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Title: The Early Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4 (1927-1931) by Anais Nin ISBN: 0-15-627251-2 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 25 April, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Secrets & Dreams
Comment: In a diary written before her "Henry Miller" stage, Anais Nin starts to change dramatically during the years of 1927-1931. She is discovering her true nature and is intoxicated by intellectual and physical freedom.
Reticence becomes less evidence in her writing as the diary progresses. It falls away almost completely when she realizes she loves John. John, who understands her completely and shares his secrets, dreams, and writing with her. Or does he?
While Anais Nin has a full social life, she is often depressed and moody. This introspective attitude is very evident in her writing. She seems to feed off the compliments of others and her dancing becomes a way to escape the loneliness she feels
due to her husband's workaholic nature. It is really as if she is seeking a friend and keeps finding men who want more. Not until the end of the book does she divulge her deepest secrets.
Her husband, Hugh would rather buy stock than put money away in a sock to spend. Anais wishes she just had a sock full of money so she could redecorate her house and buy more dresses. She lives in the moment and is protected by an assiduous husband who is thinking of their future.
If you have ever wondered what it is like to be a beautiful woman and have men fawning after you, this is a detailed look at a woman's struggle with her power to entice men. For the most part, she is a tease. Until she meets John.
John awakens some deep well of absolute passion in her and once they kiss, she is tormented by his absence in her life and can't understand why he doesn't write her sooner. He of course has the ability to love more than one woman. By page 189, this book has become fire and ice. The cold torment of John's absence will soon ensue and the fire of their first kiss sets the journal alight.
Her analysis of all her friends, descriptions of her life, observations about social customs, not to mention intimate thoughts, are all intriguing. Anais sees the details many would miss. She is a keen observer of the world and has the ability to describe her experiences so that you feel you have lived them with her.
This diary starts rather slowly and in the start we hear mostly about dancing and costumes and the material world. Between pages 268 and 269, there are pages of black-and-white photographs so we can see what Anais looked like in her Spanish dance costumes. Hugh is strikingly handsome, yet is seems while Anais loved him passionately, he could not fulfill her cravings for companionship with older men.
What Anais fights most is her pernicious desires. She is a writer by nature and seems to want to experience and then write. She becomes a mirror to each man who loves her and becomes separate personalities when she is with different men. She is at times roused to ecstasy by words and can only express these deep emotions through tears. It does truly seem that she falls in love with men's minds.
Yes, Anais has a deep well of sensuality. However, at times she is just "cute." Like when she says "miaow" or talks to her journal as if it was her most intimate friend. She is highly likeable in some ways and threatening in others.
Most of her friends have an artistic streak and many are writers. They sit reading their journals to one another and comparing notes on writers of the day. It is all so romantic. Like a writer's dream world. I did notice that most of her intimate friends are men. She doesn't really share her thoughts with women and prefers to discuss intellectual matters with men.
What is most interesting is that I read about Henry & June first. Here, the reader gets to observe the thought processes leading up to her decisions to take action on her desires.
Throughout this book I had beautiful thoughts I just had to write down. She seemed to inspire writing in me and at times I cried, at times I laughed at unexpectedly cute comments and then at times it was just comforting in some way. I feel that if Anais was alive, I would willing tell her all my secrets. She was just the type of woman you wanted to confide in.
By the end of this early diary, she has poured out her heart to her husband and admitted her momentary lapse in faithfulness. Her frustration of being rejected by John leaves her like a juicy ripe peach, ready to be plucked from the tree of desire by Henry Miller. While some may think she was just spontaneous in regards to Henry, you really have to read this book to find out how much she really did consider before taking any actions. In fact, she is at the highpoint of her marriage at the end of this volume.
Perhaps she is right when she says: "Love is sometimes an urge for what we do not possess."
Rating: 5
Summary: Prelude to the Storm
Comment: For fans of Anais Nin, this unedited early diary is a must. Written in the years immediately preceding the events revealed in her books HENRY AND JUNE and INCEST, this diary is the connecting link that reveals how a virtuous, loving wife became a wild adventurous. The writing is simply gorgeous; you'll be amazed at how polished and vivid her discriptions of life in Paris of the 1920s were (and yes, this book was printed AS IS from the original journals). Ironically, she describes her initial disgust with Parisian "sensuality," as well as her growing acceptance and eventual delight with the city. She describes her homes, friends, and her interest in Spanish dance. But perhaps most importantly, she describes her marriage to Hugh Guiler, a man she loves but who does not satisfy her physically. Read this book so as to understand how Anais was eventually driven into the arms of Henry Miller.
Rating: 3
Summary: Modest Beginnings
Comment: This volume of writing offers the careful reader glimpses of Anais Nin before she reinvented herself. Or does it? One can never be sure with Nin.
The girl who became Anais Nin, scandalous diarist, was clearly highly articulate, and determined to live a life of Art and Passion, even when her mother was making her do housework as a teenager in their modest rental house in Queens. It provides a gentle introduction to her life and times, and a fascinating contrast to searing works such as _Incest_, taken from diary material written some twenty or so years later. One also gets some interesting views of early-twentieth century New York City.
The book, taken in the context of Nin's later work, offers evidence that we become what we most want to be. Dreamer, beware!
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Title: The Early Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 2. (1920-1923) by Anais Nin ISBN: 0156272482 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: November, 1983 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Fire: From "A Journal of Love" The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1937 by Anaïs Nin ISBN: 0156003902 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Diary of Anais Nin: Vol. 1 (1931-1934) by Anais Nin ISBN: 0156260255 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: June, 1969 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin (1931-1932) by Anais Nin ISBN: 015640057X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 29 October, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Incest: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932-1934) by Anaïs Nin ISBN: 0156443007 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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