Tropic of Cancer

Henry receives a confusing letter from Boris, whom he has not seen for months. He describes Boris’s strange relationship with their mutual friend Cronstadt: the two men seem to communicate telepathically and “[speak] a sort of higher mathematics” (168). He wonders why so many of his friends are neurodivergent or Jewish and whether he attracts certain personality types. He has also recently reconnected with Tania, who tries to convince him and Carl to go to Crimea with her.

Henry passes a happy, drunken summer with Tania but eventually receives a note from his boss implying that he needs to clean up his act. Afraid of losing his job, Henry becomes increasingly neurotic about how he communicates and constantly shares niche, irrelevant facts in everyday conversations. He thinks of Mona as he walks around the city, remembering specific places they had gone together and imagining that Paris itself has become saturated with the thoughts and feelings he has about his marriage. He thinks in particular of August Strindberg, the Swedish playwright, whom Mona loved and who had also lived in Paris. In an extended meditation, he determines that poets and artists are drawn to Paris because “[here] all boundaries fade away and the world reveals itself for the mad slaughterhouse that it is” (182).