I was saddened to learn that this book was no longer in print. A staple when I went to college (a long time agao), it became a road map to learning the craft of poetry. Well written, it outlines the various types of verses, giving examples. Much as a carpenter needs a hammer and other tools to practice their craft, this book should be an essential part of any word smith's toolbox.

"Tropic of Cancer" is a book that needs to be read quickly, not to make an end of the task, but to get the full exuberant effect of the narration. Its pacing is restless and energetic, which is all the more amazing considering that it has no plot. I don't know how much of it is fiction, but it is obviously autobiographical and reads like a memoir, detailing its author's experiences living as an American expatriate in Paris in the 1920's.

Henry Miller is a bum (it must be admitted) living among the idle intellectuals in the seedier neighborhoods of Paris (might he have bumped into Hemingway?). He's not always unemployed; he takes temporary jobs like a proofreader at a newspaper and an English instructor at a Lycee in Dijon, and he always has a place to live, albeit filthy. Most of the time he's cavorting with friends, making new ephemeral acquaintances, visiting brothels, and engaging in the kind of promiscuity of which such a life avails itself, despite the fact that he has a wife back in America. He doesn't shy away from any of the disgusting details of living and loving -- in the novel's opening scene, he is shaving his roommate's armpit hair for lice, and believe me, it only gets worse -- but Miller thrives in the squalor and wouldn't have it any other way. Compared to his native New York, which he considers impersonal, cold, and hollow, Paris is warm and intimate, brimming with life and beauty.

"Tropic of Cancer" is very similar to two popular books that followed it by a quarter of a century: Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" in content (run-on anecdotes about outrageous activities with his friends, pulsating with waves of existentialist rambling, the main difference being that Miller is a much better writer than Kerouac), and William S. Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" in style (stream-of-consciousness narration using striking imagery in random juxtaposition). Miller possessed the spirit, if not the seed, of the Beat Generation -- his existence can be summarized in his self-description as "spiritually dead, physically alive, morally free."

This is also perhaps the book's greatest fault -- its influence outstrips its literary quality. It may not be a great novel, but it at least it's worthy of its reputation, which is more than can be said for a lot of popular books.

Tropic of Cancer is often described as an 'erotic masterpiece.' Reading it now, it doesn't seem that erotic to me ' that's not the point. Yeah, there's sex in it, and plenty of 'dirty' words, but the descriptions don't get that graphic. If you read Sexus, there's a lot more of that going on ' if that's what you are interested in. I suppose that Tropic got its reputation for being the first of its kind and the thing that stood out in most people's minds was the sex. Reading it in today's overly-saturated-with-sex culture, the things that stands out the most to me are the bedbugs, lice, feces, etc.

Miller is trying to do something radically different in this book ' to create a new art form. It isn't even a book, according to him; it is 'a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art'' It is ultimately a song, he says. There is no plot, no linear story'there aren't even chapters ' just anecdotes and opinions of Miller's life in Paris ejaculated all over the pages. He wants to give priority to all the things that other novels pretend don't exist: sex, going to the bathroom, uncleanness ' watching a whore use a bidet before sex. To Miller, these carnal aspects of life are the realities and should be the subject of art ' not love, romance, or war. He tries to give an accurate portrait of what it was like to be a peasant in Paris in the early 20th century ' the cold reality of the fantasy of Moulin Rouge!

In the end, Miller's works are a triumph of style over substance. For him, the style IS the substance. It's difficult for me to remember anything that actually HAPPENED in the book ' what I remember is the 'piece of lead with wings on it.'

40 years before Henry Miller had "Tropic of Cancer" published, Knut Hamsun wrote "Hunger" and "Mysteries", where the stream of consciousness was first on display in novels - with the outsider on the edge of life and death, where the blood is whispering and bone-pipes praying. Henry Miller, an open-minded American intellectual went to Paris in the pursuit of - - life - - wanting to feel alive, and to tell the whole world about it. He ended up in the gutter of that very alive city, occasionally coming up to breathe in what was upper class or only bourgeois. At the same time he found comfort in the books of authors like Dostoevsky, Strindberg and Hamsun, whom he compared to Mozart, and about "Mysteries" he later said: "No book stands closer to me. It prevented me from killing myself." (He read it a dozen times.) Parallels can be drawn between classics like "Mysteries" - "Ulysses" - "Tropic of Cancer" - even to "Catcher in the Rye". Displays of genuine feelings, dry wit, rage and disillusionment and then sudden lyrical beauty. "Tropic of Cancer" portrays dirt and lowlife, primitive lust and diseases, the diseases of the individual and of mankind, but at the same time Miller never totally loses a sense of beauty. This is a book packed with incredible descriptions of his life in the 1930s Paris, and even when delirium turns into surrealistic joyrides he is still nothing less than brilliant. This is quite a different Paris from that of Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's. They might also have had their struggles, but their experiences were still different from that of Henry Miller's lice, bedbugs, cockroaches and tapeworms. And still Henry Miller could find comfort in the struggling idols before him. One place in the book he describes how he went to see where and how Strindberg lived during his time in the same city, just to show himself that it was possible to sink even deeper... The prose in parts of the book is astonishing, and despite all who have loathed the book, most of all because of the direct and coarse language with descriptions that can make a wharfie blush, it has been praised by the likes of T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, John dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett and George Orwell. Orwell wrote a brilliant essay on "Tropic of Cancer" called "Inside the Whale", a very thorough critical review of the book, given by the author who himself wrote "Down and Out in Paris and London".

"Tropic of Cancer" is indeed a very good book that any prudish heart, with a sense for good literature, should allow him/herself to be impressed by. It stands alone in its own place in literature, where nobody (including Henry Miller) has been since.

I read the other reviews, 2 of them raved about the book and one sounds like it was written by a dolphin catcher with a Phd... I read this book and then went to the Flipper Productions Dolphin Encounter near Nassau in the Bahamas, even encountering at least one of the dolphins mentioned in the book. Every celebrity you could think of had their picture in the photo shop with dolphins. The Phd was right about the book jumping around too much. It would have been nice for continuity to hear more about his wife and how her role in his quest for example after we are introduced to her in the begining and then she is hardly mentioned through the rest of the book. This said I have to say that he is right about dolphins in captivity. I had a blast, selfishly, swimming with, dancing with, kissing and hugging dolphins- I can't wait to visit again... but it quickly becomes obvious that they are way to intelligent to be doing tricks for Katie Couric for fish. And they are better off being free to swim in the open ocean than being trapped in penned in areas for "research" and "education".

A wonderfully compassionate look at dolphins in captivity from an ex-industry insider; inspiring story that makes you want to change the world for the better.

Although it has been several years since I read this book, it made a lasting impression on how I feel towards captivity of marine and other non-domestic animals. In addition, it opened my eyes to animal neglect and, by my defination, cruelty. For those that love animals, it's worth finding!