Rating: 
Summary: worth reading, but highly overrated and mostly dull
Review: this so called 'classic' work of henry miller's is extremely overrated, and as i was reading it i noticed that i had to force myself to concentrate numerous times. when people rave about how great it is and how trailblazing it was, i wonder if they read they same book i did, or if i'm living in a parallel universe of some kind. the only redeeming quality i found in it is miller's genuine rebelliousness and anarchic nature, although at times even this got a little tiresome and monotonous. the sex scenes are no longer shocking or thrilling, only annoying and at times unpleasant to read, because miller is so misogynistic and chauvinistic. the problem with all of his work, although some of it has undeniable value if only as a literature of revolt, is that he tries to be too many things at once and it comes off looking phony and contrived. for example, from reading "time of the assassins" you would think that miller was a rimbaudian/poetic outcast his whole life, and he goes on and on about how striking the similarity is between himself and rimbaud. (i, for one, felt like saying "don't flatter yourself, dude"). then read a collection of his essays, and he'll babble about how all of his friends loved him, and how he was just one of the guys. any close reading of his work makes it apparent that he was simply an arrogant narcissist with a ridiculously inflated view of himself. it's fine to think highly of yourself, but past a point it becomes simply delusional, as it clearly did with miller. he thinks that during his lifetime he grasped every experiential truth life had to offer because screwed women of all kinds every which way he could, and yet his capacity to translate it into the abstract with style is nothing to write home about. every other paragraph you'll find poor old henry trying gallantly to communicate the meaning of life, and then three paragraphs later he'll say (as he did in "the wisdom of the heart") that "life needs to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning." all great men are contradictory and this does not take away from their value or importance one bit, but the problem is that in miller's case he was not a great man at all, and so his endless contradictions and oxymorons only serve to take away from the small value that his books had in the first place. i share his hatred of authority and established values and share his love for the surrealist/modernist rebellion against literature, but i guess i'm classicist enough to expect even the most nihilistic and revolutionary author to have just a tiny bit of talent. read his work for the admittedly refreshing anti traditionalism and astute critique of conventional morality, but do not buy into the hype.
Rating: 
Summary: The Happiest Man Alive.
Review: There's a reason they call him the "Happiest Man Alive". Reading this book, you're gonna find out why. A confession of sorts, Miller's writing reads like your favorite (dirty) old uncle telling you a bedtime story. This, along with "a.k.a. Dorothy Drab" has to be my two favorite books by men of all time. Buy it, keep it, treasure it. It doesn't get much better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Henry Miller
Review: Henry Miller is not popular with the academic community. I think this is because there is nothing for academics to do with his books. Henry says what Henry means, there really is no need to interpret his meaning. So don't be scared off just because your instructors never mention this book. It's meant to be enjoyed outside the confines of institutions such as college anyway. Henry's point of view is the man in the street. Sometimes(most of the time) he is dealing with very basic issues like food(mostly where the next meals coming from) and sex which he likes to have often. Henry is a man perhaps limited to a few appetites but that is why he is fun to hang out with. He enthuses you with his own enthusiasms. He can be funny, depressing, and surprisingly poetic in his visions which may have been brought on by hunger or drink or just desperation to have a vision. I think the same audience that likes Kerouac will like Miller. Kerouac is also dismissed by the academy and the higher circles of learning but who cares. Both tell pretty straightforward tales about themselves trying to live the way they want. They should be read for no other reason than for the pure enjoyment they give. The movie Henry Miller(Henry and June) I think is a great character but not the Henry I know. The Henry that is narrating Tropic of Cancer is desperate and spilling over with words that are sometimes heartbreakingly honest. The movie Henry is more like a loveable clown which Henry did become later in life. Other books by Henry Miller are also very enjoyable. My favorites: The Colossus of Maroussi(about a visit to Greece), The Air-Conditioned Nightmare(travels in U.S.) and Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymos Bosch(about his life in that N. California idyllic spot). Read and enjoy. Screw the academy.
Rating:
Summary: If you are brave
Review: and you are honest....you will put this in the family bookshelf. Anyone would be lucky to take such a journey.
