Reading the prologue to this book by Henry Miller astonishes me. Written 70 years ago, it could have been written today. Some excerpts: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 ... Whatever does not lend itself to being bought or sold ... is debarredWe are accustomed to think of ourse...

It's a shame that Miller didn't make it to the millennium (though he died at 88 years of age; 1891-1980), although I would imagine he lived long enough to see how right his bleak vision of our self-destructive world come to fruition - for lack of a better word. No man ever will be ahead of his time quite like Miller was, and despite his being ridiculed at the time for his vulgar outlook on the world, he has since become a legend in his own right. I can't begin to convey how enamored I am by his

I have always had an interest in travel books that are about times and places past. There is something about being able to see a vanished world through vanished eyes. I was astonished to learn that Henry Miller wrote a travel book about a road trip he took across America in the early 1940s. Henry Miller!, oh my god, his Tropic of Cancer is one of those books no one ever forgets; notwithstanding its position as one of the great novels of the twentieth century, it is the filthiest thing I have eve...

The problem with this book wasn't that it was strictly bad. On the contrary, a reader gets a glimpse of some of Miller's talent as a writer, with pages upon pages of rhapsodic prose tumbling word upon word until the effect is less like a text and more like standing under a waterfall of imagery and ideas.Unfortunately that doesn't constitute the bulk of the book. What Miller offers is a trip around a country with which he is disgusted and alienated. It's unfair to either blame him for the cliché

Update: I'm abandoning this one some 50 pages in. He is far too annoying and the racism is really grating on me. If you have read it, and know that it improves, please tell me.In this book so far, Miller goes from being a more-or-less cool sex-drugs-and-rock&roll guy (as in Sexus/Nexus/Plexus and the Tropics) to being an archetypal Grumpy Old Man. The train is ugly! I don't like the skyline! That station is horrific! That seagull shows the utter decline of the American nation! I can't stand look...

"Everything worth saying about the American way of life I could put in thirty pages. Topographically the country is magnificent--and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak."A good quote to sum of the gist of reading this book. I thought I would get tired of reading Miller's criticisms of America, but I found

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

Like I did last summer, Henry Miller traveled across the country beginning in 1939. Unlike me, he fucking hated it. This is not why I didn't like his book - some of the best travel writing is born of hatred and disgust. It was the structure and the tone of the hatred that really irked me.First, the tone. Much of this book consists of the whiny laments of a starving artist against The Man. Maybe this was groundbreaking in 1945 when the book was published. But in 2013 it just sounded kind of, well...

I often didn't agree with what he said, but I always enjoyed how he said it. Quote from page 192: "The duck is plucked, the air is moist, the tide's out and the goat's securely tethered. The wind is from the bay, the oysters are from the muck. Nothing is too exciting to drown the pluck-pluck of the mandolins. The slugs move from slat to slat; their little hearts beat fast, their brains fill with swill. By evening it's all moonlight on the bay. The lions are still affably baffled and whatever sno...

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 d...

First of all, Henry Miller's mastery of the English language ifar exceeds most anyone you are likely to read. He is in that elite class of great writers. Secondly, when you read any of his books, letters, essays and whatnot, you feel is is right there in the room, cafe, or on the street with you, so conversational is he. In this book AIR CONDITIONED NIGHTMARE, he writes about a year on the road in the US, he was contracted to write about by his agent. What he found was a lot of sterile robotic b...

I enjoy the way Miller pieces together bits of prose to create an intertwined journey through not only the landscape of the United States but the culture we have developed throughout this nation. It is at once both amazing and depressing.I was refreshed to realize that for over 100 years at least people like Henry Miller have been looking for the root cause of what is wrong with us. We have collectively done many great things and are blessed with an amazing land of resources and yet not only do

I never considered myself a patriot, until I read this book and felt so fiercely insulted by every trivial insult he flung at all things american. I was fleeing Charleston at the time, and driving through the Smokey Mountains--which were incredible. His arguments seemed extremely petulant ("the parks in america aren't as good as the parks in europe. The stores in america aren't as good as the stores in Europe," etc, etc, etc), and I knew he had no idea what he was talking about when he stopped t...

