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Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
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Tropic of Cancer (original 1934; edition 2015)

by Henry Miller (Author), Anaïs Nin (Contributor), Karl Shapiro (Introduction)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8,787131930 (3.63)193
I don't get it, this book is so-so at best. Like "On the Road" this book is about a down and out guy who mooches his way through life. Ground breaking because he wrote this in the 30's ok. I can see why it was banned then, yet the story itself is not that great. Other than that it is unimpressive garbage. I didn't like the way Miller use French without interpreting it for us. So if you read it do it on a device that allows you to highlight and translate those sentences for you. ( )
  foof2you | Dec 21, 2020 |
English (113)  Danish (3)  Spanish (3)  French (3)  Italian (2)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Portuguese (1)  Hebrew (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (129)
Showing 1-25 of 113 (next | show all)
This was a book of wonderful descriptions and philosophical musings but the amount of testosterone flowing throughout rather swamped the good points for me. ( )
  snash | Mar 18, 2024 |
This book spent years on my TBR shelf, because I was afraid I wouldn't like it. Finally I decided to read it and - guess what - I hated it.

The novel takes place in Paris, there is this young artist, his group of friends and a lot of women. A lot of women and a lot of sex, which was just so boring! No real story, nothing moving or funny or dramatic - lots of complaining and lots of sex. I have absolutely no idea why so many people enjoy this book - I didn't and I'm very happy to remove this book from my bookshelf. I'm not going to read any other book by this author. ( )
  Donderowicz | Mar 12, 2024 |
I don't like stream of consciousness books. ( )
  blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |
While I am glad that I finally read this classic, it really wasn't my sort of book. Miller seems to be fixated on sex and the decay of death (and by that I mean all the physical grossness of it - all the disgusting details of putrefaction). ( )
  leslie.98 | Jun 27, 2023 |
you know what? just because generation after generation of pedantic adolescents hype the shit out of a book doesn't mean that the book isn't any good...unless that book is pretty much anything by Henry Miller. ( )
  alison-rose | May 22, 2023 |
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  archivomorero | May 21, 2023 |
Third time through, caved in and finally listened to my first audiobook. Ian McShane does a tremendous job bringing out the humour and lyricism of Miller that my Beckett-esque mental voice tends to miss. Has this ruined my personal relationship with the book? Maybe.... but a literary ménage à trois doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.

Second time reading and still remains my favourite work, does writing get any better than this?


‘Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.’ ( )
  theoaustin | May 19, 2023 |
This was a long and drawn out read. Once I got used to his style of writing, it was easier to follow along, but it was still a bit of a chore to get through. I am happy I read it for the historic place this book has in literature. I also found it rather funny in spots. However, it was 95% boring with the other 5% being shock value interesting. If you are easily offended, I'd skip this one.
  Kdichard09 | Mar 1, 2023 |
Pretentious and boring. No plot. Rambling stream of narrative. Relies on shock value for impact, but language that was shocking in the 30's is now common. ( )
  Michael_Lilly | Jan 27, 2023 |
It's a romanticized introspection, as a nihilistic dirtbag smears himself across the smears Europe.

That's a full spoiler of the plot, but not of the book.
  NathanRH | Jan 14, 2023 |
First, this rating is based on listening to the audiobook, which I don't think was a good idea. There is nothing wrong with Campbell Scott's reading. He's easy to listen to and his French pronunciation sounds fine to a non-speaker like me. However, because this book consists of episodes and not really much plot to speak of, except the continuing experiences of a mostlly down-and-out American in Paris (and briefly LeHavre and Dijon), it's easy to drift away while you're driving down the road listening. I think Miller's prose would work better on the printed page where you have to pay more attention, because by and large it is worth paying attention. You'll have to get over any repulsion about how women are described and treated in the book, of course. It is despicable. And then there is the language, which got the book banned for quite a while. There seems to be more focus on sex acts in the first part of the book but perhaps you just get used to it. In any case, there is nothing erotic here. Depressing sex is just a part of the whole, mosty depressing story. But at times, even listening to the audiobook, there are passages that are seriously well done and that would benefit from a rereading. I'm intrigured to do more reading of Miller--if I ever find the time. ( )
1 vote datrappert | Dec 26, 2022 |
good to read
  eraj-riaz18 | Sep 6, 2022 |
interesting novel
  eraj-riaz18 | Sep 6, 2022 |
Henry Miller is now one of my favorite authors. Not my in my top five, but definitely high up there now. Loved this man's writing style. He can write prose. In the intro of my edition it says he didn't like poetry, but he sure wrote like a beatnik poet. However, this isn't really like poetry, but more the stream of consciousness. Be warned this book has no plot, which is why I really liked it. Noticing I like books with very little plot and either character developments or big long "rambles" from the author.

