Though these cheeky moments of writerly self-awareness are likely to tantalize fans of post-modernist novels, Miller’s genius cuts far beneath the surface of mere stylistic quirks. I am merely putting down words.” Miller begins again, only to trail off once more: “No, this is not the way to go about it!” It is like trying to approach God, for Moldorf is God - he has never been anything else. Three paragraphs into a mystifying description of one such individual, Moldorf, Miller admits, “I am trying ineffectually to approach Molforf. His portrayals teem with life and continually revise themselves, just as our lived impressions of people often do. Miller vividly describes the esoteric characters he encounters as a jobless writer in Paris and frequently mooches dinners off of them. Nonetheless, Miller’s lifestyle and his book alike are whole-hearted demonstrations of what it means to truly live artistically and, in turn, create art full of life. Not an entirely true claim - French-Cuban writer Anaïs Nin was Miller’s lover at the time as well as a devoted believer in his extraordinary talent, and she helped him edit the book and get it published, all while supporting him financially.

I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.” The book declares its aim of radical imperfectionism in its first pages: “I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. Though technically a novel, “Tropic of Cancer” blurs the lines between fiction and memoir, the protagonist being the author himself, the events of the book being largely inspired by and written in amid Miller’s bohemian years in Paris. With this spirit of defiance, Miller began work on the book that would become his first published work and his infamously banned masterpiece, “Tropic of Cancer.” First published in Paris in 1934, the book was too obscene to get printed in the United States for another 27 years, yet it was idolized by 20th-century literary giants such as George Orwell, Samuel Beckett and Norman Mailer as “one of the 10 or 20 great novels of our century.” First person, uncensored, formless - fuck everything!” At 39 years old, with nothing going for him, he wrote in a letter upon his arrival, “I start tomorrow on the Paris book. In 1930, American Henry Miller moved unaccompanied from New York City to Paris, freshly separated from the second of what would be five wives and countless lovers throughout his life.

A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. “I have no money, no resources, no hopes.

Tropic of cancer novel