The Diary of Anais Nin Volume Two: 1934-1939

The Diary of Anaïs Nin #2

by Anaïs Nin

Beginning with Nin's arrival in New York, this volume is filled with the stories of her analytical patients. There is a shift in emphasis also as Nin becomes aware of the inevitable choice facing the artist in the modern world. "Sensitive and frank...[Nin's] diary is a dialogue between flesh and spirit" (Newsweek). Edited and with a Preface by Gunther Stuhlmann; Index.

Genres: Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction, Diary, Classics, Autobiography, Erotica

Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Writer and diarist, born in Paris to a Catalan father and a Danish mother, Anaïs Nin spent many of her early years with Cuban relatives. Later a naturalized American citizen, she lived and worked in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. Author of avant-garde novels in the French surrealistic style and collections of erotica, she is best known for her life and times in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volumes I-VII (1966-1980).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana%C3%...

Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music, a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine. In the interior monologue there is no punctuation. James Joyce was right. It flows like a river.” — The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. Two

I loved Anais Nin’s first diary and I enjoyed this one too. Yes, she’s extremely self-absorbed and it does get a bit trying reading about how great people say she is but one can’t help but admire her for how unapologetic she is, and also for the unique way in which she views life. Her writing is like nothing I have never read before; it’s beautiful, thoughtful and poetic. She truly makes diary-writing an art form.

In this diary, Ms. Nin is a little restless: should she stay in Louveciennes or should she go to New York? She ends up going to New York where she becomes a psychoanalyst, a point that I found very surprising as she didn’t have any training as such. The part when she was in New York seemed a bit surreal; I can’t imagine Anais Nin at Madison Square Garden watching a hockey game!

The diary was written prior to World War Two so this diary therefore has several political mentions in it:

“A war is going on which people doubt will become a real war. It may be a mock war to satisfy those who clamoured for it. We are being deceived, and what is happening is a mystery. Scant news.”

The diary was full of Nin’s interesting observations. Like Proust, Nin also wrote about memory:

“Some portions of my life were lived as if under ether, and many others under a complete eclipse. Some of them cleared up later, that is, the fog lifted, the events became clear, nearer, more intense, and remained as unearthed for good. Why did some of them come to life, and others not? Why did some remain flavourless, and others recover a new flavour and meaning?”

Overall, I felt more sadness surrounding Nin in this volume. She seemed to have given so much of herself to people around her, and you could tell that the news of the war took a lot out of her.

Looking forward to Volume Three.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

New York and Paris. Gonzalo the hunky Spaniard--guitarist, revolutionary, gigolo--and his awful crippled wife, who move in with Anais on the houseboat in the Seine (not a spoiler!) The Spanish Civil war. The end of Anais and Henry. The advent of the outrageously young, the dizzily intelligent Laurence Durrell. The visit to Fez and the publication of House of Incest. Oh, the older I get, the better these Diaries are--now that I've heard of Brassai and Artaud and James Laughlin the publisher, I've read Proust. It just gets richer with time.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

I want to introduce you to Ivan. He is just out of jail for stealing a set of Dostoevsky's works. The French judge was sympathetic. He had good taste in literature. He said: 'If you had stolen a bad writer's books I would have given you sixty days. No I will give you only a week.' And the day he left jail he received from the judge a set of Dostoevsky wrapped in brown paper.

[U]ltimately analysis will reveal that the rationalizations of man are a disguise to his personal bias, and that woman's intuition was nothing more than a recognition of the influence of the personal in all thought.

