J.T. Wilson’s Reviews > Tropic of Cancer > Status Update

“If now and then we encounter pages that explode, pages that wound and sear, that wring groans and tears and curses, know that they come from a man with his back up, a man whose only defenses left are his words and his words are always stronger than the lying, crushing weight of the world, stronger than all the racks and wheels which the cowardly invent to crush out the miracle of personality.”

This is a fairly short book so only 60-odd pages left and it occurs to me that I will miss watching Miller and his degenerate friends stumbling through the squalor and filth of the Parisian underbelly, crawling through the sewage like Andy Dufresne.

“Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions.” (p79)

In such a vicious and pessimistic book it’s odd to find something that reads almost like an affirmation.

“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, Beauty… what you will.”