The views expressed in this post are my own, and not the system I work for.
Nearly twenty years ago, I first read Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller for a class on ‘Intellectual Freedom’ in grad school for my library degree. For my research, the history behind it enthralled me. Since then, I’ve read Tropic of Cancer three more times and read six other Miller books. I think fewer people are reading him now than even a decade ago. Despite the numerous good qualities of Miller’s works, it has misogynistic, sexist, antisemitic, racist, homophobic, and all sorts of other controversial themes for today’s readers.
I’m lucky enough to live and work in NYC, but across the country, public libraries are facing book banning by patrons at an alarming rate. These are book challenges of books that are less offensive than the works of Henry Miller, Hebert Selby Jr, or William S. Burroughs. Many challenges involve LGBTQ materials, and those books belong in collections. In addition to sexual orientation and gender topics, the book challenges are politicized as well. I read that Jill Biden’s new children’s book got banned by a public library board in Iowa. She is the first lady of the United States, and a big print run, of course public libraries would have that for their patrons. A policy for most public libraries is that if there is an interest or demographic in their community, they should carry that subject or author.
Getting back to Henry Miller. Before I read Tropic of Cancer, my favorite novel from college was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. I liked the expatriate themes and Fitzgerald’s prose style. The first part is slow going when I reread it a few times, but the second and third parts are significant, with psychological tidbits of the day. Tropic of Cancer is also an expatriate book, but the narrator is poor and hungry in Paris and committed to his art. That’s what made Tropic of Cancer my favorite novel. Reading The Roxy Crucifixion trilogy in 2019, I realized Miller writes about real people. Written in the 1950s, it takes place in NYC in the 1920s.
In The Roxy Crucifixion trilogy, Miller has scenes of living in a house where illegal abortions take place, taking the subway between Brooklyn and Queens, a flop bungalow house in Rockaway with bedbugs, a trip down south showing him racial inequalities, and more. But he does use derogatory language, sexual depictions, and other blunt descriptions.
Despite whether it could offend the modern reader, let me state why Henry Miller’s works are important. He published Tropic of Cancer in France in 1934. It was banned to own in the United States until 1961. Legally banned books are different from modern-day book challenges because it was illegal even to read them. Between 1934 and 1961, Henry Miller faced financial struggles and received offers to publish a censored version for substantial sums. But he did not do that. In 1934, Ulysses by James Joyce had the United States ban lifted, and maybe Miller saw light at the end of the tunnel because of that. Other major court cases were Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, and The Last Exit to Brooklyn by Herbert Selby Jr. All of these were around 1960. These books changed publishing, popular culture, and society.
In 1966, the film industry changed its standards and, in 1968, created the ratings system. Previously, there were no R-rated movies created without censorship. I had difficulty finding information on music censorship as it pertains to records. Most historic dates are about radio censorship. I don’t know when records were allowed to have profane lyrics. I guess that music regulations changed in the 1960s as well.
To me, these changes against censorship in book publishing, the movie industry, and the music industry truly mark the beginning of freedom of the press, speech, and expression. It was mentioned somewhere in our constitution, but it was actualized with these important changes in the 1960s. Can you imagine not having movies like ‘The Godfather’ among numerous others? American popular culture has thrived since the 1960s. I started watching the recent series ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,’ which is on Amazon Prime, and it has good themes of censorship with comedy in NYC during the late 50s into the 60s.
It took authors like Henry Miller to write whatever the fuck they wanted to change things. It’s hard to imagine a United States without freedom of expression. To me, that is one reason America is better than other parts of the world. We allow these freedoms. Popular culture is still our most influential gift to the world. Public libraries should stock their collections with everything available from publishers. All these modern-day challenged books have been legally published and therefore are fair game.
If you don’t like something in a public library, no one forces you to check it out, but you should not deny another person access to that same book. With the current conservative Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe Vs Wade, we should be wary of what other modern-day rights could be in jeopardy. I used to not take current ‘book challenges’ that seriously compared to historical banned and illegal books, but now I am concerned. We need access to fundamental modern human rights and information in various places, including libraries. Since 1940, the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights has stood against censorship. The next few years will be difficult for libraries to continue providing resources to encourage intellectual growth for individuals in communities that want to restrict access.
People consider it almost academic now to read Henry Miller. In the library I work at, the Henry Miller books in the collection don’t go out that well, except for Tropic of Cancer. If those other titles got lost or damaged, I’m not sure if I’d replace them, but I’m glad I’d have that option. Public librarians should have the right to get any book still in print by publishers and available through the big distributors.
Below are links from my old blog on Henry Miller:
