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Tropic Of Capricorn

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Tropic of Capricorn is the gretest book I have ever read. I read Tropic of Cancer first, and was interested and intrigued by it, but not until I read Capricorn would I truly call Miller one of the greatest American writers. Also banned from the U.S for 30 years, Capricorn goes beyong the sexuality and bitterness of one who has "given up" and lived for themselves as Cancer outlines autobiographically of Millers days in Paris. In Capricorn Miller looks to the roots of his childhood and life in New York and examines what made him the man he is and brought on his great change to "a new way of life". It has elements similar to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio, which may be its greatest moments, as it tells small "grotesque" character studies of the people that shaped his life. Miller combines ideas of Eastern mysticism with the chaos of an ever industrializing world. Capricorn goes beyond linear writing to pursue a dreamlike atmosphere: one of admitted Surrealist and Dadsist influence, whose influence in turn can be seen in the later beat writing of Kerouac and Burroughs among others.

I first read this book when I was 16. Today, I'm 30 but I still manage to read it every two or three years to remind myself to be true to my feelings. Miller's writings, in general, are autobiographical. Some of the events have actually occurred while some are his dreams/visions. However, all are real to the man and real to most anyone who truly knows themself. There's no candy-coating here. Some reviewers see only the sexuality of the book. While that's certainly a great portion of the book it isn't what the book is about. It's about being who we want to be and freeing ourselves from the reigns of "normality" and confinement. That's why it's so disturbing. He expresses himself through his character and the characters around him. He mocks society and himself simultaneously. He is truly "human". My one desire, if I should ever be able to fulfill it, would be to write a novel that's worth ten percent of what this one is. Miller is the best friend one could possibly want to have because he doesn't cover-up his intentions.

"For there is only one great adventure and that is inward, toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor deeds even matter" (4).

Miller's two tropics - CANCER AND CAPRICORN- are essentially manuals for the creative life. They present Miller's transformation from lay-schmuck working in the belly of the beast that is the American economy - jobs such as his position with the Western Union Telegraph company, which he refers to as the "Cosmococcic / Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company" - to his evolution as en expatriate writer living in Paris. The books are really designed to be read together to magnify the metamorphosis, the rite of passage. While CANCER chronicles the latter portion of Miller's experience abroad, the prequel, CAPRICORN, written five years later in 1939, is the more developed and more seminal of the two and elucidates with much greater detail the affects of his epiphany.

Most artists will immediately recognize the struggle Miller endures. Married to the "wrong" woman and with a young child in tow - a relationship which he finds stifling to his creative development - Miller faces tenable employment situations to support this life. Those jobs he does find do little to allow him to prosper; rather he finds himself as a cog on a wheel of Hell. His transformation from the morass of what society deems sound and true is painful. Anyone who has ever made such sacrifices to pursue the unspoken dreams to create from what grows inside of them will sympathize with Miller's dilemma. To pursue a life of an artist is frightening enough: to do it behind the rancorous veil of the American dream is horrifying. Miller recognizes the banal existence of modern America with its machines, its backward corporate policies, its worship of the unthinking and mechanical and he also knows he must break from its fetters.

Part of Miller's disenchantment with America is organic to his being just as much as it is experiential. As a child, Miller feels a unique disassociation with his peers and even his family. This self-possessed knowledge of his unique intelligence leaves Miller with a feeling of disorientation. As an adolescent, he sees his drunken father convert to piety when wooed by the charisma of a local minister. Miller, Sr. then falls from grace when the minister is called to another location and as a result of this perceived abandonment, cycles back to his earlier state of crapulousness. The event seems to have intimated to Miller the importance of being self-reliant upon a constant wellspring of inspiration so that disappointment in other people does not interrupt the flow of creativity.

Miller describes the evolution of the artist as riding "on the ovarian trolley." In fact, those very words are what preface CAPRICORN. For Miller there are really two births the artist experiences before his final descent into a world riddled with isolation, hunger and anticipation. Of course, there is the physical birth but this is more a symbolic representation than Miller's actual recognition of his square-peg, round-hole emotional relationship with the world at large: this is the first stage of birth. The second stage comes years later out of the "Land of F@ck" as Miller coins it, the place where the "spermatozoon reigns supreme" (198). These phrases, as they would first seem (and were seen for many years that the book was banned from U.S. publication), are not some sordid and gratuitous account of Miller's perceptions of the world or his conquests. Rather, he uses the extended metaphors and kennings to give the reader an understanding to the visceral almost primordial conditions from whence the artist arises. For Miller, spiritual ascension is a process biologic as well as intellectual.

"Once this fact is grasped there can be no more despair. At the very bottom of the ladder, chez the spermatozoa, there is the same condition of bliss at the top, chez God. God is the summation of all the spermatozoa come to full consciousness. Between the bottom and the top there is no stop, no halfway station" (199).

There is an almost funereal quality about Miller's cognizance here: this idea of exploring one's complete "ANNIHILATON" before metaphysical resurrection. Miller understands the need for an eradication of the former self before the rebirth of the artist as he moves from the "terra firma" to the "terra vague." Along with this laying waste of the individual comes the erasure of connections to the self: friends, family, lovers - all abandoned to pursue the freedom to express unhindered utterance*. To this point, Miller's use of "Tropic of" in the titles of CANCER and CAPRICORN now begins to make more sense as he asserts himself to be on the boundary between this land of the physical and the spiritual; the place where men aspire to be God for a period of time just before the flash-point of creative impulse.

He brings the idea of the "ovarian trolley" full circle when he talks about the importance of discovering Dostoevsky - this being the first glimpse of a man's soul - and then later in a book called CREATIVE EVOLUTION by Henri Bergson. He carries the latter book with him everywhere and extols its virtue upon any man or woman who would hear the new standard version on the gospel of solitude.

