Stella

by Anaïs Nin

Stella, a little-known work written by Anais Nin in 1945, is an examination of self-discovery and self-worth, a theme central to much of her fiction. The title character is loosely based on actress Luise Rainer, with whom Nin had a contentious friendship. Stella is faced with the contrast between her love affair with a public that adores her for her film roles, and her personal inability to find human love. The men in Stella’s life include an ex-husband, a Don Juan lover, and a father who is not unlike Nin’s own.

It is ironic that Stella is offered a role in The Orphan, since the novella itself is somewhat of a motherless child. Nin experimented placing it in her 1946 Dutton edition of Ladders to Fire, and eventually in Swallow’s 1961 edition of Winter of Artifice, where remains today, as well as in Sky Blue Press’s anthology The Portable Anais Nin. Nin herself expressed the difficulty of finding Stella a home, so it only makes sense to offer it as a single title for the first time.

According to critic Oliver Evans, who compares Stella to D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover, says the novella “remains one of [Nin’s] most thoroughly realized performances. She has taken the timeworn theme of the possessive female and examined it through her microscopic lens from new and interesting angles.”

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

64 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1979

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

[BrokenTune · Rating 1 out of 5]

Granted, it may be the wrong book at the wrong time for me, but at present I can only summarise this story as over-dramatised drivel.

Given that this is the story of an actress struggling with her onstage and off-stage personae, this may well be a most fitting description.

Next!

[Dai-wei · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella is a snapshot. A thin skein of the headspace of Stella, an actress who cannot settle into her role in the play of life. Is she a woman actor or a husk acting as a woman? In a narrative that could be told in a few paragraphs from a different author's voice, 'Stella' lets you float through the woman and the actress, her lovers and her family, like constellations in the sky.

So yeah. Not a lot of action. Beautiful descriptions. This isn't so much a tale but instead a swim in the ocean that is Stella, if anything, to understand human natures in a pocket universe that will literally fit into your pocket (it's only 64 pages! ^_^).

[Kenya Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reread it, and still think it's three stars. Great writing, but not great writing. Story, but not really a story.

This book is definetly about Stella, and Stella needs to learn about marijuana or liquor or meditation or yoga. . .Stella needs to calm down and do some self-reflection and be happier.

I still love Anais Nin. She has wining lines all throughout the book, just not a winning story.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stella is a short story, maybe a one-hour read. It is supposedly taken from the life of an actress friend of Ms. Nin's. What Stella is about is an exploration of the ways love can be wrong.

Stella is an actress involved with two different men. She measures love in terms of the sacrifices a lover will make for her. Her father is man who realizes that he is getting old but does not realize he is incapable of love. He is only capable of taking and taking advantage of those who would love him. It should not be a surprise he is facing his second divorce. This story was written at a time when a single divorce was a scandal.

As this is a short story a more detailed review would wind up as a retelling of the story. Instead the point will be that Ms. Nin uses the narrative as a way to discuss the hurts and egos of people who cannot love in a healthy way. For the record this is not a story about, that describes or is otherwise about sex, it is an emotional if not a psychological study.

Ms. Nin can be a good writer and this is an example of her as a good writer. The other review of this story mentions that Colette as a better writer. This may be the general conclusion when comparing these two women, but that does not make Ms. Nin unworthy of your reading time. The almost $3 charge for the Kindle version of this story seems a little high but it is possible that there are still some copyrights active on the works or estate of Ms. Nin.

I first became aware of this authoress through her very famous diaries. I have found her writings to be a very mixed bag. However I intend to read more.

[Vipassana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The core of this drama of mine is that at an early age I lost the element of joy. (In childhood, we glimpsed paradise, its possibility, we exist in it.) At what moment was it lost and replaced by anguish?

As children, we don't hurt ourselves, but as we grow, humans imperceptibly turn into self maiming beings. We don't know how to find joy. Faced with scenes of sorrow and anguish, we forget this paradise. Sometimes we tell ourselves, it wasn't real. It was all just childish imagination. In this novella, Anais Nin takes a woman's acts of self destruction and explores its root cause. How does an innocent, beautiful child, turn into an absurd self berating adult? Why do we seek the familiarity of pain and suffering? As Stella asks herself these questions, you should ask yourself too.

[Nadia Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a story about insides, about the limits of the body as a medium. repetitious but what more can be expected of a person locked inside themselves ?

[PacoPacorius · Rating 4 out of 5]

πολυ πικρια και κουραση πισω απο αυτο το βιβλιο, προφανως μεταγενεστερο εργο της αναις. δεν εχει την ενταση της νιοτης που απο μονη της υπονοει αισιοδοξια, αλλα κυνικοτητα, μια κουραση ακολουθομενη απο παραιτηση. σιγουρα μπορουμε οι ανθρωποι να ξεπερασουμε καποια τραυματα της παιδικης μας ηλικιας, αλλα ολα;; ακομα κ το πιο βαρυ και εντονο, ακομα κ αυτο π εχει χαραχτει πιο βαθια μεσα μας απο ολα τα υπολοιπα; η αναις φαινεται να σκεφτεται οτι ειμαστε καταδικασμενοι να τα επαναλαμβανουμε συνεχεια στην ενηλικη ζωη μας διχως τελος....

α ρε αναις... μου εβαλες πολλες αμφιβολιες για την προσπάθειά μου να εκφραστω περισσότερο στον κόσμο γύρω μου.... ενώ στην αρχή δεν το νιωθα τόσο το βιβλιο, μεχρι το τέλος με χτύπησε βαριά και ανελεητα.....

[Benja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anaïs Nin's Stella provides a window into the life of an actress "who has lost herself and feels she can recover it by acting this self". The first half of the story relates of her scorned affair with a married man, the second half retraces her toxic taste in men back to her self-pitying father, also a famed actor.

It's a good story, neatly structured and told from an interesting perspective. I just don't happen to like Nin's writing style. It feels exaggerated, overly dramatic and she has a proclivity for restating the same thing two or three times in a row (i.e. "He barred the way with his self-love. His self-love isolated him. Self-love the watchman, barring all entrance, all communication"). At about 50 pages long, this novelette feels like it has 20 too many.

[Madeline Puckett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deeply emotional view into an inner life - at times it lost my attention, but Anais Nin's writing is beautiful and haunting as always.

It raises questions of reality and love, how our parents shape us, our public faces vs. inner turmoil, etc.

[rory · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

[dxneehp · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Mary Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

interior world

[cass krug · Rating 3 out of 5]

a short and ultimately forgettable deep cut from nin grappling with an actress’s different personas