Tropic of Cancer (Miller, 1934)

The experience one gets when reading Miller’s far from lapidary prose is akin to the vivifying abandon of driving at top speed on an unpaved road with no destination. If this seems at odds with the callous disregard Miller has for the filth that is, in his view, the world, it absolutely is. The genius of Miller is that of life itself; willingly acquiescing to the veritable shit that have become our environs and living symbiotically with them as if it were god-sent. “I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”

And, indeed, one gets a steadfast notion that Miller is perhaps the happiest man alive while reading Tropic of Cancer or, at the very least, one of the very few miserable inhabitants of this planet who is, in all ways, Alive. To hone in on the blatant mysogony and contradictions found on nearly every page of Cancer is precsiely to miss the tree and see the leaf. Miller’s zeal for life is the dynamo here; what spews out of it is merely more evidence of the organic nature the text. Nothing is calculated here, everything is begot as things tend to be in nature – chaotically.

Tropic of Cancer is one of few works of “art” that has the raw ability to elevate your soul with one swift blow to the head. I hate to use an oft barraged metaphor, but reading Miller is indeed a trip – one well worth taking.