Tropic of Cancer , or how I learned to use the C-word

WARNING!--THERE WILL BE ADULT LANGUAGE AHEAD

The perfect analogy for my experience of reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer is life. That sounds loftier and bigger than I mean it, but it is true. In my youth (starting out the novel), I was wide-eyed with wonder, trying to learn the language being spoken around me, often confused and hitting against the walls of the text and gaining the necessary cuts and bruises. But I soldiered on. I aged quickly, and 50+ pages into the book, I was in my teen years, rebelling against the world around me--what the hell is going on?! You don't know anything! We come from two different worlds, old man! Somewhere in the middle, I entered my adulthood and accepted that I needed to live by the groundrules that Miller set. I went to work, did my job reading, and tried to make the best of it. Two-thirds into the book, I saw that the end would be upon me one day, and I had to reevaluate the experience of my life, to come to terms with what had happened to me. I didn't hate the world around me, and I did more than just coexist with it; I tried to find reasons to embrace it. And then, near the end of it all, in the twilight years of my reading, I came to terms with the journey I was on. My wounds and scars were still present and aching, but a nostalgia has set in, and I am thankful for the journey I was on.

In short, I hated the book, then felt like I understood it, then appreciated it, and was definitely glad when it was over.

Most of the time while I was reading the book, I had no idea why I was reading it, other than to finish it for the sake of this project. There is no narrative drive in the book to compel a reader forward, no plot or movement to pull me from one page to the next. The weight and importance of the novel is directly proportionate to how fond you are of the main character and the world he stumbles through. If you like the details of these insecure, gad-about, ex-patriated "artists" and their sexual escapades, you are going to find the novel very compelling. If hearing the women referred to continually as cunts and valued by the extent to which they crave, perform, and enjoy sex, then your experience of the book will leave much to be desired.

The passages that gave me the most clarity, were the ones in which Miller declaimed his artistic goal. On page 243 of my edition, Miller writes:

"Up to the present, my idea in collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of literature. My idea briefly has been to present a resurrection of the emotions, to depict the conduct of a human being in the stratosphere of ideas, that is, in the grip of delirium. To paint a pre-Socratic being, a creature part goat, part Titan."

So enough with the romantic notion of elevating people to some noble level of representation. The world around us is filled with sex and shit and crabs and syphilis and people are revolting. But they are also part Titan, and that glorious light at their heart is every bit as present as their nastiness, but both need to be there. When I thought of his perspective, I gained an appreciation for that goal. It made sense of his admiration of Whitman and the shocking strength of Whitman's poetry.

But when I stepped back again, and looked at what he DID represent, I remember why I was frustrated. I don't see anything titanic here. He claims to love the world and the people even as it is all rot, but I don't see that love. I see a character and his friends who all feel superior to everyone else. People who hold jobs and make ends meet are represented as sad clods of human beings. No one Miller meets can write worth a damn or have an appropriate reaction to any circumstance. They are all missing the stuff he sees. I had to reread a good portion of "Leaves of Grass," to be sure, but indeed Whitman is in love with the human race, and the very jobs they do are noble. Yes, he wants to get a something outside of the perfumes of society, at something raw and animal, but the mere act of nursing, of marrying, of swimming, of engaging with each other and the world around them, made every soul beautiful in his eyes. The souls in Tropic of Cancer are every bit as yellowed and rotting and lousy as the places the live. How can you love what you don't respect?

As usual, I am very glad to have read this book. It confirms again that in spite of our apotheosizing the generations before us, they were all as shitty and sex-driven and depraved as any other generation. These are the same folks that Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation." Things do not move steadily downhill; it's always just a trick of perspective.

I would love to hear from someone who really connected with this book and with Miller. So if anyone reads this and has had a different reaction, please let me know about it. Cunts.