This was a less engaging text than the first diary, but that may be a combination of sequel syndrome as well as the disillusionment Nin fell into with most of the figures who had until now powered her creatively, mentally, and sexually. I wasn't a fan of most of these mentors (Henry Miller is a trip, to put it politely), so while I did agree with most of her criticisms, it became harder to keep track of all the replacements she filled her days with subsequently, as well as increasingly aggravating to watch when her new bedroom obsessions quickly because utterly useless once assured of a generous patron. However, it's always interesting to watch the world as framed by Nin's valuing of inner health over outer pretensions, such evaluations become especially pointed and fraught with the onset of WWII. In closing, I was more sympathetic to the text than I had been while reading it, as unlike Nin, I know what was coming, and the author, for all her romantic stereotypes, was not nearly as much as a bigot as most of her compatriots. All in all, I may adjust the rating of this to a less generous tier later on, but I'm still committed to continuing my newfound yearly ritual of reading this volumes of autobiography in sequence: the space of a break between two-thousand-and-xx and the next seems to be the perfect span of time during which to alternate between deep diving into a strange, yet compassionate, yet obtuse, yet incisive world, and sitting back and reflecting.

When Henry [Miller] wrote a fan letter to Kay Boyle she thought it was a letter from a very young writer, who, while admiring and praising her, could not help imitating her own style.

Men think they live and die for ideas. What a divine joke. They live and die for emotional, personal errors, just as women do.

I most like this work at the beginning and the end. The middle included some interesting, almost voyeuristic pictures of a few famous names, Miller a familiar face while Lawrence Durrell definitely took center stage, leastwise in my own recognition. However, it all became too repetitive and contradictory at times, which is honestly what a diary usually ends up being, but it was rather ridiculous to read Nin saying the poor were blocked off from propagating revolutionary humanity by their very poverty, and then a few dozen pages later rhapsodizing over how her own poverty raised her artistry and human feeling to new heights. The usual Orientalisms and Rromanisms cr(o/a)p up every so often, and Nin's new mestizo boy toy Gonzalo brought indigenous Americana into the picture cut out mix. It was heartening, though, when true feeling stemming from this disgraced first born hailing from Latinx plantations broke through Nin's hypocritical facade and forced her to recognize that the rich exigencies of a few at the expense of the many was no longer excusable to her, a change of mind likely exacerbate by Miller's objectifying world view that Nin grew increasingly tired of. So, a bit lagging after such a tightly wound beginning and not at all foreshadowing the menacing clarity of the end, but that is a side effect of the drastic editing pre-publication as much as the genuine record Nin created at the time, and I am admittedly very keen on seeing the next five war years, the oh so historically ripe time of 1939-1944, through the mind of this anything but boring woman. An intermission, of sorts, but I did drop in on some juicy gossip, and the knowledge of how Nin and her friends' history of publication would eventually play out gives the reader an interesting perspective on even the banal of tangentially related comments.

To some American writers anything but paradise was [u]nacceptable. To the European it was part of the human condition, and something shared with other human beings.

Nin and I will always have a weird relationship that's informative and entertaining enough for me so long as I don't take her too seriously. She's no de Beauvoir, but if I had to choose someone's brain to ride around in in order to get a glimpse of all those white boy (and the odd girl) writers who I'm not sure are worth my time, it'd have to be her. Politics aside, her turn of phrase is always impeccable, and she has a talent for transforming the 20th century into the better of the existing nostalgically artistic portraits of yesteryear, obscene wealth and abject poverty living side by side long before the age of Instagram. Speaking of such, that's one 21st century tool I can imagine Nin loving, although she'd have a hard time coping with the 'Chinese' of the place where I call home. Now that this entry is done, as I said before, I don't plan on touching the next volume till sometime during 2020, at minimum. One thing both Nin and I require is space, and I've already binged my fill of inordinately lengthy compositions for the current fin-de-décennie.

And I asked myself if the artist who creates a world of beauty to sustain and transcend and transmute suffering is wiser than those who believe a revolution will remove the causes of suffering. The question remains unanswered.

