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Tropic of Cancer
by
Henry Miller
Forty years have passed since Grove Press first published Henry Miller's landmark masterpiece -- an act that would forever change the face of American literature. Initially banned in America as obscene, Tropic of Cancer was first published in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards permitted its publication. Tropic of Cancer i...more
Paperback, 318 pages
Published
January 6th 1994
by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
(first published 1934)
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(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally. Sorry; the last paragraph today gets cut off a few sentences early!)
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Book #20: Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller (1934)
The...more
The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Book #20: Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller (1934)
The...more
So, I was glancing through some of the reviews here and noticed that someone has totally disparaged this book because its “hero” is immoral. It always bewilders me when people judge a book according to the moral judgment that they pass on its characters. Like when I was looking at the reviews of John Updike’s Run, Rabbit and saw a woman saying that she hated the book because Angstrom left his wife twice in the book. I was like, don’t take it personally, lady; he’s not your husband. A lot of peop...more
Tropic of Cancer is held in high regard by Authors that I respect. In particular, George Orwell (whose essay, “Inside the Whale”) has high praise for Miller's bravery, directness and honesty.
Miller's foul language has lost the power to impress; modern readers will not feel the level of shock and awe experienced by previous generations. The book has so much critical adulation that I have spent a few weeks ruminating before expressing my own view.
I don't like it....
O...more
Miller's foul language has lost the power to impress; modern readers will not feel the level of shock and awe experienced by previous generations. The book has so much critical adulation that I have spent a few weeks ruminating before expressing my own view.
I don't like it....
O...more
E.
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Sophmores in college who recently finished "on the road" and want to really get wild
When I read this for the first time I thought the world was opening up and eating people.
I wanted to get drunk and go on a hooker spree, to move to Paris and generally debauch for the rest of my 20's....
Then I realized I kind of wanted to do all this anyways but with Miller's aid I could and even better I could disguise the whole thing as "literary."
I struggled through Capricorn, through The Books in My Life, through a number of Miller's personal ...more
I wanted to get drunk and go on a hooker spree, to move to Paris and generally debauch for the rest of my 20's....
Then I realized I kind of wanted to do all this anyways but with Miller's aid I could and even better I could disguise the whole thing as "literary."
I struggled through Capricorn, through The Books in My Life, through a number of Miller's personal ...more
George Orwell wrote an essay about this book called, “Inside the Whale.” The title alludes to the Jonah story in the bible. In that story Jonah rejected his responsibility, ran, and was swallowed by a whale. He finally accepted his responsibility and returned to the world. In contrast, Orwell’s Miller doesn’t want to leave the whale. God’s punishment ironically is Miller’s safe and comfortable oasis. Miller can attempt to triumph over god in this way because he has chosen an ironic s...more
I got through the first 150 pages before I decided that life is too short to waste time reading books you hate. Maybe I'm not smart enough or deep enough to appreciate a book like Tropic of Cancer, but for me each page was a tedious struggle. The author of the book's introduction boldy asserts that Henry Miller is "the greatest living author" (obviously, the edition I read was published prior to Miller's death in 1980), but I found Miller's frenetic, meandering style tiresome.
...more
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Paquita Maria Sanchez
marked it as to-read
I am going to create a new goodreads bookshelf titled "sausage party." It will exist solely for Henry Miller.
i wrote this review before finishing the book, but i think i'll keep it:
i hated the start, and slowly learned to like it more and more. looking at other reviews that seems to be the opposite of what others said. perhaps i am enjoying what others called the "slow" parts most. at first i found him just trying to be artsy and shocking. it's hard to explain how it became an easier read. While some authors are easy to read because of a conversational style, i found miller's writing to...more
i hated the start, and slowly learned to like it more and more. looking at other reviews that seems to be the opposite of what others said. perhaps i am enjoying what others called the "slow" parts most. at first i found him just trying to be artsy and shocking. it's hard to explain how it became an easier read. While some authors are easy to read because of a conversational style, i found miller's writing to...more
This may be the greatest book ever written. This opening passage proves it:
"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought 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...more
"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought 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...more
A marvelous pretention of a travel memoir from an American in Paris. More a song than a book: a love ballad to a city. In parts it reads like the surreal confessions of a sex addict. In other parts it is nothing less than a mock-serious philosophical treatis.
