate expression for the situation of Miller and his friends would be "on the margins." In that way the book sort of has a Dostoyevskyan flavor. Even if they are having some success they are never far from the margin. Most of these friends are expatriate American intellectuals who are going through spiritual crises or have gotten themselves in trouble by dissolute behavior.
Fornication is probably the main passion of Miller and his friends. The subject of fornication is brought up right from the novel's beginning. Females of the loose or disagreeable variety are not uncommonly refered to by that obscene word refering to the outer female genitals which begins with a C. Miller describes two of the most memorable prostitutes that he patronized at the beginning of the book. Another incident is where he meets a blonde french gal at a nightclub. He wishes to have some copulation with her and she manages to get him to give her 120 francs by telling a melodramatic story about how she is taking care of her very sick mother. They go back to her place and peform coitus. He dosen't quite believe her story and while she is downstairs supposedly checking on her mother, he fetches her purse, grabs the 120 francs and runs off with them.
Miller is involved greatly in his friend's love lives. One incident that stands-out involves the rich lady Irene and his friend Carl. Irene wants Carl to run off with her to Borneo and Carl wants Miller to go with them. He offers Irene for Miller to use carnally. Then there is his friend Van Norden. One night they catch the eye of a prostitute and return to where Miller is living with Van Norden and Miller watches his friend operate on the hooker but Van Norden is unable to consumate the exercise despite great effort.
Then there is MIller's East Indian friends. The first one is a decayed merchant who has an injury to his arm or something and speaks often, using the f-word, of his sub-par abilities in carnal technic in contrast to another East Indian friend of theirs. There is the publicist for Gahndi who arrives in Paris urgently wishing to visit a brothel and Miller obliges, he being a connisseur of those institutions in the city. While Miller is in the next room waiting for his own sesssion to begin, he apparently misunderstands a question from the publicist from the next room about where the bathroom is in the facility. He tells the fellow to use the bidet, a french word for a bathing implement designed to wash the genitals or something Well, this fellow ends up excreting in a....anyway, I really don't understand how the bidet was used in this situation.
Then there is the week-end trip to the coast city of La Havre. Miller hooks up with his friends Fillimore and Collins.Collins has just evaded trouble because he had fallen in love "with a boy." Miller meets an ex-hooker named Marcelle and they "play with each other" under the dinner table at Jimmy's tavern. Jimmy's wife started to fall in love with Collins and she started this brawl on their last night in town with this Russian girl whom she saw as a rival for Collins's attentions. Then there is Fillimore...
There is plenty of non-sexual material in this book. The best part of the book is the portrayal of life in a Paris which is quite different from that of Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein, etc. It is a life of living in utterly filthy apartments of living on the street, of hookers, of begging. I enjoyed Miller's portrayal of struggling in this life(as I enjoyed his rather brief sketch of similar living conditions of his in America).At one point he gets room and board from a Russian truck driver named Serge who offers this in return for Miller giving him English lessons. But he is unable to stand sleeping on a matress surrounded by awful smells, bedbugs, and rotten food. He abandons Serge after a short time.
Miller is at his best when he is telling a story. I did not enjoy his flights of unintelligible mystical mumb-jumbo that he inserts several times between the incidents. Such rhetoric immediately greets the reader at the beginning of the book...
In this book there is plenty of obscene material. The S-word is used wihtout reticence, as are the C-word, the B-word, the p-word and particularly the f-word. The N-word is used once by the narrator; I wasn't happy about that. In any case I liked the characters of this book, I related to many of them.