Tropic of Cancer

The hero, then, is not Time, but Timelessness

The cancer of time is eating us away. Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves

Food is one of the things I enjoy tremendously. And in this beautiful Villa Borghese there is scarcely ever any evidence of food. It is positively appalling at times. I have asked Boris time and again to order bread for breakfast, but he always forgets. He goes out for breakfast, it seems. And when he comes back he is picking his teeth and there is a little egg hanging from his goatee. He eats in the restaurant, out of consideration for me. He says it hurts to eat a big meal and have me watch him.

The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch--until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged, or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, for grander failures.

TROPIC
OF CANCER
With
an Introduction by Louise De Salvo
A
SIGNET CLASSIC
SIGNET
CLASSIC
Published
by New American Library, a division of
Penguin
Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street.
New
York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin
Books Ltd. 27 Wrights Lane,
London
W8 5TZ. England
Penguin
Books Australia Ltd,

Henry
Miller. Tropic of Cancer
HENRY
MILLER
was born on December 26,
1891,
in Manhattan and
grew
up in Brooklyn. Af­ter a string of dreary jobs and a disastrous
first
marriage,
Miller left for Paris in 1930. Tropic
of Cancer,
published
when
he was forty-three and immediately banned in all English-speaking
coun­tries,
is considered