I read this book in a road lit and film class, everyone called it propaganda except me...i fought for this book all semester...this is so refreshing and current...although he is a little long winded--but he is Henry Miller--I am sure he doesn't care

He really had me going there and had to fuck it all up in the last few pages. I was about to, yet again, give Henry Miller a 4-5 star rating, despite his deeply offensive and outdated beliefs about women and minorities. There were parts of this book where I felt like he was very open-minded and wrote about the struggles of oppressed and exploited people with compassion and beauty -- and then he would completely contradict himself later on. The last chapter is an ode to the south, which he argues is the most beautiful thing to come out of America until it was ravaged by a 'meaningless' war (referring to the Civil War where slavery was the issue) - huh??? His shining examples of the South's beauty rests on one eccentric artist guy's house and a giant Buddha statue guarded in a glass cage on Avery Island, LA. Miller's whole thing is how men should be free and live freely, but he thinks slavery is justifiable if it is serving art and by some extension history. It's a complete contradiction of his whole philosophy, and its a super disappointing ending to an almost-good book. Here's his slavery justification:

"One is inevitably induced to reflect on what might have been had this promising land been spared the ravages of war, for in our Southern States that culture known as the 'slave culture' had exhibited only its first blossoms. We know what the slave cultures of India, Egypt, Rome and Greece bequeathed the world. We are grateful for the legacy; we do not spurn the gift because it was born of injustice. Rare is the man who, looking upon the treasures of antiquity, thinks at what an iniquitous price they were fashioned. Who has the courage, confronted with these miracles of the past, to exclaim: 'Better these things had never been than that one single human being had been deprived of his rightful freedom!'"

This passage was the end of liking this book for me. It exposes him for the hypocrite he is. Tropic of Capricorn was so impressive to me, so unique and in support of the exploited subject, the working man who is forced into these ugly positions just so he can manage to live his life and make ends meet. Does Miller not see his own exploitation as a form of slavery? What gives him the natural right to freedom? For such a groundbreaking writer and thinker, its confusing to see such little nuance when it comes to race. He had so many great ideas -- how was this one of men truly being equal so far out of reach? To say nothing of his relationship with women . . .

I wanted to like this, and a lot of the things he said about war were really striking and powerful. Usually I can get past his bullshit to get to the heart of the matter, which is his deep enthusiasm for art and artists. I also realize this was written almost a century ago and I maybe shouldn't be so critical of his views -- but I am because he was so ahead of his time in other ways, but so short-sighted in regards to women and minorities. It spoils the work a bit for those of us who, too, have a passion and a reverence for art and artists. Miller's words speak to a deep, dark part of me, but then I get to considering that he never wrote this book with this audience in mind, because he seems to believe women can't feel and experience life the way he does. Here are some quotes that did not suck:

"What is magic? The knowledge that you are free."

"Nothing is deader than the status quo, whether it be called Democracy, Fascism, Communism, Buddhism, or Nihilism. If you have a dream of the future, known that it will be realized one day. Dreams come true. Dreams are the very substance of reality."

"A conscious humanity! Have you ever tried to imagine what that would mean? Be honest. Have you ever paused one minute of your life to think what it would mean for humanity to become fully conscious, to be neither exploitable nor pitiable? Nothing could possibly hinder the advance of a conscious humanity. Nothing will."

On America's economy: "Had we not become the arsenal of the world, and thus staved off the gigantic collapse of our economic system, we might have witnessed the spectacle of the richest nation on earth starving to death in the midst of the accumulated gold of the entire world."

"The most terrible thing about America is that there is no escape from the treadmill which we have created. There isn't one fearless champion of truth in the publishing world, not one film company devoted to art instead of profits."

"Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate; I can read it like a blue-print. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress - but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world, the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal."

So there was promise -- until the literal last chapter! Still not a completely useless read, but disappointing ending to say the least.

Henry Miller's lush prose is gorgeous, but he seems to get distracted about a third of the way through.

Regardless, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is a great motivation to leave the US, if only I could afford...

كابوس مكيف الهواء، هو كابوس الحضارة، كابوس التكنولوجيا، كابوس التقدم
هذه الحضارة التي تسير كالقطار، تقضي رويداً رويداً على إنسانية وروح الإنسان
موقف هنري ميللر واضح ومباشر في هذا السياق، وكعادته لا يجامل ولا يهادن، بل يسمي الأمور بمسمياتها، يشتم، ويصرخ، وبيصق على كل شيء قبيح
ويمدح، ويقبل، ويعبد كل شيء جميل...
عنيف ميللر، لكنه صادق...