Maybe most people know of this book because it's one of the many notorious books band for "obscenity." Yes this has graphic sex scenes, but that kind of the point. Makes you realize that sex is perfectly fine to talk abut in books. We talk about it with our partners, others, and have fantasies. Why not have a book about real life talk about sex? You begin to realize not all, but a lot of writers just don't have the balls anymore to write like they use to write.

I love the fact this book makes you think about various things too. If you're like me, your mind will wonder and think about other things. That perfectly fine though. I feel like this book wants you to do that, since Henry Miller does the same with his writing. Make me think why exactly Paris is sometime portrayed as this romantic get away. Yes this boo is erotica, but sure made Pris look like a slum...like other stuff I read.

Another thing I like about this book was the history. Very much like how I read Lady Chatterley's Lover. These writers were writing at a time period when sex was a hush-hush topic. In fact it still is today sadly. However, these writers had the balls to say they had a voice that need to be heard. I wish more writers did stuff like this. But not like 50 Shades, but stuff with more of a meaning then a fan-fiction attempt.

Ending the note that yes I'm reading a lot of books about sex lately and yes they are changing my attitude. They are making me be more honest of a person, more open about my sexual preferences, and making me realize books need to go back to having a point rather then money makers. Not saying everyone should read this book, but it is a book that (if you don't mind the topic) is worth a read. ( )
  Ghost_Boy | Aug 25, 2022 |
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  archivomorero | Jun 25, 2022 |
I am happy to be able say I have read this American classic. Did I like it? No. Was I impressed by some of the writing. Yes. ( )
  paeonia | Jun 15, 2022 |
DISGUSTING!!!
They might list this book as one of the best books of 20th century, but don't believe it :) When I started reading this book, I was deceived by high remarks about it. Foal language of the book quickly bores the mind. In brief, take my advice, don't read this book, unless you want to regret :) ( )
  Elgun.Hasanov | Mar 30, 2022 |
I came to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer many decades after its 1934 release in France, and its subsequent banning in this country. After its ground-breaking obscenity trial, it was finally published here in 1961. So, add sixty years, and you get to when I finally got around to reading it. My late wife, Vicky, loved his writing. Now, because I have waited so long to read it, I will never be able to talk to her about why she liked him so much. He who hesitates is truly lost in this case. If I had to guess why she found the book so interesting, it wasn’t because of the vocabulary of cunt, pussy, twat, prick, and others—though Vicky liked the sometimes shocking and unusual—my guess is that she liked the freeform style, the very loosely-told story of people doing whatever they wanted to do, as well as the candid descriptions of sex. Another part of the book that had to attract her was the attitude of people thinking the hell with people’s opinions and society’s norms. This rebellion had everything to do with Miller’s life in Paris, as much of the book is a reporting on and a reflection of that time in his life.

When I drop back and look at the book from my viewpoint as a well-read old duffer in 2021, it doesn’t seem as rebellious and shocking, as I’ve seen and read that kind of a story so many times already. It’s harder to experience a groundbreaking piece of art as still fresh after it’s been repeated and played off of so many times. This reminds me of a time that Vicky and I watched Citizen Kane all the way through for the first time, and when the credits played at the end, we looked at each other and said, “So?” All the shots and effects that were truly groundbreaking when the film was released in 1941, we’d both seen countless times in countless movies. Later, someone was talking about what all the “first time ever” shots were in that film, and you had to be impressed, but perception is sometimes all about perspective.

Yet, it was interesting finding the life of Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer. “What need I for money? I am a writing machine.” Reflecting on his life and art. “It is not difficult to be alone if you are poor and a failure. An artist is always alone—if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.”

There was a hard side that kept coming out in the novel. “The world is a cancer eating itself.” “People are like lice—they get under your skin and bury themselves there.” He also wrote about the whores that were answering a constant need for the book’s characters. “Who wants a delicate whore?” The following section probably caught the attention of the censors. “She used candles, Roman candles, and door knobs. Not a prick in the land big enough for her … not one. Men went inside her and curled up. She wanted extension pricks, self-exploding rockets, hot boiling oil made of wax and creosote. She would cut off your prick and keep it inside her forever, if you gave her permission. One cunt out of a million.”

