First
published in Paris in 1934 and subsequently banned in the U.S. until
1961, Tropic of Cancer charts Miller's experiences among the French bohemians
during the early '30s. Full disclosure, I
served in the U.S. NAVY. I've seen it all. Hell, I've done more than
I'd confess to in mixed company. Still, Miller's attitudes and
indulgences easily exceed my humble excesses. Such lapses in judgment were the stage dressings of my experience, not the main attraction.
For Miller, it's the other way round. His chronicling of coitus,
fellatio, cunnilingus, menstruation, flatulence, and defecation makes
for the sort of work an exhibitionist or performance artist
might compose on a dare. Termed 'autobiographical novel' (which I'm
told is a genre), this book, rather than simply pushing the envelope
for obscenity, laces the envelope with Ricin and sets it on
fire.
In
fairness, the average vocabulary is
small enough without us banning words or censoring writers. So I'd
never call for a moratorium on terms or demand someone's silence for
uttering inflammatory language. Indeed, one of the bonuses to free
speech is giving fools a forum to unwittingly identify themselves. How else will the rest of us know to
avoid them? I'll defend this writer's liberty to voice his drivel
until the angry birds come home.
Besides, I don't object to the obscenity so much as the hatred. Miller uses the Inn word to refer to knee grows, calls nearly all women cunts, has
nothing but contempt for The Jews, and in one passage, writes, “...
because every now and then I meet little yellow men from Cochin-China
– squirmy, opium-faced runts peeping out of their baggy uniforms
like dyed skeletons packed in excelsior.”
A
third of the way into the book the curtain
falls utterly.
“Hello! Are you Henry Miller?” It's a woman's voice. It's Irene. She's saying hello to me … For a moment I'm in a perfect panic.
As
a reader, so am I. Henry Miller the writer and Henry Miller the
protagonist are one. This struck me as problematic since Miller, or
at least the Miller Miller represents, never fails to
ridicule his bohemian friends, pointing out how depraved, lost,
hopeless, and foolish they are – all the while both
demonstrating the same depravity and relying on their sporadic
charity for his livelihood.
The
madness doesn't end there. In an interview, Miller
said he dabbled with the title Crazy
Cock. As to why he settled on the
published title:
“...to me cancer symbolizes the disease of civilization, the endpoint of the wrong path, the necessity to change course radically, to start completely over from scratch.”
If
civilization is diseased as Miller tells us, if we must start over as
he says, I assume these pronouncements are an indictment on human
behavior, hypocrisy, and the like. So what remedy can we expect from
cataloging characters with lice? Throughout the book, not an insect
escapes Miller's eye. Every louse and cockroach is commented on. Rats
make frequent cameos too. And what precisely accounts for his
hostility toward birds?
Every time I pass the concierge's window and catch the full icy impact of her glance I have an insane desire to throttle all the birds of creation.
When
toward the end of the book Miller has an opportunity to do a
good turn, he takes the low road, betrays a friend's trust, and,
perhaps worst of all, has no moral qualms whatsoever about doing so.
If
you don't mind reading what could essentially pass for
alcohol-induced exchanges between sexually frustrated college frat
boys or dictation taken at a cocaine laced swinger's club, or, better
yet, if you're encouraged (as one Amazon reviewer promised) reading
the rants of a
foul, self-absorbed, male chauvinist, racist
leech who resents those whose help he needs most while simultaneously
depicting them as degenerates, you might have a more favorable
impression of this depressing read. For me, the line between
constructive criticism and wanting to burn the whole world to the
ground is not so fine or gray. It's the difference between the sage
and the serpent.
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