Tropic of Cancer

Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance they appear
negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything they need to be surrounded with sufficient space – space even more than time.

– Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer

When I was in my late teens, I first read the book “Tropic of Cancer”, primarily more out of curiosity and secondarily with a titillating and inquisitive anticipation of a bawdy novel. Because the book was originally banned and very difficult to get in a library. Very people I knew had read it but everybody said that it had graphic and vivid descriptions like pornography. Some also mentioned it as a very powerful book and to be read at least once. It was more the reason to read it, therefore. Before this I had read the perennial “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “My God Died Young” by Sasthi Brata which were also considered quite controversial by the moral brigade of our times.

There was a footpath bookseller in Bistupur who specialized in supplying us with various pirated books and magazines at a very reasonable rate, including the supply of porn on a lending library basis. Now, before one starts getting too inquisitive, remember in 1980, there were very few avenues of puerile entertainment, unlike nowadays. So when I found this book with him, I immediately bought it with my hard earned money.

Reading the book was an experience by itself. On a first reading, the words that Henry Miller wrote just went through me like bullets. It was a revelation to discover the words and slang being used to resonate a meaning far beyond their verbal use. The style was, however , not too unfamiliar with me, let me admit that, because I noted that some famous contemporary Bengali novelists had copied his style in some of their well-known books. But yes, in English, this was the book that actually made me graduate from the classics, adventures, Wodehouse, Holmes, Poirot and the lot. With this book, I crossed the threshold of my simple and uncomplicated reading experiences and embarked on a journey to more abstract literature.

I will not say that I am an avid follower of avant-garde literature or art forms. But even with my limited intellect to appreciate and decipher the abstruse, I will credit Henry Miller and his masterpiece – Tropic of Cancer to change my reading habits and give me a new perspective of how books should be written. I read the book perhaps not more than thrice but it left a deep impact on me. Then after I left home for a job, with the passage of time, my book was lost along with so many other things.

I never felt a need to read the book, once more for so many days. A few days back, while browsing the internet, I came across a freely downloadable pdf version of the book and started reading it. Well, I don’t know whether I have matured with age, many people in my close circle will vehemently deny it . But even after almost four decades and all the vicissitudes of life that I have faced , the unabashed flamboyance and the unfettered vibrancy of his words filled me with a restless energy. It is indeed, a great piece of literature. It’s a poetry in the form of prose, a surreal dream, a profane scripture, a bohemian fantasy of a life that is so real.

Let me say this – Tropic of Cancer will not make any sense to everybody, particularly people who want their novels to be a rounder, cause and effect, conflict and resolution narrative. But anybody who is a writer or has even slightest of pretences of being a writer of sorts (like me, I admit) will be gaping in awe as they read this book page after pages, paragraph after paragraphs.

In his own words, the book is described by him on the first page itself as – “It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God.”

“This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse…”

“To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”