Over the past year and a half, I have been reading, and finally finished, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. This is a book I do not take lightly. Nor do I take writing about it lightly. Originally published in Paris in 1934, the book was banned in the US. The life of the narrator (presumably a loosely written account of Miller’s time in Paris) is as hedonistic as one can imagine. Women are mostly mistreated and used by men and the narrator lives on the edge, often dependent on the good will of others for shelter, food, and, of course, drink.
Yet it was praised by many other writers at its time for the writing skill and the times when, debauchery aside, Miller’s narrator contemplates life itself, which is where we should spend our energy. While anyone who appreciates books and writing would defend its publication, many readers today wouldn’t (some might say ‘shouldn’t’) read it. Since Miller, other authors have addressed many of life’s mysteries, and in a less brutal (I do think that’s the right word) manner. Yet I cannot help but admire Miller’s power in prose. Here he describes a gallery of photos belonging to his friend from India:
“There is something so fantastic, so incongruous about this gallery that one is reminded inevitably of the great spawn of temples which stretch from the Himalayas to the tip of Ceylon, a vast jumble of architecture, staggering in beauty and at the same time monstrous, hideously monstrous because the fecundity which seethes and ferments in the myriad ramifications of design seems to have exhausted the very soil of India itself.”
Maybe Faulknerian by length, but Stegner-erian by tone and tenor, and certainly with a depth one can appreciate. There are any number of passages such as this that are a pleasure to read and even more so to read out loud. But as for the book itself, I make no recommendation other than to say that because of my love of literature, and this book’s ground-breaking status, if I may call it that, I personally found reading it a must.
Write&Read 
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