I am left respecting Tropic for how Miller broke new ground, but I wasn’t sold on it as a book. Cunt, pussy, and prick got old and I was left with how people were being treated. Hard drinking, carousing, and whoring are exciting at first, yet tiring after a while, and poor as a spectator sport. The style was interesting in how it was so vague and loose, but whores, bedbugs, and always searching for sex and a bed for the night, wasn’t a story for my head at this time. But I will leave you with this fine line and summary of the book’s lifestyle. “All I ask of life, is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt.” ( )
  jphamilton | Nov 12, 2021 |
I only read this book because of Miller's association with Anais Nin and having heard the controversy about it pretty much my entire life. I gave it a 4 star simply for how honest I felt it was about all the artistic (and wannabe artistic) ex-pats in Paris of the time and their interactions with the underground literati and darker corners and experimentation of living outside the "box." Also the 4 star because the classics in all genres should be read. Nin was a far better writer in my opinion and didn't drone on. Miller was a man of his time so I tried to read with an open mind. He tries to write like he's free of bourgeois society but he's conscious of it and thumbing his nose at in one way or another constantly so I scent a great deal of narcissism in his writing and very little sensuality for the love of actual sensuality and eroticism. It's like a lab experiment and he's imagining himself as Victor Frankenstein. ( )
  LuArcher | Jan 19, 2021 |
I don't get it, this book is so-so at best. Like "On the Road" this book is about a down and out guy who mooches his way through life. Ground breaking because he wrote this in the 30's ok. I can see why it was banned then, yet the story itself is not that great. Other than that it is unimpressive garbage. I didn't like the way Miller use French without interpreting it for us. So if you read it do it on a device that allows you to highlight and translate those sentences for you. ( )
  foof2you | Dec 21, 2020 |
Publicado por primera vez en París en 1934, debido a la censura no vió la luz en Estados Unidos hasta 1961, después de más de sesenta juicios.

Considerada por la parte de la crítica como la mejor de sus obras, en su primera novela se sitúa Miller en la estela de Walt Whitman y Thoreau para crea un monólogo en el que el autor hace un inolvidable repaso de sus estancia en París en los primeros años de la década de 1930, centrada tanto en sus experiencias sexuales como en sus juicios sobre el comportamiento humano.

Saludada en su momento como una atrocidad moral por los sectores conservadores -y como una obra maestra por escritores tan distintos como T.S. Eliot, George Orwell o Lawrence Durrell-, en la actualidad es considerada una de las novelas mas rupturistas, influyentes y perfectas de la literatura en lengua inglesa.

También publicado en tapa dura en nuestra colección Edhasa Literaria en la que están siendo publicadas una gran parte de sus obras como: Trópico de Capricornio, Primavera negra, Sexus, Nexus, Plexus, ...
  ArchivoPietro | Oct 26, 2020 |
Okay, so no plot, and the characters are mostly detestable misogynists. Almost everything I hated about "On the Road" is present in this book as well. But, holy cow, this guy can write! There are plenty of long slogs through filler material, but then, BOOM, he will throw in two or three golden pages where, as he stares into yet another woman's naked crotch, he suddenly glimpses the entire universe in perfect clarity. One of the few books I've read where, upon finishing it, I'm left with the urge to read it again to pick up all the stuff I missed the first time. A really hate the way the book ends, by the way. The fact I would still want to reread it despite hating the narrator is a testament to just how good the book is when the writing really sings. ( )
  James_Maxey | Jun 29, 2020 |
Though I only "liked it," I think four stars is a more appropriate rating because I can imagine that I might have "really liked it" had I read it earlier in my life. It certainly has its powerful moments, but it has largely lost its ability to shock with so much imitation in contemporary literature. Honestly, in my estimation, Miller is a better writer than Burroughs, Bukowski, and all of the Beat writers (especially Kerouac), but his strange obsession with Jews and woefully clichéd misogyny are glaring examples of how his worldview hasn't aged well. I'm sure Paris in the early 1930s was a great place to observe the "wound which is man," but his diatribes grew tiresome and the writing wasn't enough to bolster over 300 pages. On the whole, I'm thankful for this novel, if only for its role as a forebear for Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, a novel with similar themes more artfully delivered. ( )
  drbrand | Jun 8, 2020 |
What a fantastic book! It's sad, comic, coarse, subtle, and brilliant, written in blood; and the language is vibrant, hyperbolic and colourful! Looking forward to reading his other books.
"Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song." ( )
  Cuchulainn | Jun 7, 2020 |
This is the second book that I ever threw in the trash. While I knew that Miller's writing appealed to boys' locker rooms, it was just too much discussions of orgasms. It deserves no stars from me.
  LindaLeeJacobs | Feb 15, 2020 |
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