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Title: Anais Nin: A Book of Mirrors an Anthology Reactions to the Life of Anais Nin by Paul Herron, Gunther Stuhnlmann ISBN: 0-9652364-0-4 Publisher: Sky Blue Press Pub. Date: October, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: . . . welcome and much-needed volume . . .
Comment: Excerpt From the review appearing in the 1997 issue of Anais: An International Journal:
By Marion Fay
The title of this welcome and much-needed volume, Anais Nin: A Book of Mirrors, is both appropriate and provocative. The mirror concept works because this hefty book of some 420 pages does indeed reflect multiple aspects of Anais Nin as seen by its sixty-five contributors. Moreover, it not only reveals how many readers have seen themselves reflected in her work and in her person, but also the ways in which many of us have been refracted--literally opened-up--and, to use one of her favorite terms, "transmuted" by the experience.
The mirror concept, of course, also carries with it the notion of partial vision, indeed distortion, implications that underlie attacks on Anais Nin by those who despair at her omissions of facts, who focus exclusively on externally manifest behavior.
The seventy-five entries brought together by Paul Herron include essays, scholarly comment, excerpts from literary works and interviews, poems, and personal testimonials, along with photos and illustrations. Most of the contributions reflect favorably upon Anais Nin, but some raise serious questions about her love affairs, duplicities, and the professed incest with her father. Wendy DuBow, for one, who in 1994 edited a volume of interviews with her, points to weaknesses in Nin's thinking and writing, and she makes clear that her interest in Nin is scholarly and sociological, and not governed by any emotional attachment.
The list of those who responded included well-known Nin scholars, such as Sharon Spencer and Suzanne Nalbantian, contributors to this journal, psychologists, non-traditional healers, personal friends, and literary figures like Erica Jong and Allen Ginsberg.
Several early selections speak of visits to Louveciennes, the village that for many readers situates Nin in place and time because of its prominence in the first volume of The Diary of Anais Nin. Jacques G. Lay, the village's honorary deputy mayor, laments that Anais Nin has been "forgotten at home," but celebrates the fact that thousands of visitors from around the world come to Louveciennes "to imbibe the air Anais breathed, the atmosphere she loved."
Several selections in A Book of Mirrors trace the steps of researchers who examined some of the one hundred and fifty bound original diary manuscripts in the Special Collection of the Library at the University of California in Los Angeles. Elyse Lamm Pineau, a professor at Southern Illinois University, unexpectedly came across a cache of audio tapes recording Nin in action, and Elizabeth Podnieks intersperses carefully chosen passages from her own diary with excerpts from Nin's as part of an inquiry into what makes a diary "genuine."
Diane Richard-Allerdyce reveals the evolution of her attitude toward Anais Nin: from glowing adulation--combined with an unwillingness to criticize her--to a reasoned appreciation of Nin's life and work. Discoursing on the writing of her play, "A Literary Soulmate," an excerpt of which appears in the book, Richard-Allerdyce examines Nin's influence on contemporary women who take up writing. The play itself deconstructs the several versions of Nin's "Birth" story and, in doing so, comments on such topics as the conflict between pregnancy and career, which tortures so many women, and on the nature of truth.
Truth-telling, and truth-avoidance in the case of Anais Nin also occupy some other contributors, offering accusations and justifications. In a short essay, Nuria Ribera i Gorriz pushes us to think about the distinction between the intent to deceive (a form of lying) and the intent to protect the self and/or others (a form of half-truth).
The last section of A Book of Mirrors deals with Nin's final days, a sad story, unknown to many of her readers--Barbara Kraft reports on the many hours she spent with Nin as she lingered on the borderline of death. In an excerpt from her manuscript, An Edited Life, Kraft presents Nin in the guise of a character, Maite Lerin, who is experiencing but also reporting on her own dying.
In a brief review one can only suggest the wide range of views, and the variety of modes and styles of expression gathered in this so aptly titled Book of Mirrors. It is not a book to be devoured whole. Rather, it is one to browse and ponder over time. Laden with rewarding insights and warm feelings, it also occasionally asks the reader to enter supernatural zones, where dreams, spirits, and zany coincidences predominate. More than anything, perhaps, A Book of Mirrors once again provides evidence of Anais Nin's extraordinary, and seemingly perpetual, influence on vast numbers of people, no matter what her harshest critics may have to say.
Rating: 5
Summary: A magnificent celebration of life
Comment: Book Review by Maryanne Raphael, Writers World ANAIS NIN, A BOOK OF MIRRORS does what no biography, no single study can do. It gives us a glimpse of the thousand faces of Anais Nin. It is an exciting anthology of personal memoirs, interviews, tributes in prose and poetry, fantasies and essays. Anyone opening this book should be warned he or she may be risking their lives as they now know it. More than 60 authors share how Anais changed their lives and gave it meaning. Nin's passionate love affair with life is contagious. In his foreword, Gunther Stuhlmann called Anais, "an exemplary sensitive and complex modern woman who sought her salvation in her art." Anais used her life to create, to relate and to fascinate. Her writings help us to return to our most precious dreams. Anais has us re-evaluate everything, dig deeper into ourselves. She becomes a mirror for each of us, an opportunity for us to examine our souls and for the first time recognize who we really are. MIRRORS is a magnificent celebration of Life. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about Anais or about themselves. The end
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