[Ciara · Rating 4 out of 5]

the thing about anais nin's diaries is that they are all drawn from a much larger work--that of nin's life-long diaries. so each volume is just an excerpt, & as such, it's not like one volume really stands out thematically from the pack that much. history/politics-wise, i think this is the one where the going is getting rough in europe, & world war two is about to get started. nin is participating a lot in cafe/salon culture, making friends with various artists, reading manuscripts, still financially supporting henry miller, etc. she is starting to get very interested in psychology & analysis & i think this is the one where she starts analysis with dr. otto rank. when i told jared i was reading these books, he was kind of critical. he said he didn't like them because they are just all about the famous people that anais nin knows & it's like she is name-dropping & luxuriating in how utterly fabulous her star-studded life is. i can see that perspective now that we are seventy years removed & many of the events & people that nin mentions in her diaries have been given an official historical context, but the thing is, we are living in our own historical context right now. we just don't know how it's all going to play out in seventy years because none of us has a time machine. & it's entirely possible that i am friends with someone who could go on to be a culturally relevant writer, theorist, filmmaker, whatever. even if it's just in a small way. i write about the people i know in my diaries, & the things they do, & the projects i admire, etc etc. why not? that's what's on my mind. nin had no way of predicting which of her friends would become famous. & sometimes she spilled a lot more ink on the people who toiled in obscurity than the people who are really well-known now. i guess a lot of people find her diaries interesting to read because they are full of famous people, artists, events, historical moments, & that's fine. but you have to consider that she probably didn't really realize what she was recording while she was living it. it was just luck & circumstance, right?

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book falls apart in my hands. Its as if no one has read it for 40 years. The pages have turned yellow brown with age and stiffened with coldness. It’s brittle and frozen. It comes undone in my hands as if the sheer touch of it is too much to handle. It is overwhelmed. Has it waited out death for 4o years to die in warmth? But I cannot allow this. I will not aid in the murdering of something once so beautiful and filled with a thousand lives. The pages fall off like the hair of a chemo patient. Death is staring right at it and humiliates by making it shed its beautiful veil. Luxurious with organic flow that never had seized to grow until the day black forced itself upon it and stayed. I am the doctor, not Death’s accomplice. I hold together the fallen pieces. I find hope among the torn flesh-bound and discolored skin-pages. If it has lived this long harboring a silent killer it will fight what has now become visible, shown its ugliness. For what you can see is easier to kill than what you cannot. This I find to be an improvement. Now I can begin to help it heal and stop the quiet suffocation it has endured. With the turn of each page a breath is taken. Air is beginning of Life. It will live. And I too, will grow.

[Pearl · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I love Anais!

She's getting stranger and more familiar to me with every volume. I love how carefully she weaves not just the enchantment of her diary, but the magic net of her personality, of those she keeps close to her heart, of her ideas and dreams and even her dislikes and struggles.

I see the two of us once again, this time come in out of cold, at a dinner party in a mystical Europe I've only heard about. I see the deep glow of her person, and feel the answering jewelled aspects of my own personality rising to the surface to meet her.

I want to be like her as much as I can. I'm so happy with how many volumes there are still to read, how much more of her personality is left to watch, slowly, and unblinking.

[Jennie Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Staying deeply rooted to intuition, sensations, feelings rather than the intellect, premeditation, ideas.

[Hannah]

Only been reading her diaries in the order in which i stumble upon them, and so previous to this one i had only read vol 5, which i really loved, unfortunately i found vol 2 to be a bit of a letdown in comparison.
I think the self-referential aspect of her diaries (writing in her diaries about how she is writing/publishing her diaries) is interesting but also amplifies her slightly annoying tendency to self-mythologize (omg we get it you have a martyr complex) - of course all this makes sense for a diary — obviously it’s self-centred it’s a DIARY, which is by definition self-centred. I really respect editing diaries into something publishing and also just the bravery to publish ones diaries, however that doesn’t absolve it from being annoying at times.
I think as the diary writing progresses over the years the myth of Anais is toned down or changed to a more interesting iteration - in the future i may stick to reading her later diaries.

[Pariskarol · Rating 5 out of 5]

People criticize Nin for, among other things, her self-absorption, but I think any diary of anyone, literary or not, has at its central character the diarist. Maybe I’m self-centered too, but I’m the main character in my life and journal as well.

