Review: Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
What is there to say about Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, his chaotic, semi-autobiographical rant of a novel? Since it’s widely regarded as one of the more important works of 20th century literature, probably very little that’s new or interesting. But here goes…
It’s interesting how Tropic of Cancer encapsulates the essentials of gonzo journalism nearly forty years before Hunter S. Thompson came up with the term. With his goal of “recording of all that which is omitted in books”, Miller engages in a hyper-real blending of fact and fiction, with prose that veers between confessional and psychedelic. Like Raoul Duke of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he’s a morally questionable, yet eminently likable protagonist. In every way, Tropic was way ahead of its time.
If I knew more about 1930′s literature, I’d situate the book in the context of its times. But the best I could do is some vague babbling about D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, so I won’t embarass myself by trying. But I prefer Miller to either of them. Lawrence feels so much more self-conscious and Joyce much more impenetrable. Miller’s work remains accessible today in a way that other literature of the period hasn’t, at least for me. While there’s not really a coherent story, there’s certainly a coherent philosophy and it’s expressed in every way that Miller can find. I think this passage sums it up best:
Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity – I belong to the earth!
Tropic is a manifesto of liberation, it’s about Miller’s struggle to break free from every kind of repression. The many explicit and often-crude sexual references are justified in a way that would be prurient in most other works. It’s not the celebration of sex that Lawrence wrote about, or Joyce’s symbolic sexuality, it’s sex as a rejection of repression, as a blatant and fierce act of rebellion. It’s not all about sex – again and again in Tropic Miller breaks free from every attempt to constrain him, culminating in an frenetic episode in which Miller becomes a liberator, decisively getting a friend out from a marriage he was forced into. The intention of the novel wasn’t just to describe freedom, but to actively inspire it in others.
It’s compelling and direct. Maybe it’s just as powerful a book today as it was when it was published in 1934. I don’t know – it’s not like I was around then to compare. But it’s as powerful for me today as it was when I first read it at 16.