Rating:
Summary: Cuts to the heart,rips it out,destroys it, then regenerates
Review: Henry Miller has got to be one of the least understood writers of all time. People read him for the sex, the modernism, the bohemianism but what they fail to see is that Tropic of Cancer is about life-pure and simple. Henry Miller isn't an 'On the Road' summer break bohemian. In Tropic of Cancer you get the feeling that the miserable existance he's living is just his personal swipe at a system that would be content to put him into the factories just like everyone else. Henry Miller has no escape hatch. He never did. He's playing the game of life and playing it for keeps, and if life yields and society collapses so much the better. Much better in fact. This book is about the most profound workingclass novel I've ever read. If only the people in Miller's milleaux could just get their hands on the prize for just one second, just one second, all the misery in the world would be gone. If you read the book you'll know what I mean. Miller's intention is to 'Stick a grenade up the [...] of civlized society and take out the pin' to blow the whole place sky high so that it can never, ever be built back up again. I think that on a conceptual level he succeeds. If you want the truth about life read this book. If you just want to see some dirty words and some bourgieous bohemian life get a porn magazine and some Kerouac, but don't come knocking on this door pal.
Rating: 
Summary: what a long strange strip in gay paree...
Review: three and a half stars... i admit. i read this book simply because of its reputation. but by the time i finished it. i realized it wasn't all that it was hyped up to be. sure, miller lived like a vagabond in paris, hustled, starved, ate , drank, had sex with plenty of prostitutes. i'm sure they'll be quite a few people who'll read this book and think his life was all that. i would love to see paris eventually. when i went to europe last year, my only regret was that i didn't see it, but i plan to see it, hopefully later this year.back to the review... this book drags in places. sometimes,the squalor and debauchery gets to be too much.i'm no saint,i have been known to drank like a fish from time to time and toke when i feel like it. but i'm beginning to wonder if drugs do actually make a writer better? some parts of this book, like for instance, when he describes a woman's "nightflower " [...] i admit turned me on ! however, the scene with the guy falling down the elevator shaft turned my stomach...i'm not saying that i want to be rich. but i don't think many people want to live the type of life miller did that made him a madman, especially me...the anti-semitism also disturbed me somewhat, but no doubt, this dude was passionate about his art and his word craft is worthy of three and a half stars.[....]this book has managed to stay successful only because of the controversy that preceded it. it's worth a read...but it wont change your life...
Rating: 
Summary: Clever anti-bourgeois stream of consciousness
Review: Miller romps around Paris, consorts with prostitutes, makes strange Russian friends, explores the outer limits of alcohol metabolism, and lives to tell the tale. Think of this as an earlier and boozier On The Road, with strong overtones of Dostoyevsky (whom Miller mentions by name) and Nietzsche. Miller also has aspirations of being a Walt Whitman, although Miller's style is markedly less subtle. The message here is definitely anti-rationalist, anti-religious, anti-bourgeois. Miller proclaims an adherence to the "Anti-Idea," which is roughly correspondent to Nietzsche's Dionysian Antichrist or Superman. While Miller's novel is a good read, lashing out against rationalism and commercialism and other social mores is not exactly new -- the culture of living for the moment and not believing in higher mores has a long history in literature, philosophy, and life. As a novel, Tropic of Cancer doesn't carry much coherent plotting nor description. Of course, coherence is not Miller's style. Yet Miller's incoherence lacks the shocking depravity of someone like Burroughs, or the hyper-learnedness of Joyce. Miller's incoherent rants are mostly about getting drunk, picking up prostitutes, complaining about work, etc -- at least to our 21st century ears, this isn't all that original. Roaming around Paris in a drunken, licentious stupor is a story many could tell. Is this an enjoyable read? Yes. Does it resonate long-established themes of revolt against button-down rationality and commercial conformism? Yes. Is it something pathbreaking and completely original? I'm not so sure about that.
