Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tropic of I hate your guts, Henry Miller; die in a fire.

Current book: Tropic of Cancer
Pages read: 107-208

Yeah, it's the same. It's like Holden Caulfield grew up, lost what little sexual inhibition he had, and moved to Europe to become a worthless hack writer. Christ.

So this guy, who we've learned is named Henry Miller (And man, do I loathe it when authors do that. If it's a memoir, than write a damn memoir, you tool.), couch surfs around Paris for a while. Eventually he tries to con a rich older woman into supporting him and his friend, but neither of them will have sex with her because she's too old, and since she's in it, it seems, to get laid, it doesn't work out. Finally he gets a job as a newspaper proofreader and is actually able to support himself. Guess what he uses the money for? Five points if you said sex and booze. After a while he gets laid off, takes up with a rich American friend, and debauches himself into illness. (Yes, that was the entire contents of 101 pages. I'm not even kidding.)

At some point in here he also has a little speech about how pleased he is with himself for renouncing all restraint and dedicating himself to hedonism. He's decided that that's an admirable and brave thing to do. Right. It's like listening to drunk philosophy majors try to get girls into bed. Kill me now. This kind of writing is what makes me despise the post-modernists and their vulgar, self-indulgent bullshit. I don't care that you wasted years of your life drunk in a Parisian brothel. You have to make some kind of point.

I think this book should actually go on a worst 100 novels list.

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