I've read the many mixed reviews about this book and I must agree with the reviews that reflect how much this book relates to our current times. It's not a book to be lumped with Miller's well known Sexus, Plexus & Nexus series. Instead, the readers should be prepared to see a dark and at certain moments, a downright depressing outlook on our nation. He makes no effort to hide problems that existed when the novel was written and continue to exist today.

This book is worth reading merely for the different perspective that is presented on our nation.

Seems like it was written today... THE BEST road story. I do think it is sad that the problems he faced and wrote about in the 40s are still around today. The same is true about the "Peter Plan" by Laurence J. Peter

Frightening!!!

A weird book and in some ways very different from his other books but still recognizably miller. Like many who read this i appreciate his criticisms of america although i think they don't tell the whole story. It starts off extremely negative but but changes tone at maybe the quarter point and focuses more on the things he found to appreciate. I really liked the part about Weeks Hall. There's a lot about his ideas of art and artists as the counterbalance or antithesis of what he hates, and interesting discussions of several specific artists operating in America that he considers on the right path.

I thought the tone he took while talking about his car and repair efforts was funny and strangely humble compared to his usual attitudes. I think the Hollywood party was probably the worst section in the sense of just being entirely to easy and not interesting. There's a few weak spots but on the whole plenty to be glad about. I had my doubts but I'm glad I read it.

Might need to pick up and read again. The first time I read it , in 1998 or so, found it to be overly pretentious and unkind... I guess I had a problem with his observations and criticisms he made from the window of his car, and not from actually be among those he was writing about.

Looking for a copy to read through again to see if my perception has changed

About 30 pages in, I realized this would be one of my favorite books in the world. I wish it had been 600 pages. I couldn't stop reading it out loud to my husband. I don't know if I believe in god, but I believe in Henry Miller.

"Il leone ha sempre un'aria indicibilmente triste, più sgomenta che infuriata. Si prova il desiderio irresistibile di aprire la gabbia e lasciare che semini terrore. Un leone in gabbia, per una ragione o per un'altra, fa sempre sembrare debole e meschina la razza umana. Ogni volta che allo zoo vedo leoni e tigri sento che dovremmo avere una gabbia anche per gli esseri umani, una di ogni genere a ciascuno nell'ambiente adatto: il prete con il suo altare, il dottore con i suoi strumenti di tortura, il politico con la sua borsa piena di soldoni e di insensate promesse, l'insegnante con il berretto dell'asino, il polizziotto con il manganello e la pistola, il giudice con la toga e il martelletto, e così via. Dovrebbe esserci una gabbia separata per la coppia, in modo da poter studiare la felicità coniugale co un certo distacco e imparzialità. Come saremmo ridicoli se ci mettessimo in mostra! Il pavone umano! E nessuna ruota ingioiellata per nascondere la sua pusillanime figura! Lo zimbello del creato, ecco cosa saremmo."

في البداية أبهرني ميللر ، بنظرتهـ المختلفة لأميريكا..كان شخص ذو رؤية ، عندهـ شيء جميل في روحهـ

لكن بعد منتصف الكتاب{ وبالمناسبة غريب .. كيف كُتب على الغلاف أنها رواية..هي رحلة أو حديث نفس؟!!!..} بكل حال بعد منتصف الكتاب شعرت أن الزخم قد هبط بشكل كبير جداً

بكل حال كان كتاباً يُقرأ

Though Henry Miller’s book on Greece, The Colossus of Maroussi, is generally regarded as his greatest achievement, he also wrote a second travel book which should be regarded as a definite classic of the genre.

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare chronicles Miller’s return to America in 1939, hot on the heels of the Greek trip referred to above, and from what he believed would be an open-ended life in France. The journey begins on a note of hope: “I wanted to have a last look at my country and leave it with a good taste in my mouth. I didn’t want to run away from it, as I had originally. I wanted to embrace it, to feel that the old wounds were really healed.” Instead, he finds despair: a nation where giant industries deaden the lives of their workers while polluting the environment, and a population which seeks nothing greater than credit, cheap cars, and vapid mass consumerism. It says a great deal that many of Miller’s scathing critiques are just as relevant today.

And yet the book contains a note of hope. It’s also a celebration of those rare individuals—eccentrics, artists, and creative people of all stripes—whose stubborn resilience represents everything that made the nation great in the first place.

A few years after this trip, Miller finally made peace with the land of his birth. He found his paradise in Big Sur, California, and that is where he lived out the rest of his life.