Tropic of Capricorn (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Simon Reeve's travelogues are generally fascinating viewing - Tropic of Capricorn is the only one with an accompanying book, and also happens to be one I've not watched. The book stands up well against the TV shows and it's easy at times to read the text in Reeve's voice. If you need a little money I'll raise it for you. It's like throwing it down a sewer, I know, but I'll do it for you just the same. The truth is, Henry, I like you a hell of a lot. I've taken more from you than I would from anybody in the world."

Tabulara karşı sanatın her dalında karşıtlık oluşturan eserlere hayranlık duyan benim için "Oğlak Dönencesi"ni beğenmem kaçınılmazdı. Bataille tarzı grotesk ve gündelik hayatın içine yedirdiği bir yaklaşımı var olaylara. "Oğlak Dönencesi" müstehcenlik gereğiyle uzun yıllar yasak kalmış bir kitap ancak bence tabulara, erk sistemin getirmiş olduğu genel-geçer ahlaka vurulmuş bir darbe olduğundan, korkudan yasaklanmış bir kitap. Yazarın dili bazı kesimlerce fazla erkek egemen bulunuyor. Ben buna katılmakla beraber kadınlarla bir sorunu olduğunu kabul etmiyorum. Zira yazar inanılmaz dürüst. Miller'in sadece kadınlarla değil, toplumla, erkeklerle, insanlarla, hayvanlarla, tanrıyla ve her şeyle benzer problemleri olduğunu gözden çıkarmamak gerek. Unfortunately in the book (as with the series) Reeve comes across as critical, as superior and judgemental. There really was no need - as simply providing readers / viewers with the facts, information and stories, and allowing them to draw their own conclusions would be infinitely more rewarding. It reached a point where you can see him building up the point where he gets his paragraph of criticism in. Non so se sia possibile leggere o vedere solo capolavori. Forse la mente ha bisogno di scemenze per apprezzare i capolavori, un po' come lo stomaco ha bisogno di junk food per apprezzare l'alta gastronomia.Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 70-71. The guy who turned me down was a little runt who ran the switchboard. He seemed to take me for a college student, though it was clear enough from my application that I had long left school. I had even honored myself on the application with a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University. Apparently that passed unnoticed, or else was suspiciously regarded by this runt who had turned me down. I was furious, the more so because for once in my life I was in earnest. Not only that, but I had swallowed my pride, which in certain peculiar ways is rather large. My wife of course gave me the usual leer and sneer. I had done it as a gesture, she said. I went to bed thinking about it, still smarting, getting angrier and angrier as the night wore on. The fact that I had a wife and child to support didn’t bother me so much; people didn’t offer you jobs because you had a family to support, that much I understood only too well. No, what rankled was that they had rejected me, Henry V. Miller, a competent, superior individual who had asked for the lowest job in the world. That burned me up. I couldn’t get over it. In the morning I was up bright and early, shaved, put on my best clothes and hotfooted it to the subway. I went immediately to the main offices of the telegraph company . . . up to the twenty-fifth floor or wherever it was that the president and the vice-presidents had their cubicles. I asked to see the president. Of course the president was either out of town or too busy to see me, but wouldn’t I care to see the vice-president, or his secretary rather. I saw the vice-president’s secretary, an intelligent, considerate sort of chap, and I gave him an earful. I did it adroitly, without too much heat, but letting him understand all the while that I wasn’t to be put out of the way so easily.

Miller describes his friendship with Roy Hamilton, whom he sees as a kind of mystic and prophet. Hamilton is in search of his biological father, who is either Mr. Hamilton or Miller’s friend MacGregor. Miller views this quest as futile; he views Hamilton as an emancipated man seeking to establish a biological link for which he has no need. When Hamilton leaves, having renounced both paternal candidates, the MacGregor family is distraught. Miller, in contrast, feels no need of Hamilton’s presence after his departure, since Hamilton gave himself completely when he was present. Miller comments that this was his first clean, whole experience of friendship, and his last. What does it take to become a writer? First of all a person must find one’s true self. And the process of searching can be very cynical. And true selves can be very different. Tropic of Capricorn, a semi-autobiographical prequel to Tropic of Cancer (set in 1930s Paris), though published a few years after, is set mostly in Manhattan of the 1920s. It's not chronological; rather, it skips around to revisit Miller's hetero-development and sexual high jinks in the Big Apple, including his sexual relationship with his 30-year-old piano teacher when he was 15, and a blunt description of nearly every other first encounter with a very diverse legion of women. Un mio amico dice che lui legge solo capolavori. Se si parla di cinema, dice che lui vede solo capolavori. Una volta gli ho chiesto: «Perché?». Lui ha risposto: «Perché esistono». And why not? His books were full of "sex" and the kind of writing that revolutionized English literature along with the rest of the Grove Press crew. He was also and man of his times; sexist and racist.

Arthur Hoyle, The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur, New York: Arcade Publishing, 2014, pp. 124-25.