Wonderful to Read. Full of world vision, realism, thoughts, humour (like in all of Miller). Most of all, of personnality. Very appropreate for the still largely Up to date criticism of the north American mentality (which i find, applies well to Canada), and of it's "individualism without individuality (or personnality)". I feel like reading it again.

This is Henry Miller, narrating from the inside of his beautiful buzzing soul, details of his personal disappointment. The US is dying having scarcely lived. He is angry. As if he was lord of some manor come back after a decade of neglect to find his ancestral home a wasteland. He is storming with complicated personal rage about it. It is hard to see what responsibility he has himself for this outcome. Does he see himself anywhere in it? It seems as though the concept of this book was solid, but...

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...

I am just amazed how many Americans have not even heard about this book...but then again, many didn't hear about Depleted Uranium Weapons either.

Scorching--if ultimately flawed.The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is Henry Miller's recounting of his trip across the United States after war forced him to leave Europe. Coming out at the end of the war, when patriotism was high, its excoriating of the country would have won him few general plaudits, even as it contributed to his cult status.In characteristic Miller fashion, he eschews the obvious linear narrative--first here, then here--and opts for a spiral form. Even so, at first, the book shows

Truly fantastic book.Henry Miller returns home to the USA from Europe at the outbreak of WWII and decides to spend a year traveling around the country and writing about it. At first I was skeptical, as he had become a true Europhile and had a certain disdain for his country, so much so that I thought the whole book would turn into "Why Europe is superior." Whereas he probably did actually believe that, as soon as he escaped New York City, where he grew up, and breezed through the Rust Belt, whic...

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...

I found this to be a weak interpretation of what should be an epic road trip. There are wonderful moments of truthfulness, but for the most part the tone makes it seem like a stretch for a paycheck. I don’t believe that a man as brazen as Mr. Miller would continue a journey of this sort for such a long amount of time if he really hated it so. Why would he make this trip, come to these conclusions, and then retire in a country that banned his capstone works? He acts like he is making objective ob...

Frustrated and depressed during the BP/Gulf Oil spill of 2010, I looked for something to read that might either a) take my mind off of it or b) help me to make some kind of sense of what was happening. I picked up this book and it had an oddly therapeutic effect. Not because it's a happy book, it's really quite angry and harshly critical of so much that Miller saw in America when he returned from Europe--which I guess is part of what prompted him to go in the first place, but his critiques of mi...

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 inter...

summary: henry miller is a old man, he has aspergers, the park bench is too uncomfortable, they wont let him feed bread to the ducks at the park, theres too many negros at the park, theres too many dog at the park. hendry miller discovers yoga. henry miller eats, prays, loves.i hate american as much as the next guy but id rather read america-hate from a real authentic french cool guy (baudrillard much??) than a wannabe french bitter expat guy, even if tropic of cancer was good, sorry henry milne...

Henry Miller, soaked through, sopping, swimming in his world of beauty and truth, confronts America, 1941. Observations, ruminations, lamentations and more follow. The best chapter is hard to name... I love the bit on Weeks Hall, and the bit on the surgeon painter, and of course the last essay, the evening in Hollywood.

i think this is my favorite miller...he rambles, to be sure, but he's rambling about the america we all love to hate. i much prefer this to the sexus plexus nexus messes, which have moments of brilliance, but....damn dude, get an editor.

Still reading....however, I will add that despite being published in 1945, I feel Miller's observations on American and European culture are timeless. He could be writing the same today. Extremely descriptive and passionate...I'll revise my review upon finishing.

I've read this over the course of a few months, and interestingly enough, finished it just as I leave for a trip abroad. Being American myself, but having lived in Europe for about 3 years on and off, I agreed with many of the ideas Miller put forth. That being said, halfway through the book, I grew tired of the constant complaining about American culture. In fact, I found my time abroad brought to light all of the things I enjoyed about home that I don't think about daily, in addition to those

Old Man Yells At Cloud

I hadn't read Henry Miller since 2001 and forgot how brilliant his prose is in the service of indignation. That said, Miller's rage at American consumerism, corporatism, materialism, and all-around ignorance -- a feeling with which I duly agree -- once in a while, but far too often, sails past insightfulness and lands in the realm of self-righteousness, leading one to suspect that underneath his bohemian persona lies a secret aristocrat. This from the last chapter of The Air-Conditioned Nightmar...