Rating:
Summary: surreal, intelligent, thought-provoking and honest
Review: This was the first book of Miller's that i read and it still stands out definitively as the best. Whereas in later works, such as "Tropic of Capricorn", there is sometimes a hint of sentimentality ("and then i found... MYSELF", etc.), this is not to be found in "Tropic of Cancer". The style throughout the book is outrageous, surreal, thought-provoking, and intelligent. There is something "drunk" about the writing, and this is meant as a strong complement to Miller's writing ability--there is an unbounded openess, a frankness that is presented in elaborate and colorful brushstrokes. In addition to being a prolific writer, Miller was also a painter, but in "Tropic of Cancer", the line between painting and writing becomes unclear. This book is autobiographical, like almost all of Miller's writing. Yet, even as it is autobiographical and as Miller indeed talks about himself quite a bit (although not nearly as much as in "Tropic of Cancer" and "Black Spring" in his "searches for himself"), it doesn't come off as self-centered, self-pitying, etc. Because of the way in which this book is written, "the self", as that repulsive little "I", is lost from the start in a myriad of colors and flows of bodily fluids. (As Miller writes, "I love everything that flows...") Overall, the words in this book flow like few books that i have ever encountered; the surreal descriptions make certain passages difficult-- but rather than force the reader to struggle, they invite the reader to get lost in the wonderful imagery of "Tropic of Cancer".
Rating:
Summary: Dreamy and Passionate
Review: Well. Though this book was difficult at times to plow through, overall it was worth it. Randomly throughout the book there were scraps of sheer genius, and the utter honesty and freedom was very empowering. Miller also disclosed some very interesting insights. If it weren't for the vague confusing tangents Miller sometimes went on, the book would be perfect. Overall, the passion and endurance of the book blew me over.
Rating:
Summary: American Values Poetically Rejected in Miller's Neo-Classic
Review: Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" is the most un-American book ever written in novel form, of a piece with "On The Road" and "Catcher In The Rye" as stories built for disaffected youth of all ages. It is easy (although still unacceptable) understanding this book's banning from American shores nearly 30 years from its release. It semi-autobiographically describes Miller's vagabond life in 1930s Paris, blasting off from mundane conversations and cold sexual encounters into flying, flowing strands of poetic imagery and useful, if not always agreeable, wisdom glorifying the individual over any semblence of community. Miller writes of dead-end jobs at a newspaper and boarding school (his entry about his proofreading job should be required reading for would-be newspapermen), fleeting, fleecing relationships with friends and acquaintances (Miller's betrayal at book's end, not only of his friend but of his disdain to material wealth, is revelatory) and the rooms, city, and country he lived in (his descriptions of dark Paris streets and bordellos, their residents and patrons read sensual and grotesque, but hold humanity better than their scribe. His descriptions of New York skyscrapers are intriguing and surreal). His frank conversations among bedmates, liberal use of offensive words for women and minorities would easily fit on an Enimem rap album in 2000; imagine what audiences emerging from the Victorian era must have thought. Miller's sexual descriptions are even today too raw, mean-spirited and selfish to stand even as pornography. But amid Miller's poetic, not narrative, wordflow (a vivid, hilarious description of a bar fight notwithstanding), "Tropic of Cancer" seems most to rankle vision and values Americans hold as close as their beloved eagle and flag symbols. (No accident that Miller gets evicted from job and living quarters on America's religious holiday, July 4). 40 years before punk's Sex Pistols mocked their countrymen by singing "No future for you!", Miller joyously lived without having or wanting one. His world in "Tropic of Cancer" is without savings, family, hope, history, reverence, or respect. All this in years of the American and world's Great Depression; Miller's famous opening lines "I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive" would cut America's "Greatest Generation," which overcame that Depression, to the quick - had they read them then. "Tropic of Cancer"'s final, abrupt scenes are inevitable; Miller's friend's wish to leave his girlfriend for home "to hear people speak English again" countered all Miller acted on and wrote about. The end is as wholesome a climax as this most hedonistic story could have achieved, in a book fellow iconoclast Ezra Pound accurately described as "a dirty book worth reading." In other words...Miller's Paris is a nice, if dirty, place to visit in print. Just don't do this at home, kids.
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