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN should be standard reading for anyone in the arts, for any artist who has ever felt the pang of isolation, who truly believes in the necessity of sacrifice, a higher calling and commitment to one's creative endeavors. Miller's importance to world literature is vastly underrated and in many cases. Writers are simply too intimidated to face the truth in what he espouses. Miller operates as an Overman and as such, it is right that he should pose a certain condition of tremulousness in his readership: he has forged his own society, he has forged his own being into something closer to what history had intended for him since his first phone call into the horn of the fallopian. This is discomfiting for most and is intended to show how the application of introspection for an artist can lead to becoming an acolyte of unconventional philosophy: how a writer emerges as "e pluribus unum." Henry Miller's doctrine is reserved for the initiate, the mad few who choose separation from the masses as a means for creative growth. Miller's epitaph should simply be, "My name? Why just call me God - God the embryo."

© 2005-06 Edward J. Carvalho

NOTES:

* A phrase I have incorporated from listening to many extemporaneous speeches of creative rebellion from Squawk Coffeehouse co-founder, Lee Kidd.

WORKS CITED:

1.Miller, Henry. Tropic of Capricorn. New York: Grove Press, 1961.

Did you follow the road to Capricorn from Cancer? If so then you know what to expect from Henry Miller. Tropic of Capricorn is an account of his life up to his trek to Paris in the 1930's. Mr. Miller allows us into his world of words and images that consume his mind and soul.

In this semi-autobiographical novel, Miller gives us a glimpse into the breakdowns and revelations that brought him from the streets of Brooklyn and onto the pages of literature. From his first word, we follow him on the road to discovering his world and bringing to life the writer within. Through his free-flowing prose and vivid scenery we follow Henry from his many sexual exploits to the dark sided humor of life as only seen through his maddened eyes. This book is one of the few that truly changed my views of life and my purpose.

If you have any taste like my own and the life of Henry Miller intrigues you to no end then definitely pick up Tropic of Capricorn. Like a morsel of bread to a starving man, Capricorn only left me hungrier for more Miller to chew on. Other books I adore are, of course, Quiet Days in Clichy, Tropic of Cancer by Miller, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

Obviously the book is a masterpiece. Please don't read amazon reviews to judge a book of this caliber.

The point of this review is just to give some notes about whether this particular Kindle version is worth getting. I was worried, because other cheap kindle editions have had major formatting errors.

This one, however, is 100% readable and fairly nicely formatted. There are a couple mistakes here and there, but nothing that would prevent this edition from being worth buying.

Capricorn is an absolutely unique and shattering novel. Miller's ability to write with great cynicism and bitterness about modern life and then instantly plunge to the deepest depths of the philosophy of being is astonishing. At times speaking in a kind of psychobabble, a line or two of this prose/poetry is sometimes enough for one sitting. A bitter novel about the death of the spirit amidst the inevitable continuation of life, Tropic of Capricorn is Miller's masterpiece and one of the twentieth century's greatest works.

"Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos."

Surely one of the greatest opening lines ever, and Miller doesn't let up from there. Its hard to know what to say about this book apart from that it will either disgust you or blow your mind. A few years ago, my reaction would have been the former -- but things happen. The fact is, different books matter to us at different periods in our lives, and it can be hard to explain why. I can honestly say, this book has a spiritual dimension that is powerful, and can speak to you during your low times.

If the idea of a writer looking at the world using his own consciousness, with absolutely no objectivity, and with complete honesty, sounds good to you-- this is your book. You will find a kindred spirit in Henry Miller, and perhaps even a fatherly, wise (but always laughing) source of solace.

wow. reading henry miller is like taking an amazing roller coaster rider while on ecstasy. his writing is intoxicating, it would make a truck driver blush. miller transports you back to a world that we've only seen colored be history. his style is abrupt his sentences infinite and his poetry beyond compare. this is a work of literature in the true sense. constantly testing the limits of imagination and self examination. highly recommended. read this book and pass it onto others!!

Out of idle curiosity and a desire to reread (third time) Miller's Tropic novels, I checked the consumer reviews of Tropic of CANCER first. I am interested in new generations discovering the stuff that I read going back to the early 60s. I found the reviews surprisingly dense, repeating the old cliches and personal prejudices.

Those of TROPIC OF CAPRICORN, on the other hand, are pointed and intelligent. Moreover, they recognize one of Miller's great traits--- humor. One reviewer pointed out the book's "hilarity", an apt characterization. Another emphasized Miller's description of the Cosmodemonic messenger service at which he worked. This is one of the most memorable sections of any book I have read: hilarious, biting satire, and (before Miller departs) a great New York book.

I have always thought Miller was, among other things, a parodist, and thus those who take him too literally (from Norman Mailer to the guy who showered after reading CANCER)are missing one of our outstanding writers, or certainly mistaking the author for the narrator.

i read this book after i had read tropic of cancer. i personally find miller much more enjoyable in his story telling mode which is the first part of the book. his perceptions of life are unique and at times hilarious. these are the parts of this book and of cancer that i enjoyed the most. it is when he enters the world of revelations that he loses me.

this book also gives the reader much more insight to henry miller the writer. the closing portion of this book explains his following of the dada movement. this explains the irrationality and the sexuality of many parts of both books.

with all that said, the first 100 pages of this book are remarkable and well worth reading. never will you meet a more interesting and funny group of characters or situations. the latter part of the book returns to this format and we meet miller's friend macgregor. now that is an experience!

you can't even try to understand miller until you have read tropic of capricorn. it is worth the trip.