"Tropic of Cancer" and "Game of Thrones"

“Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller long has been on my “to read” list, and a while back I picked up a paperback copy somewhere, and just recently got around to actually reading it. Of course, it’s famous as a (formerly) banned book, due to its sexual content: Published in Paris in 1934, it was outlawed in the U.S. until a Supreme Court decision in 1964.

It’s a pretty good read. It’s basically about Miller’s years bumming around Paris as an impoverished novelist. Some of the writing is really good; at times, it sort of veers off course. But what really struck me is how un-“dirty” it is. There are tons of four-letter words, and frank references to sex with prostitutes and girlfriends; it sounds a lot like what’s called locker-room talk. But there is very little actual description of sex acts (I noted just one, and it was brief and sketchy). I kept thinking, this book was banned? This was a shocking, scandalous novel? But it was, and, as I learned from Wikipedia, a publisher in New York even spent three years in prison for printing a bootleg edition in 1940.

I also learned from the introduction that Miller and I share the same birthday: Dec. 26. Which makes this an especially appropriate post for today.

I’m a latecomer to the “Game of Thrones” party. I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I was drawn into the whole quality-series thing by a reluctant interest in “Downton Abbey” (a program I still find, on some level, offensive) along with a push from my brother and daughter, both of whom raved about “House of Cards” over dinner one evening. I got “Cards” on DVD from library and liked it ( I refuse to watch on my computer: I use either library DVDs or the latest miracle of modern technology, Chromecast). I knew “Thrones” was big in the zeitgeist and my daughter is a big fan of it, too, so I took the plunge.

I like it, and it’s fun to talk about with other fans. But one thing that struck me about it – and the reason for this combined post – is how, well, pornographic it is. Not only does it include all the four-letter words that Miller used, but it’s rife with full-frontal nudity (mostly female, but also – a rarity – male) as well as graphic sex of almost all kinds: intercourse, oral sex, homosexuality (male and female). Almost all the sex is rough and crude, with aggressive “doggy style” the technique of choice; not much tender lovemaking here. If this were a feature film, it seems certain it would be rated NC-17 (and that’s leaving aside the horrific violence). If anyone screened this in the U.S. in 1934, or 1944, or 1954, or probably even 1964, they’d be lucky to get off with three years in prison.

Times change, I guess.