Tropic of Cancer is almost always as fun to read as it must have been to write. I say almost because at the outset, I kept wondering how much of his self-preening I'd let Miller get away with before I lost all interest; he ...more
Tropic of Cancer is almost always as fun to read as it must have been to write. I say almost because at the outset, I kept wondering how much of his self-preening I'd let Miller get away with before I lost all interest; he ...more
The mashup of the poetic and the vulgar sets this book apart in a way that sometimes annoys and more often hits the spot. Miller gets modernist stream-of-consciousness to work cleverly through the trash-talk. Though I can’t tell you how hard it was to find a quote clean enough to use, it’s better to show what just can’t be described. Notice here how naturally thought flows:
“After that,” – here Van Norden has to smile himself – “after that, mind you, he tells me how she sat in the ch...more
“After that,” – here Van Norden has to smile himself – “after that, mind you, he tells me how she sat in the ch...more
One of my favorite passages:
"At night when I look at Boris' goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how t...more
"At night when I look at Boris' goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how t...more
Read this nearly fifteen years ago, but barely remembered it. The surrealist style doesn't do much for me, but it's a nice portrait of the drinking and whoring ex-patriate crowd in Paris during the early 1930s (after the big names of ten years earlier had moved on). Also, it's a nice sketch of the sort of people who eagerly signed up to fight Franco a few years after this was published.
I'm giving this only 3 stars because there's no actual plot. It could be a memoir; it's definite...more
I'm giving this only 3 stars because there's no actual plot. It could be a memoir; it's definite...more
Honestly speaking, this felt like one of most difficult books I have ever read. Having started and stopped this book several times, I force fed myself Tropic of Cancer yet again, determined to get past page forty. So I read on, at times mired in the brilliance of Millers imagery and provocative prose (for the 1930s) yet frequently finding myself equally lost amidst his fragmented thoughts and misogynistic opinions.
An appreciation for creative explosive free thought is a must when re...more
An appreciation for creative explosive free thought is a must when re...more
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 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 th...more
This one was hard to rate. It is a worthy read for so many reasons: the tales of Paris in the window of time woven into the lives of intellectual bohemians spun so marvelously in both crass and captivating language. However, sensitive souls beware. It was a contributing factor (one of many) to a crisis of faith in my early twenties. The honest depravity of the male characters and the author himself confirmed all my worst suspicions of males being utterly inhuman and by far a lesser sex.
This may be one of the best books in the American cannon, and also, unfortuneatly, one of the most underrated. I read a lot of the reviews on the book before writing this and I found not very thought out. I recall one reviewer giving up on the book because the "frenetic style was tiresome." Usually when someone has feelings like that, it is because they don't understand the literature and so their mind wanders. Another review noted that Miller's supposed "shock tactics" were ...more
I don't know what was more embarassing - reading this book in public and wondering if anyone knew how vile it was, or seeing how many passages my mother had underlined in college. Naughty! (In her defense, she said she had no choice . . . )
This was one of those titles I'd heard a handful of authors drop, and thought I needed to know why. I'm still not sure I completely understand the fascination (though I'll grant he HAS beefed up my quotes section), but at least I can say I've read ...more
This was one of those titles I'd heard a handful of authors drop, and thought I needed to know why. I'm still not sure I completely understand the fascination (though I'll grant he HAS beefed up my quotes section), but at least I can say I've read ...more
K.D.
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by:
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)
One of this book's themes is sex. So, if you are squeamish about sex on books, or about sex itself, then don't read this review. More importantly, DON'T read this book. My review is definitely lame compared to its sexual content.
But not reading the book is like being in the USA without tasting bagel in one of their international airports. Whenever I come to the US, I always grab a bagel and a cup of coffee while waiting for my flight. I think that bread (rarely sold here in the Phili...more
But not reading the book is like being in the USA without tasting bagel in one of their international airports. Whenever I come to the US, I always grab a bagel and a cup of coffee while waiting for my flight. I think that bread (rarely sold here in the Phili...more
I liked the novel, though I struggled with it a bit. I can easily understand why it was banned for so many years. What I really liked about Miller is the unique way he smells and feels the Paris of 1930’s. There are some really delightful passages and I have the feeling that only a foreigner could have observed and felt that particular atmosphere. And the fact that the novel is autobiographical makes it even more credible.
