The Book That Changed My Life

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE The book that changed my life was Tropic Of Capricorn by Henry Miller. This novel blows my mind. WOW! Have you ever read a book that confirmed your deepest, darkest fears and or suspicions? What if things are really not what they seem? What if our Parents, Teachers, Preachers and Authorities were wrong? What if they're completely brainwashed, simply miseducated, or even worse, THEY LIED TO YOU? One thing's for sure: Something a'int right, and it doesn't make any sense... That's basically where I was at, when Tropic Of Capricorn came calling. It narrates events leading to Henry Miller's ultimate decision to quit everything, and pursue his ambition as a Writer. Is it possible for someone to suffer so much, that when they finally hit rock bottom, the unexpected occurs? After been tested by life, The Free And Powerful Individual grows wings. Surmounts whatever crisis they're experiencing and evolves. The Soul matures, rising to the next level, a higher vibrational frequency... We were in the kitchen or dining room of his House Party, after work, when my friend John G. just for laughs, picks up a book and starts reading out loud. Everyone laughed, we were shocked and couldn't believe it. What's astonishing is somebody was crazy enough, and not only willing to try. But having boldly pulled off the impossible, somehow managed to get away with it. First published in Paris in 1939, it was banned in America until 1961. John G's quotes were several politically incorrect passages from The Land Of Fuck / Interlude section. Here was the battle cry of a soul that had had enough, the defiant rage of someone condemned and isolated. No matter how hard he tried, he didn't belong anymore, he just couldn't fit in. He was The Eternal Stranger now, forever at odds with the so called civilized world. His soul had died tormented by grave suffering, yet miraculously, it was somehow resurrected. Henceforth he ascended far beyond the sick and tired, and the sick and tired of the sick and tired. He has been born anew. The triumph of the human spirit. A reject, free of the soul crushing system. What made Henry Miller's work so impressive was his comic irreverence, the ability to go from vulgar to sublime. One is conveyed beneath the seedy underbelly of a city in decay, then catapulted to majestic realms by sheer flights of fancy. Swept away downstream upon wild and tumultuous tides, to emerge in exotic lands inhabited by mad artists and pathetic misfits. There's an underlying contempt for conventional standards, amid drug and alcohol fueled orgies, Miller waxed poetic. He wrote the way people actually speak. Non linear, stream of consciousness. "Vitality and richness, the sights, sounds, and odors of life, are all here." With wild and wacky misadventures, illuminating ruminations, weird immoral tales. At the time everyone thought it was hilarious and crazy, but as John kept reading it dawns on me. There is beauty here, something transformative, words have power, it's a kind of magic. And so the more he reads, the more I begin to realize, "This Is What I Want To Do..."