What makes Nin’s diary meaningful to me is not so much the meanderings of a 1930s woman’s self-exploration. Instead it is the incredible time and place she documents — the Paris alive with creativity and forward thinking (avant garde)before WWII.

This volume documents the final days of that period, as writers, artists, and thinkers who were able left Paris one by one before the Nazis marched in.

It is so worth reading this book to be introduced to Brassai, Hilaire Hiler, Jean Carteret, Lawrence Durrell, Waldo Frank, Sir Richard Burton, Carlos Suares, and dozens of other fascinating people Nin mentions or meets.

[fake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anais is a dancer, writer and basically an angel. She made the publication of first Henry Miller’s novel possible. She was an assistant to Otto Rank and one of the first females in psychoanalysis. She took care of a lot of artists, was an inspiration and muse. She kept diaries about all that.

The ones that I’ve read start in 1934 and end in 1939. Anais comes back to New York and works as Otto Rank’s assistant. Rank is one of the godfathers of psychoanalysis and misogynist because of that. Nevertheless, Anais adores him, helps with his clients, translates his works into English. But translation takes too much time; she gets disappointed in psychoanalysis: she struggles with its objectivity. She flees to Paris making a small stop in Morrocco.
In Paris Henry Miller getting his first fruits of fame. ‘Tropic of Cancer’ is published and well-received. But he still same Henry - no empathy and cares only about food and his books. Anais writes a warm and heartfelt diary of Henry’s days in Paris for him. She is capable of true love of life, compassion, empathy. Anais documents their, talks, remarks on books (e.g. Miller’s obsession with Balzac’s Seraphita), letters. Another centre of gravity in the diary is Gonzalo and Helba. They are a couple. They fled from Peru. She is an Inca dancer, but now deaf, ill and not dancing; he is a revolutionary wannabe, hanging around Pablo Neruda. As Miller obsessed with writing as Gonzalo obsessed with Spain, Marxism and revolution. That’s more of the general rule - passionate people, artists and revolutionaries attract Anais. All of them carefully preserved. Andre Breton advises Anais going to a random place, getting together and then engaging in an unplanned action as true surrealist. He never did it himself. Evreinoff teaches her secrets of Moscow Art School. The bohemian Parisian life slowly crashes over reality. Spain is ravaging in a civil war, fascism is rising, the book ends with the start of the war. Diaries capture different modes of escapism of the artist; the world that is about to fall.

The diary is the character too. It is discussed, reviewed, commented, praised, criticised. But Anais says that the diary is like breathing to her. Artaud said that she inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen when breaths. Same with this diary. It’s a thing that breathes and lives on its own. I love that airy quality to it. Events come very fast, immediate. It never gets boring.

[Shasta McBride · Rating 3 out of 5]

I completely fell in love with Anais Nin and gobbled up her first three diaries. And then, just like that, I saw the movie Henry and June a few weeks ago, and, well, her Diaries were off-loaded to the guy at the Goodwill Donation center this past weekend (along with All the Sad, Young Literary Men, Then We Came To The End, and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People).

How could I fall so hard and then feel so duped? I don't know. What does that say about moi? I don't know. I think what got to me in the movie--and she is played by a really amazing actress--was that it just portrayed her as some rich, bored housewife who wanted to explore sex and psychology all day long just because she hadn't until Henry swooped in with all of his neato Bohemian friends and lovers. And this somehow painted her as a selfish (cheating on her husband), mind-absorbed (not in her sexual-feeling like her writing so well-illustrates or seems to illustrate), out-of-touch aristocrat type...

Ah so des ka.

