A Man Cut in Slices: food and personal decay in Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer"

"For the lessons he says he will give me a meal every day, a big Russian meal, or if for any reason the meal is lacking then five francs. It sounds wonderful to me - wonderful" (Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Panther, 1971, p.77).

English lessons is the least "Endree" would do for a meal. In fact the whole novel, full of descriptions of raunchy (verging on repulsive) sex scenes adorned by the subtlest of poetics and humour, is also a tale of perpetual hunger. Food becomes the means of temporary physical and spiritual regeneration through (inevitably) further personal degradation.

There are meals to pursue and Henry is willing to do whatever and whoever, provided a feast (in the best case scenario) will follow. The Russian meals in particular must have been especially memorable. The protagonist is even willing to please a deranged Russian baroness to get some more...He comes across a lot of women throughout this novel, but this one is a special case.

Full of snippets of gastronomic descriptions, one paragraph is particularly mouth-watering. The protagonist sees a book in a bookstore window called A Man Cut in Slices! and really likes the title, annoyed he did not think of it himself:

"I wish to Christ I had had brains enough to think of a title like that - instead of Crazy Cock and the other fool things I invented. Well, fuck a duck! I congratulate him just the same. I wish him luck with this fine title. Here's another slice for you - for your next book! Ring me up some day. I'm living at the Villa Borghese. We're all dead, or dying, or about to die. We need good titles. We need meat- slices and slices of meat - juicy tenderloins, porterhouse steaks, kidneys, mountain oysters, sweetbreads. Some day, when I'm standing at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway, I'm going to remember this title and I'm going to put down everything that goes on in my noodle - caviar, rain drops, axle grease, vermicelli, liverwurst - slices and slices of it. And I'll tell you why, after I had put everything down, I suddenly went home and chopped the baby to pieces. Un acte gratuit pour vous, cher monsieur si bien coupe em tranches! How a man can wander about all day on an empty belly and even get an erection once in awhile, is one of those mysteries which are too easily explained be 'anatomists of the soul'" (p.47).

Drink, sex and food. What more could possibly be better suited to the framework of 30s decadent Paris. The sheets are stained with Calvados, meals of 'grease cakes' made with stale milk and rancid butter are varied with feasts kindly offered by Russian aristocrat emigrés:

"There are eight of us at the table - and three dogs. The dogs eat first. They eat oatmeal. Then we commence. We eat oatmeal too - as an hors d’œuvre. "Chez nou," says Serge, with a twinkle in his eye, "c'est pour les chiens, les Quaker Oats. Ici pour le gentlman. Ca va." After the oatmeal, mushroom soup and vegetables; after that bacon omelet, fruit, red wine, vodka, coffee, cigarettes. Not bad the Russian meal. Everyone talks with his mouth full" (p.77).

[Oatmeal is for dogs in Russia, here it is for the gentlemen, observes one of the Russians. It might well have been the case prior to 1918; in the Soviet Union however, oatmeal became one of the most popular foods. There was just one major brand (quelle surprise) called Hercules with a muscular horse pictured on the box. It was so ubiquitous that even now, 17 years since the break up, people make fun of my newly acquired surname in Ukraine. Yes, oatmeal outdid the demigod in popularity. "So what's your surname?", "Hercules", "Like the oatmeal?" mmmm maybe the next generation will forget the burly horse and rediscover ancient mythology.]

Anyway, back to Tropic of Cancer. Although the descriptions of delicacies and exquisite wines are varied with graphic portrayal of female genitals and tapeworms, do not let it discourage you. Miller's style is so beautiful, that whether he gives a verbal vignette of delicious mushroom soup or describes a disease ridden prostitute, you will come back for more. Literary genius is rarely fed and bred with the help of caviar and chocolate éclairs, there are slices of rancid "grease cake" one must experience to come up with a magnum opus of this kind.