Tropic of Capricorn (43 page)

Describing the near-endless stream of beggars who approached him at the Western Union Telegraph Company, seeking employment or just asking for money: ‘I never saw such an aggregation of misery in my life, and I hope I’ll never see it again. Men are poor everywhere – they always have been and they always will be. And beneath the terrible poverty there is a flame, usually so low that it is almost invisible. But it is there and if one has the courage to blow on it, it can become a conflagration.’

Although Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic’ novels are notoriously unfilmable, an adaptation of
Tropic of Cancer
was directed by Joseph Strick in 1970 – a film that was promptly banned in the UK, and awarded an X rating in the USA.

For anyone curious about the love triangle between Miller, his wife June and Anaïs Nin, there is Philip Kaufman’s 1990 movie
Henry and June.
Based on Nin’s famous diaries, it is perhaps most notable for starring a young Uma Thurman as June, in one of her first roles.

Other titles by Henry Miller

Tropic of Cancer

Miller’s first book recounts his experiences of living in Paris.

Black Spring

The third book in the Obelisk trilogy depicts Miller’s Brooklyn childhood, his job in his father’s tailor shop, his reflections on America and his later self-imposed exile in Paris.

Sexus, Plexus, Nexus

In these books, known as the ‘Rosy Crucifixion’ trilogy, Miller recounts the story of his life from his first marriage to his second and a bizarre ménage
à
trois.

The Books in My Life

Miller lists his own favourite books and recommendations. A fascinating insight into the making of a reader and a writer.

READ

Naked Lunch; Junky
William Burroughs

Ulysses
James Joyce

The Devil at Large
Erica Jong

The Prisoner of Sex
Norman Mailer

Henry Miller
Brassaï, translated by Timothy Bent

Henry and June; Diaries
Anais Nin

A Million Little Pieces
James Frey

WATCH

Henry and June
(1990) This is the story of Anaïs Nin’s relationship with Henry Miller and his wife June in the Thirties. Stars Uma Thurman, Richard E. Grant and Kevin Spacey. Directed by Philip Kaufman who met Nin in 1962; he also directed
The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Tropic of Cancer
(1970) A straight depiction of Miller’s expatriate life and friends in Paris. Stars Rip Torn (more recently seen in
Men in Black
and
Wonder Boys)
as Henry Miller.

VISIT

Henry Miller Museum of Art, 2811, Omachi Onsenkyo, Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Miller had his first exhibition of watercolours before he published
Tropic of Cancer
in 1927. This is a museum dedicated to Miller’s paintings. Accessible online at www.ablegroup.com/henry/henryl.html

Coast Gallery, Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920
Contains many of Miller’s paintings.

Henry Miller Library, Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920
Situated in the former house of Miller’s personal assistant Emil White, who founded the library, this is more of a memorial to Miller’s work than a library. It is also an art gallery. Miller himself lived just down the road.

SURF

www.henrymiller.org
The website of the Henry Miller library which is part memorial, part library, part art gallery. Lots of info and links.

http://home.pacbell.net/washley/hmbiblio/millink.html
Tons of links to Miller-abilia including an extensive bibliography.

www.henrymillerart.com
View Miller’s paintings online and/or buy prints of them. Also see Coast Gallery above.

Henry Miller was born in 1891 in New York. He had a variety of jobs as a young man, including several years working for the Western Union Telegraph Company. During this time, encouraged by June Mansfield Smith, the second of his five wives, Miller began to write. Aside from articles, stories for pulp magazines and prose poems, Miller worked on his first novels,
Crazy Cock
and
Moloch,
and on the copious notes which would eventually transmute into the notorious ‘Tropics’ books.

In 1930, Miller went to live in Paris. For the next ten years he mingled with impoverished expatriates and bohemian Parisians, including Brassaï, Artaud and Anaïs Nin, with whom he had a much documented affair. His first published book,
Tropic of Cancer,
appeared in 1934 from the Obelisk Press in Paris. It was followed five years later by its sister volume,
Tropic of Capricorn.
Sexually explicit, these books electrified the European literary avant-garde, received praise from Eliot, Pound, Beckett and Durrell, but were almost universally banned outside France.

Miller returned to America in 1940, settling in Big Sur, California. Here, he wrote the ‘Rosy Crucifixion’ trilogy –
Sexus
(1949),
Plexus
(1953) and
Nexus
(1959) – but, regarded by many as a writer of ‘dirty books’, he was unable to get his major works published in America. In 1961, after an epic legal battle,
Tropic of Cancer
was finally published in the States (in England in 1963). Miller became a household name, hailed by the Sixties counter culture as a prophet of freedom and sexual revolution. With the subsequent unbanning of the rest of his books, Miller’s work was finally available in his own country.

He died on 7 June 1980.

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Tropic of Cancer

Black Spring

Aller Retour New York

The Cosmological Eye

The Colossus of Maroussi

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

Quiet Days in Clichy

Sexus

Plexus

Nexus

Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch

The Books in My Life

A Devil in Paradise

The Wisdom of the Heart

My Life and Times

The World of Sex

Crazy Cock

Moloch

Harper Press
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London W6 8JB

Copyright © Henry Miller, 1957
Introduction copyright © Robert Nye 1993
PS section copyright © Daren King 2005 except ‘Miller’s Best Book’ by James Frey © James Frey 2005

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 978-0-007-46254-4

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