But the movie is one thing and Nin's writing is another. I do idolize her ability to convey emotion on the page and I have yet to read Delta of Venus and all her other letters, and I'm sure I will at some point. For now, I have to let the memory of how the movie painted her fade. XO

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason I enjoy "hanging out" with Anais during the summer. So to keep in form, I read Diary 2. Not as good as the first, I still enjoyed her artistic writing style (even the mundane is viwed as art) and her colorful life. It is hard to imagine doing some of the impulsive things she does (e.g. leaving her home to purchase a riverboat, etc). In addition she continue to play the "savior" role for people around her, often at the expense of her own physical comfort. These types of experiences make for a fun, interesting read. Her books aren't life altering, but they do tend to grab my attention and Anais haunts me. It may be her willingness to just live fully, her unwillingness to conform, her ability to see beauty in everything....I am not sure. I guess I will need to wait until next summer.

[feedesmots]

Anaïs Nin, c'est l'éveil, l'illumination, la magie cosmique. Lire ses journaux, c'est retrouver un phare lumineux dans la nuit noire.
Ses mots sont de véritables remèdes, comme un credo à relire encore et encore...

"On ne peut sauver les gens. On peut seulement les aimer."

"Je suis de ces rares personnes qui peuvent dire aujourd'hui : j'ai aimé chaque jour comme si l'être aimé devait mourir. Comme si je devais mourir demain. J'ai aimé et vécu pleinement."

"Pour moi, je suis métamorphosée en éponge, absorbant toutes les larmes du monde, accumulant les douleurs, incapable de rien effacer."

Anais Nin, merci. À relire indéfiniment. Par intermittences. Vivre par intervalles. 🖤

[Legion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather than talk about what I learned, I just wanted to warn people that before buying these books they should check to see whether it is the "censored" or "unexpurgated" version. I didn't know and bought 3 "censored" volumes (this was because people she mentioned were still living at the time of publication. Republishing was the full version. These are still worth reading if you can find the uncensored ones...

[Rebe · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are a lot of thoughts in this diary that I loved, and those gems made this book well worthwhile. However, I found I lacked interest in her life, and this being a diary, there were a lot of entries about her problems mothering her friends with their various problems and vices. It was a struggle for me to finish this, but I did enjoy her insights.

[Emily Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ought to be read in the fall, sitting on a bench in Thompkins Square Park (in the East Village), while sipping on an Americano from 9th Street Espresso. Ideally you'll be resting your feet on a skateboard. Or maybe that's just me.

[l · Rating 2 out of 5]

underwhelming. nice writing at times but she doesnt seem like a particularly insightful, intelligent or interesting individual tbh

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Woman has this life-role, but the woman artist has to fuse creation and life in her own way… She has to create something different from man… Woman wants to destroy aloneness, recover the original paradise. The art of woman must be born in the womb-cells of the mind. She must be the link between the synthetic products of man’s mind and the elements.”

This diary marked a true transformation and maturation in Anaïs Nin. Beginning with her debute as a psychoanalyst in NYC and her ultimate rejection of psychoanalysis in favor of poetry, then her return to her writer’s circle in Paris with an introduction to revolutionaries in Spain, and ending with the advent of WWII, this book is exploding with introspection and confrontation with a decomposing reality. Anaïs Nin understands her world through compassion and empathy, a beneficent force that exposes many neurotic expressions of human suffering around her.

“When you live closely to individual dramas you marvel that we do not have continuous war, knowing what nightmares human beings conceal, what secret obsessions and hidden cruelties.”

Though Anaïs Nin’s image is magnified to make the outer world seem like an unavoidable periphery at times, her “self-mythology” through fantastic personal descriptions gives true spirit and soul to the reality she lived in. She renews symbolism to push her friends’ apparent personalities out of their deepest depths: the unconscious. Beyond the psychoanalysis, surrealism, and pragmatics of her friend’s purposes, Anaïs Nin is a testament to the subtle, compassionate power of women that motivates the world to renew itself time and time again despite faithless shifts in intellectual ideas and currents.

[antoniomorales · Rating 5 out of 5]

[02/20] ANAÏS NIN – Diario II [1934-1939] Edición de Gunter Stuhlmann

'Sé que no hice nada valioso para remediar el gran sufrimiento del mundo, aparte de unos pocos paliativos, la droga de la poesía, y los amores individuales, que no cambian nada en las grandes corrientes de la crueldad.'

