Book report

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of poker books, but in high school I read a lot of literature. I didn’t read things like the Great Gatsby or Sense and Sensibility. I preferred Tropic of Cancer. Tropic of Cancer is an awesomely filthy book. Who wants to read about the 50 shades of Gray when you can read about Henry Miller’s escapades with one legged hookers or how his Indian friend took a shit in the bidet of a whorehouse? It’s racist, it’s sexist—he calls one of the characters, Tania, an international cunt. I used to tell people this was my favorite book and hardly anyone ever heard of it. “What’s it about?” They would invariably ask. I used to say I don’t know. This guy goes to Paris…he’s an ex patriot and he wrote a book that changed the censorship laws in America. That’s not what it’s about though. It’s about sex mostly, but it’s more than that. It’s a book about a working class man trying to become a writer. Actually he is a writer. Trying isn’t the right word. “A year ago, six months ago, I thought I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am.” Over the summer I read the book again. It’s amazing how much stuff I missed before because I wasn’t literate enough to understand it. I’ve had that line memorized for years, but I don’t think I fully understood it until recently. The book is chock full of vocabulary candy. The first time I read it, I had no idea what half the words meant. I didn’t know what a valise was. I didn’t know the meaning of “polysyllabic” or “indefatigable.” No one uses the word “quim” anymore either. Back then I had to have the dictionary besides me just to translate the book so I missed a lot of the subtle nuances. Reading a book like this when you are older is such a different experience. My vocabulary is more extensive and even if I come across a word I don’t understand all I have to do is touch it and the definition instantaneously appears like magic. I now know that “I am” is the shortest sentence in the English language. It is also the English translation of the name of god. Yahweh is I am. His Indian friend takes a bath every Sunday so he can please the great I am. I’m paraphrasing because I don’t feel like going back and finding the passage, but it’s things like that that really stick out when you read it again with a 34 or 35 year old brain as opposed to the brain of a horny virgin teenager. One of my favorite parts of the book is a monologue by Van Norden. It’s a rant about sex and poverty. It’s so different from the way I remember it. I thought it was a great ode to manliness. I admired the way this guy had such a way with women. I was wrong. “I had a married woman the other day who told me she hadn’t had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that? Jesus, she was hot! I thought she’d tear the cock off me. And groaning all the time. “Do you? Do you?” She kept saying that all the time, like she was nuts. And do you know what that bitch wanted to do? She wanted to move in here. Imagine that! Asking me if I loved her. I didn’t even know her name. I never know their names… I don’t want to. The married ones! Christ, if you saw all the married cunts I bring up here you’d never have any more illusions. They’re worse than the virgins, the married ones. They don’t wait for you to start things – they fish it out for you themselves. And then they talk about love afterwards. It’s disgusting. I tell you, I’m actually beginning to hate cunt!” I have a different perspective. There is another line where Van Norden says he would rather read a book than have sex(more colorfully of course) When I was young I thought that was hilarious. Now, from the perspective of this age, it is one of the most melancholy stories I have ever heard. Sex is something I used to think of as a wonderful expression of love between a man and a woman. It was supposed to be the joining of souls, not in any supernatural sense. The soul I am referring to is the soul of consciousness. The soul is between your ears. Everything I value, everything I am meeting in the middle with a woman who shares the same values.—the romantic ideal. This was real easy to think before I ever had sex, especially as the proverbial late bloomer. Now it just seems like a biological need. It’s lost the romance. I’ve become so cynical. You say what you need to say, do what you need to do to cum. You always hear how everybody doesn’t like to play games, but when you don’t play the game and are genuinely honest—it makes you look needy or desperate. The same thing happened to me when I re-read The love song of Alfred J. Prufrock. In High School I remember it reminding me of my favorite nostalgic memory of going to Philippe’s after the Dodger game because it says something about sawdust on the floor. Now another couple lines stick out: I grow old…I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. I don’t feel that old, but I understand the poem a lot more now. He’s a dude that is afraid of rejection, has trouble with women and is a little down on himself because his hair is graying and he has a bald spot. I put a lot of water based pomade in my hair and it’s starting to get thin. I cuff my jeans. I have always been out of fashion, mostly on purpose. It sucks getting older. The problem with Prufrock is that he gives a fuck. I used to give a fuck, now I don’t—this is what I keep telling myself. People are always asking me for advice about women. I don’t know if I’m qualified to give any advice. I guess my advice comes down to this: You don’t want to be afraid of rejection like Prufrock. Yes you should dare goddamn it! What you don’t want to do is become misogynistic cynic like Van Norden, fucking away all the meaning out of life. Reading that book again really affected me. It changed my perspective, again.