I am committed to reading a print book 30 minutes a day. My Habit Tracker keeps me on task. It does not seem like a lot, but I am exercising my brain to focus on the act of analog reading. My ability to focus and get lost in a book will return in time.
My first print book of the summer is Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller. It was published in 1939 by French publisher Obelisk Press. The semi-autobiographical book recounts Miller’s life in Brooklyn during the 1920s when he worked a day job to support his fledgling writing career. Tropic of Capricorn was published five years after his most recognized book, Tropic of Cancer, (1934) but predates his time in Paris, where the latter takes place.
Because of Miller’s sexual content, Tropic of Capricorn, as well as Tropic of Cancer, was banned in the United States until 1961 for being “obscene.” Obscenity trials followed, and “free speech” was tested. In 1964, The Supreme Court ruled the books were non-obscene. I wonder how today's Court would rule.
Reading Miller as an impressionable teen, my friends and I only read the sexual content. That is what Miller was known for, his schtick. Obelisk Press and founder Kahane published “DBs” or “dirty books.” It felt like you were sneaking a peek at a Playboy.
Today, I find his writing misogynistic and forever an embarrassing document of its time. It’s shockingly sophomoric. While other books had misogynistic characters, Miller employed a first-person semi-autobiographical voice, which embodied him.
Elissa Strauss, in the 2015 Elle article “10 Misogynistic Novels Every Woman Should Read,” says, “We need to read books by and about macho, sexist proto-frat boys because they are our past.”
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
For Whom the Bells Toll by Ernest Hemingway
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Adventure of Auggie March by Saul Bellow
Women by Charles Bukowski
Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Still, Tropic of Capricorn captures 1920s New York City and the “Lost Generation,” a term coined by Gertrude Stein to define many directionless young men and women after World War 1 and before the Great Depression. Many ex-pat writers, including Miller, moved to Paris to escape the country's increasingly Conservative values and rapid capitalist growth.
In addition to misogyny, Miller used racist language and stereotypes to describe the diverse ethnicities residing in close quarters in a sweltering, un-air-conditioned New York City where toxic industry spilled into gutters in horse blood, leather tanning dyes, and dry cleaning chemicals.
Petty theft, drinking, fights, and rapey behavior were common in Miller’s world, whether true or not. He writes that he and his cousin Gene beat a kid to death but were never caught.
I'm thinking now about the rock fight one summer’s afternoon long long ago when I was staying with my Aunt Caroline up near Hell Gate. My cousin Gene and I had been corralled by a gang of boys while we were playing in the park. We didn't know which side we were fighting for but we were fighting in dead earnest amidst the rock pile by the river bank. We had to show even more courage than the other boys because we were suspected of being sissies. That's how it happened that we killed on of the rival gang. Just as they were charging us my cousin Gene let go at the ring leader and caught him in the guts with a handsome-sized rock. I let go almost at the same instance and my rock caught him in the temple and when he went down he lay there for good and not a peep out of him. A few minutes later the cops came and the boy was found dead. He was eight or nine years old, about the same age as us. What they would have done to us if they caught us I don't know. Anyway, so as not to arouse any suspicion we hurried home; we had cleaned up a bit on the way and combed our hair.
Miller’s writing doesn’t hit the same way as it did in my youth. As a self-proclaimed self-taught writer, Tropic of Capricorn has no structure, character development, or narrative arc. It's a rambling, run-on sentence. Its value is that we can question why his work was published in its time.
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39,112.16USD
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