Uno de los diarios más fascinantes del siglo XX. Esta edición está purgada, por el contenido escandaloso que llegó a incluir su autora (muchísimo sexo explícito o un romance consumado con su padre) y que ha provocado que la aproximación de los lectores a esta maravilla de la literatura sea vista con cierto prejuicio. Pero lo que hay dentro es muy emocionante, contado con una prosa abierta, pero de gran intensidad, donde las lúcidas reflexiones Anaïs Nin esbozan el escenario de su tiempo (la Guerra Civil Española la acompaña durante todo este volumen, así como el estallido inminente de la II Guerra Mundial) pero estructurado a partir de sus reflexiones más íntimas, gran parte con forma aforística, que van desde la creación artística (con semblantes de Miller, Artaud, Breton, Durrell...), las relaciones humanas, el feminismo, la política o la mera existencia.

[Tracey Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although slightly more fragmented than her first diary, Volume Two is almost as mesmerizing. Nin compares two great cities, New York and Paris at the outset, confronted with the dilemma of choosing her analytical profession and her writing, and the political storms rising in Europe, we see her romanticism fade and her inner struggle with the evil and destructiveness of man becomes more prominent as war looms.

At times I found this diary almost too disjointed with random thoughts, but that is the essence of its structure, and the introductions to various writers and literature in her world are well worth exploring.

[Anna Mondello · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Ich habe mich der Idealisierung schuldig gemacht, ich habe mich aller möglichen Dinge schuldig gemacht, aber ich habe mich nicht der Gleichgültigkeit schuldig gemacht. Ich bin schuldig, zu ernsthaft und zu tiefsinnig zu leben, aber ich bin nicht schuldig, oberflächlich zu leben.“

[sweet t · Rating 5 out of 5]

man who doesn’t want two husbands

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can’t get enough.

[christina !!!!!!!!]

3 years and still not sure if it was worth it hehe

[Merra · Rating 5 out of 5]

uno de los libros que más subrayé en mi vida. un año leyéndolo. anhelo esos tiempos que nunca viviré, pequeña comunidad de amigos. final desolador

[Gresi e i suoi Sogni d'inchiostro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quando un desiderio è bloccato, la maggior parte della gente reagisce con filosofia. Ma in me, il desiderio sconfitto è una porzione di vita che viene ucciso.

