Modern man is rather like a bisected wasp which goes on sucking jam and pretends that the loss of its abdomen does not matter. It is some perception of this fact which brings books like Tropic of Cancer (for there will probably be more and more of them as time goes on) into being.

Tropic of Cancer is a novel or perhaps rather a chunk of autobiography, about Americans in Paris – not the moneyed dilettante type, but the out-at-elbow, good-for-nothing type. There is much in it that is remarkable, but its most immediately noticeable and perhaps essential feature is its descriptions of sexual encounters. These are interesting not because of any pornographic appeal (quite the contrary), but because they make a definite attempt to get at real facts. They describe sexual life from the point of view of the man in the street – but, it must be admitted, rather a debased version of the man in the street. Nearly all the characters in the book are habitués of the brothel. They act and describe their actions with a callous coarseness which is unparalleled in fiction, though common enough in real life. Taken as a whole, the book might even be called a vilification of human nature. As it may justly be asked what good is done by vilifying human nature, I must amplify the remark I made above.

One result of the breakdown of religious belief has been a sloppy idealization of the physical side of life. In a way this is natural enough. For if there is no life beyond the grave, it is obviously harder to face the fact that birth, copulation, etc. are in certain aspects disgusting. In the Christian centuries, of course, a pessimistic view of life was taken more or less for granted. ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery’, says the Prayer Book, with the air of stating something obvious. But it is a different matter to admit that life is full of misery when you believe that the grave really finishes you. It is easier to comfort yourself with some kind of optimistic lie. Hence the tee-heeing brightness of Punch, hence Barrie and his bluebells, hence H. G. Wells and his Utopiae infested by nude school-marms. Hence, above all, the monstrous soppification of the sexual theme in most of the fiction of the past hundred years. A book like Tropic of Cancer, which deals with sex by brutally insisting on the facts, swings the pendulum too far, no doubt, but it does swing it in the right direction. Man is not a Yahoo, but he is rather like a Yahoo and needs to be reminded of it from time to time. All one asks of a book of this kind is that it shall do its job competently and without snivelling – conditions that are satisfied in this case, I think.

Probably, although he chooses to describe ugly things, Mr Miller would not answer to the name of pessimist. He even has passages of rather Whitmanesque enthusiasm for the process of life. What he seems to be saying is that if one stiffens oneself by the contemplation of ugliness, one ends by finding life not less but more worth living. From a literary point of view his book is competent, though not dazzlingly so. It is firmly done, with very few lapses into the typical modern slipshoddy. If it attracts critical attention it will no doubt be coupled with Ulysses, quite wrongly. Ulysses is not only a vastly better book, but also quite different in intention. Joyce is primarily an artist; Mr Miller is a discerning though hardboiled person giving his opinions about life. I find his prose difficult to quote, because of the unprintable words which are scattered all over it, but here is one sample:

When the tide is on the ebb and only a few syphilitic mermaids are left stranded in the muck the Dôme looks like a shooting gallery that’s been struck by a cyclone. Everything is slowly dribbling back to the sewer. For about an hour there is a death-like calm during which the vomit is mopped up. Suddenly the trees begin to screech. From one end of the boulevard to the other a demented song rises up. It is the signal that announces the close of the exchange. What hopes there were are swept up. The moment has come to void the last bagful of urine. The day is sneaking in like a leper ...

There is a fine rhythm to that. The American language is less flexible and refined than the English, but it has more life in it, perhaps. I do not imagine that in Tropic of Cancer I have discovered the great novel of the century, but I do think it a remarkable book, and I strongly advise anyone who can get hold of a copy to have a look at it.