Some time during the winter of last year, I found myself browsing the books section of Amazon.com. If you’re unfamiliar with the website, they have feature a section toward the bottom of each page titled “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought . . .” and then list a series of recommendations based on whatever item you’re currently looking at. I can no longer remember what my original search stemmed from – it might have been Kerouac’s On the Road – but while going through a succession of suggestions based on whatever search it was, I came across Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Included in the page’s description of the work, published in 1934 in Paris, was the fact that the book had been banned in the United States for nearly thirty years; it wasn’t until 1964 in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that Tropic of Cancer was published in the U.S. This factoid immediately grabbed my interest. What about a book could be so offensive, so graphic, that a country would forbid its entire population from ever reading it?

Instead of waiting the day or two it would take for shipping to bring the book to my front door, I jumped into my car and sped to the nearest Barnes & Noble. Luckily they had a copy of Tropic of Cancer in stock – I wasn’t sure what to think, though, when the cashier said to me upon seeing my purchase, “Don’t drink and read this book.” So, after arriving back at home, I conscientiously filled up a glass of water before turning to the first page of Tropic of Cancer. On the second page, I encountered Miller’s description of his own work:

“This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse…”

So this was the sort of offensiveness that garnered Miller such notoriety. The rest of the book goes on to chronicle his drinking, his carousing, his sexual encounters, and his apathy for his own situation in Paris.

If you haven’t read Tropic of Cancer, I would highly recommend it. Miller was deeply dissatisfied with the ennui he perceived around him, particularly in America. I believe he wrote Tropic of Cancer in an attempt to cut through the disillusionment of his age – whether or not his reader finds themself breaking into laughter or completely horrified, the polarizing nature of Miller’s book ensures that it will elicit some form of response, a break in the monotony of pursuing the “American dream.” Though it’s been over 70 years since the writing of the work and over 40 since its publication in America, I still consider Tropic of Cancer to be a very worthwhile read – at the very least it provides a perspective into an important chapter of the fight for freedom of the press.

A band that has been garnering more and more airplay over the past several months on my iPod is Dr. Dog. Tracing their roots to the middle school musical partnership of Toby Leaman (lead guitar) and Scott McMicken (bass guitar) outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Dr. Dog released their first studio album in 2001 with the added line-up of Frank McElroy on rhythm guitar, Zach Miller on keyboard, and Eric Slick on drums. Over the years, as the group transitioned from eight-track recordings into more sophisticated studios, their recordings have become increasingly refined, earning them a much-deserved nationwide fan base.

On October 2, 2012, Dr. Dog released their most recent EP, titled Wild Race. Because the release coincided with the ever-swelling amount of submissions to the Shenandoah, I have found myself listening to the EP before, after, and sometimes while I read through these hundreds of pieces. One track, “Be the Void,” has stuck out in my mind as one that is particularly apt with respect to the characteristics I take into consideration when reading these submissions. The lyrics to the chorus are as follows: “Become the one, become the all/ Become the big, become the small/ Become complete, become destroyed/ Become nothing, be the void.”

While it might be a stretch, I believe this series of antitheses rings true when applied to the sort of piece one might hope to find in a literary journal such as the Shenandoah. In essence, these lyrics urge the listener to embrace everything, to strive to encompass all possible paths in life. It is my belief that a work of literature should aspire to the same goal. As a reader, I hope to find within a work something that I can identify with – I don’t necessarily expect to share the exact same experiences of the characters within a story, but more so I expect to find some nugget of truth about the human experience to which anyone could relate. By “becoming the void,” an author could occupy that vast commonality that links us all.

This seems to be a thread that Dr. Dog has continually pursued within their work. Describing life on the road, Leaman said, “It’s hard when you spend half your time away from your friends and family to feel like you’re as connected as you could be to the people around you.” This is certainly a sentiment shared by more than those within the music industry; it is often difficult for all of us to feel connected to everyone around us. Music, literature, and the arts in general, then, become a means to express our universal emotions, universal experiences, and perhaps our simple universality in general as human beings. Hopefully, readers will feel something in common with this rant about commonality.

If you care to listen to Wild Race, the full EP can be found here:

dr-dog-wild-race

*Quote from Leaman found on the “About” section of Dr. Dog’s website.