La produzione letteraria di un’autrice straordinaria, e che io amo molto, come Anais Nin, è discretamente vasta, per me ancora sconosciuta ma bellissima opportunità per conoscerla e studiarla a fondo. Tre romanzi prima di questo, dichiarazioni d’amore a uomini ambiziosi e potenti, divagazioni sulla vita e sul sesso senza alcuna remora erano pieni di << magia >>, parole evocative che esplicano nient’altro che l’anima di una ragazza qualunque intrappolata in un mondo che si sta sbriciolando lentamente ai suoi occhi e in cui, ogni donna qualunque, e non solo, avvertirono il desiderio di affermarsi nel mondo individuale ma con panico e una certa isteria.
Questi Diari, per la precisione questo secondo, furono concepiti come esigenza di riversare in quel contenitore imperfetto sprazzi di un’anima dilaniata, recisa dal tempo e dallo spazio attraverso cui ho potuto comprendere la frustrazione, l’amarezza che attanagliarono l’autrice, spesso nel momento in cui si sedette alla scrivania e scrisse. Uomini grandi e straordinari che non conobbero la povertà e la sofferenza, non poterono comprendere il significato dietro queste parole. Ma non lei, che colse questo assetto, rivelò un frammento della sua comprensione. Aspirando all’assoluto nella creazione e nell’esplicazione dell’amore, irruento, violento, volontario, spasmodico, e desiderosa di valicare i confini impersonali, impensabili e improponibili attraverso cui si abbraccia la vita soffermandosi proprio su quello che dovrebbe essere anziché quello che è. Perché pur quanto ci si affanni a realizzare il contrario, l’esperienza non potrà mai sostituire la saggezza. Affannosamente ha tentato di trovare un significato intero dell’esistenza, arrivando così alla conclusione quanto essa è assurda, illogica, priva di significato. Ma non c’è un vero e proprio significato cosmico per ogni cosa quanto si desidera attribuirla un significato particolare.
La quantità, il dramma e il conflitto contro la perdita della propria identità, dell’essenza, sono impersonali. Simboli di dramma americano, lo spirito che vorrebbe controllare la memoria, la materia. Ed ecco che, impegnarsi a scovare qualcosa di palese e coerente, che si installa dentro di lei come un seme della sua creatività, del suo genio, assieme ai misteri che la vita ci riserva, dimostra i segni di un arte istantanea, immediata, spontanea, più consona alla sua anima, prima che passi attraverso i suoi condotti cerebrali e diventi un’astrazione, un’invenzione, una bugia. E questa necessità di scovare nel profondo è deleteria perché in questo modo la donna svanirebbe comparatamente. Diventando cieca, o perlomeno facendo finta di non vedere.
Nella confusione di effluvi di sesso, inchiostro appena rovesciato, alcol e droghe, pensai che la Nin si fosse posta agli altri, costantemente, poiché solo così poté comprendere la letteratura. Il potere della scrittura, in quanto nessuno, prima di lei, sguazzarono nel fango e allo stesso tempo poterono rialzarsi. Proprio loro che si ribellarono, protestarono angosciosi, sgomentarono la gente, la ossessionarono a tal punto che la << estraniarono >> dalle sue stesse opere. I surrealisti credevano fosse possibile vivere di sovrapposizione, esprimendo passato e presente, sogno e realtà convinti che l’uomo fosse bidimensionale, non esistono o si sperimenti qualcosa che trascenda dalla stessa vita esistendo all’interno di uno stato multilaterale. E da qui deriva il mio amore incommensurabile nei suoi riguardi: far brillare di luce propria qualcosa che ha splendore diverso, una luce dal colore più acceso. Il desiderio violento di essere dentro calori e colori, di vivere respirando piacere, non essendo mai sola, infrangendo l’isolamento come qualcosa di folle ma assolutamente necessario.
Questo è un tipo di nevrosi, una forma moderna di scrittura e di romanticismo che genera sete di perfezione, l’ossessione di vivere quanto si è solo immaginato, e ciò rivela illusioni, il rifiuto della realtà, il potere di immaginare la << capacità >> di soffrire senza riuscire a sostenerla, dotato di una certa forza creativa che si trasforma in distruzione. Partorire un’idea, che è descritta e calibrata con una certa esagerazione e di cui la vita stessa è al culmine, così reale e appassionata, consapevole e distaccata. Rifugio per la sua anima semplice e appassionata, modo per sfogare la sua creatività, quando si credeva che il mondo non potesse cambiare realizzandone così uno personale.
La Nin fu sicuramente un tipo estroso ma dotata di un’anima buona, sensibile, grande e potente. La scienza avrebbe potuto aiutarla a illuminare il suo cammino, ad aprire la sua mente, illuminazione poetica dell’esistenza che fa innamorare i pazienti della vita, la restituisce. Scrivere diviene così un modo per essere liberi, far vibrare l’anima di una melodia tutta sua, scrollandoci di dosso il fardello della nuda e cruda realtà quanto mostrando le nostre paure, le nostre debolezze. Proiettati in un periodo storico di puro e vero disfacimento e disintegrazione, in cui l’arte non è considerata una vocazione quanto una professione, una riflessione, una religione, una malattia, una via di fuga, una forma di nevrosi da cui si fugge, ci si sente alla deriva. Forse un buon modo per sfuggire dalla fatalità di un mondo statico, tragico, crudele? Un espediente per scovare rifugio nell’arte mediante poesia?
La vita è una lunga fune da cui ci si districa precariamente, si cerca l’assoluto solo nella molteplicità. In elementi dispersi, in più vite, in funamboli che sembrano dotati di sinfonia sintetica, fuori da tutte le cose, in una trama che non è reale e umana ma che la poesia scuote come percosse. La donna desidera essere domata, coinvolta in qualunque intrigo amoroso e poetico, anche se racchiusi in disperati gesti, afflizioni, gente intrappolata in tragedie particolari da cui si tenta di avere compassione. E, nell’insieme, si aggrappano ad altre disperdendosi, atrofizzando, conducendoli dinanzi al vuoto, alla scissione, alla schizofrenia. Divorati da un forte sentimento che le impossibilita a non provare sentimenti per gli altri.
Ascesa nel futuro, nell’esultanza, nella brillantezza poetica, così rumorosa e frastornata, questi diari sono un invito a guardarsi dentro e da cui la stessa autrice potrà abdicare. Come? Interagendo col prossimo. Mutando da piccola e gentile donnina francese, rimpicciolita in un fascino intelligente e peccaminoso, in qualcosa di grande e potente che presto o tardi scoverà un mondo nuovo, dai valori vividi, vasti e giganteschi. Completamente travolta, solleticando la pelle, contorto le viscere, donato felicità, una felicità imprecisata che mi ha disintegrato. Nel bel mezzo di artisti, scrittori, spicca la sua ambivalenza, il suo coraggio di sostenere la propria condizione personale pur di seguire un’azione condivisa, mediante una fluidità distorta dei sogni, il timore di perdere qualcosa o qualcuno che solo il tempo potrà lenire. Aggrappata irrimediabilmente al mondo esterno, cercando così amore e colore.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anaïs Nin’s writing is magical and beautiful like nothing else. Her diaries for years were a guiding light in my life. Nowhere else had I found illumination into what it means to be an introspective woman who yearns to go deeper with life. I have found much relation in her work. She is an undervalued writer, but her assessments of people, including many well known artists, her articulation of emotions, and her intricate descriptions are a kind of philosophy on their own.