***
deci da, mi-a placut tropicul cancerului, desi m-am c...more
***
deci da, mi-a placut tropicul cancerului, desi m-am c...more
This book defines what it means to live a totally free existence, a life wallowing in art and free of the constraints of time and money. Miller's amazing writing style and incredible vision make this one of the great books of the last century. The backdrop of this book is a civilization teetering, about to collapse. The squalid street life of 1920's Paris flows through this book with amazing force. Miller lives a parasitic existence whose only purpose is to write and read and eat and screw. His ...more
Seems the contemporary catch phrase to label Miller by is "Misogynist." Whatever... he wrote from his perspective and never swayed from his own vantage point to impress anyone. He is a true artist. How else would he have attracted the love interest of such an intelligent, beautiful woman as Anaiis Nin? Tropic of Cancer, to me, borders on spiritual enlightenment by way of pure honesty. I also enjoyed reading Nin's diary showing her side of their mutual lust affair. She was as much of a ...more
Joseph
rated it
Recommends it for:
expats who think norman mailer was cool
Shelves:
waste-of-time-shelf
I read "Capricorn" in college when I was an angry young man and liked it. Now I'm a quarter century man and found "Cancer" to be a waste of time, as it reminded of me of instances regarding why I liked "Capricorn". If you want to sum up the book in under two minutes, listen to Bad Religion's "Delirium of Disorder". In the song there's a line that goes "Chaos is the score upon which reality is written", which is also a quote from the book. The son...more
The only reason this book is a classic is because men were editors, and this book gave them boners. And then male readers had boners and women were shocked with Miller's vocabulary. So, it wasn’t that difficult to become a classic. Especially in those days, when a word cunt was such a taboo. But, again who am I joking, I have a few Irish/English male friends who blush when somebody says cunt around them. And they love Miller, so I think that’s the individual matter of upbringing and bon ton, bec...more
*Trying* to read for the book club.
Update 4/18/11: Life is too short to be reading this *shite*! I give it 10 more pages before I jump ship.
4/27/11: Yeah, no, not gonna do it. He needs to get over himself already.
Update 4/18/11: Life is too short to be reading this *shite*! I give it 10 more pages before I jump ship.
4/27/11: Yeah, no, not gonna do it. He needs to get over himself already.
A 'classic of erotic literature' that is completely unerotic, this was a strange one for me. I can appreciate Miller's skill as a writer, which comes to life beautifully whenever he is ruminating on art, the streets of Paris and humanity in general, but whenever we came back to the main thrust of the book I found myself underwhelmed and unadmiring. Much of this probably comes from my opinion towards desire as depicted within - it's a form of desire that is either extremely male or individual to ...more
Brian Hurley
added it
Miller is hailed as a genius and this book as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century. I really must disagree. Miller uses inaccessible language to portray esoteric concepts which appear more to be a rant than a coherent discourse. There is no plot, no story, just a series of debaucheries portrayed as vignettes. There are so many colloquial references that one must have had to be alive in Paris in the 20s and 30s to understand them. His central message may have been to bring everythin...more
I put Tropic of Cancer on my list to read for two reasons: (1) it is on the NY Times 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century list (2) it is referenced in an episode of Seinfeld, alluding to all the "dirty" language.
I will say that I read this book out of the context of a reading group or classroom, so I feel that my experience is a bit stunted. All in all, though, I enjoyed it even though I felt that it lacked closure and, to be honest, a true plot line. Generally, Tropic of ...more
I will say that I read this book out of the context of a reading group or classroom, so I feel that my experience is a bit stunted. All in all, though, I enjoyed it even though I felt that it lacked closure and, to be honest, a true plot line. Generally, Tropic of ...more
Henry James referred to War and Peace as a ‘loose, baggy monster.’ If he had lived in the time of Tropic of Cancer and deigned to read it one wonders how he would described this wild, unruly mess of inspiration but the words ‘degenerate,’ ‘immoral’ and debauched’ probably would not have been far from his mind. Tropic of Cancer is the anti-Henry James novel, an inversion/perversion of the ‘international theme’ so dear to James’s heart. The Jamesian central intelligence is an expatriate writer/bum...more
I read a part of this book on Champs Elysee while Miller was explaining his own stroll down the very same street. The more I think about this book, the more I believe that it was a book written for no one. The language was too crude and honest for its day and will still make a modern American blush. Once past the language and the somewhat of a Joyce-like free association rambling that get into the narrative here and there (there is even a reference to Maggie Bloom), you find an intense philos...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Why the crap is everyone reading Tropic of Cancer? | 5 | 235 | Mar 21, 2008 11:02pm |
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Henry Miller sought to reestablish the freedom to live without the conventional restraints of civilization. His books are potpourris of sexual description, quasi-philosophical speculation, reflection on literature and society, surrealistic imaginings, and autobiographical incident.
After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, Calif. Mille...more
More about Henry Miller...
After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, Calif. Mille...more
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“Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.”
—
148 people liked it
“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company”
—
132 people liked it
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Jan 04, 2012 11:53pm
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