The fact that people still demonize her for having affairs and solely focus on how she was an “immoral woman” just goes to show how sexist our society continues to be. The things she did that people criticize are things most, if not all, male artists have done (namely having multiple affairs and not being honest about it). Yet I rarely see anyone criticizing male artists for that kind of behavior. Rarely is she recognized for her innovative writing and brilliant mind. For her courage to write about the erotic in the most beautiful ways, her intelligence in articulating the experience of anxiety and neurosis before that was common at all, her analytical mind that captured the personas of those around her.

Some say the diaries are not entirely accurate, but whose diary would be? It’s her perception. Perhaps there’s imagination involved as well, as would be natural for a creative person. Each volume of the Diaries and fascinating, lovely, and delightful to read, and illuminates the deeper parts of the self.

If you are an artist, an introvert, an introspective intuitive woman, an observer, someone who wants to be fulfilled by life, then Anaïs Nin’s work will be a true ally in your life.

[Ximena López Arias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poca objetividad con esta escritora, al menos 10 estrellas. Su erótica pluma es una de las más bellas de todos los tiempos! La epoca en la que vivió fue también muy prolífica y estimulante, fue amiga de pintores, dramaturgos, escritores, bailarinas, psicoanalistas, entre ellos Artaud y Miller, dos hermosos monstruos!

[Lo Inga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blandade känslor. Jag älskar den värld som Anaïs har skapat. Där konsten och litteraturen är det som är meningsfullt, det är hennes allt. Det andra är sekundärt. Sättet hon skriver på är skarpt och poetiskt.
Men ibland är hon så påtagligt självgod och så är vissa delar lite förlegade. Vilket gör att det tar emot att läsa ibland.

Men denna bok har gjort stort intryck på mig.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Knowing about the life of Anais Nin, I can only regard this work as utter fiction. Her adolescent and arrogant delusions are at times amusing, other times embarrassing. Yet there is something interesting.....