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Nicole~'s Reviews > Incest: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin
Incest: From "A Journal of Love" -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932-1934)
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I want to spread myself on lots of paper, turn it into lots of sentences, lots of words so that I won't be walked on.
- Anais Nin
Nin's Incest is an explosive, emotional confession; an illuminating self analysis and in-depth psychological study of her soul. Relentlessly probing and insightful, Nin details and analyzes dreams and daily events, shedding light on her exhaustive need for love, in part due to the vacuous hole in her psyche left by her father's abandonment of the family when she was still a very young girl. Nin bares naked the sexual and pathological desires not only of herself but of well-known figures to whom she had strong attachments - Henry Miller, Otto Rank, Antonin Artaud, René Allendy , among others - all who seem like father-figures themselves. To Nin, to experience love meant to keep a balance between her independence and interdependence, her singularity and dual nature. Her own assessment of her dual nature is explained with the precision of a professional psychologist, as she describes the controversial liaisons with her estranged father, Joaquin - a self styled Don Juan.
Joaquin: "I had a dream of you which frightened me. I dreamed that you masturbated me with jeweled fingers and that I kissed you like a lover. For the first time in my life I was terrified."
Բï: "I also had a dream of you."
"I don't feel toward you as if you were my daughter."
"I don't feel as if you were my Father."
"What a tragedy. What are we going to do about it? I have met the woman of my life, the ideal, and it is my daughter! I cannot even kiss you as I would like to. I'm in love with my own daughter!"
Nin's writing aesthetic is hypnotic: the unrestrained style in which she reports events have both dreamlike and authentic qualities; fantastic yet real, allusive as well as explicit. She dares to write about such tabooed feelings and acts never before printed in women's books. In heated episodes of seduction, she becomes the 'bad' girl her father desires - she becomes in effect his double, a Donna Juana.
(view spoiler)
Nin acknowledges that she tortuously embraced the role of seducer to her padre -amour in order in the end to hurt Joaquin. Incest is a salacious confession in which Nin has laid herself widely opened like French doors on the balcony of the world - and oh, what a view!
Relationship was impossible unless one gave the most secret and deepest part of oneself...
The diary is not a Recherche du Temps Perdu. It is actually a seeking to unite the past, the present, and the future. My life today is just as it was when I was writing the diary; it is always very full and very rich. I'm always exploring new realms of experience, I'm always curious, I'm always ready for adventure. - Anaïs Nin, A Woman Speaks.
Nin's Incest is an explosive, emotional confession; an illuminating self analysis and in-depth psychological study of her soul. Relentlessly probing and insightful, Nin details and analyzes dreams and daily events, shedding light on her exhaustive need for love, in part due to the vacuous hole in her psyche left by her father's abandonment of the family when she was still a very young girl. Nin bares naked the sexual and pathological desires not only of herself but of well-known figures to whom she had strong attachments - Henry Miller, Otto Rank, Antonin Artaud, René Allendy , among others - all who seem like father-figures themselves. To Nin, to experience love meant to keep a balance between her independence and interdependence, her singularity and dual nature. Her own assessment of her dual nature is explained with the precision of a professional psychologist, as she describes the controversial liaisons with her estranged father, Joaquin - a self styled Don Juan.
Joaquin: "I had a dream of you which frightened me. I dreamed that you masturbated me with jeweled fingers and that I kissed you like a lover. For the first time in my life I was terrified."
Բï: "I also had a dream of you."
"I don't feel toward you as if you were my daughter."
"I don't feel as if you were my Father."
"What a tragedy. What are we going to do about it? I have met the woman of my life, the ideal, and it is my daughter! I cannot even kiss you as I would like to. I'm in love with my own daughter!"
Nin's writing aesthetic is hypnotic: the unrestrained style in which she reports events have both dreamlike and authentic qualities; fantastic yet real, allusive as well as explicit. She dares to write about such tabooed feelings and acts never before printed in women's books. In heated episodes of seduction, she becomes the 'bad' girl her father desires - she becomes in effect his double, a Donna Juana.
(view spoiler)
Nin acknowledges that she tortuously embraced the role of seducer to her padre -amour in order in the end to hurt Joaquin. Incest is a salacious confession in which Nin has laid herself widely opened like French doors on the balcony of the world - and oh, what a view!
Relationship was impossible unless one gave the most secret and deepest part of oneself...
The diary is not a Recherche du Temps Perdu. It is actually a seeking to unite the past, the present, and the future. My life today is just as it was when I was writing the diary; it is always very full and very rich. I'm always exploring new realms of experience, I'm always curious, I'm always ready for adventure. - Anaïs Nin, A Woman Speaks.
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Reading Progress
August 16, 2014
–
Started Reading
August 16, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
August 16, 2014
– Shelved
August 16, 2014
–
30.0%
"I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as an ordinary woman. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I'm a neurotic- in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.
Anaïs setting me up for what's to come..."
Anaïs setting me up for what's to come..."
August 17, 2014
–
45.0%
"No,no,no..she didn't!! What am I saying? She DID. Anaïs, what were you thinking, and what were you thinking with?"
August 19, 2014
–
60.0%
"I take refuge in intellectual amusements. This "real" journal that I will write for Hugh- that amuses me as a tour de force. If I should die and both be read - which one is me?"
August 21, 2014
–
85.0%
"..,we talked about the realism of the woman, and Rank said perhaps that was why women had never been great artists. They invented nothing. It was a man, not a woman, who invented the soul. Otto Rank proved himself to be a delusional jerk!"
August 24, 2014
–
Finished Reading
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
autobiography
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
erotica
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
prudes-anon
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
fem-bot
December 7, 2014
– Shelved as:
nin
Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)
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Samadrita
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Oct 18, 2014 11:08PM
Excellent. I really must procure her diaries. Are you reading them in order?
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The Proust reference is amusing: I am wondering what would have happened if good ole Marcel with his rage for jealousy had fallen in love with a smoldering older woman like this, complex sexuality and all, instead of his young women by the sea? Probably would have needed another couple of lifetimes to get it all down on paper. Thank you for your two reviews of Nin's fascinating diaries, Nicole, I really enjoyed reading them.
Samadrita wrote: "Excellent. I really must procure her diaries. Are you reading them in order?"Unfortunately not. I first stumbled on Fire, the third volume in the Unexpurgated diary. I've since read Henry and June, then Incest. I'll eventually get to the last portion, Nearer the Moon. FYI, not that I'm plugging Kindle, but they're all on the Kindle Unlimited program.
Thanks for the nice comment, Samadrita. It's always uplifting to hear from you.
Nice . I think I should give her a try.
Stephen wrote: "The Proust reference is amusing: I am wondering what would have happened if good ole Marcel with his rage for jealousy had fallen in love with a smoldering older woman like this, complex sexuality ..."Your generous comments pleased me very much, Stephen, thank you! Proust would have been 32 years old when Anais was born, and she was 19 when he died. I suppose given her father-projection on her lovers, he was probably the right age for her. She actually admitted to being inspired by him, too. The two diaries idea is not so improbable; Nin revealed in 'Incest' that she kept a false diary to hide her real activities from her husband. She lived LARGE!
Agnieszka wrote: "Nice . I think I should give her a try."Thanks Agnieszka. Anais is complex but such a pleasure to peer into her head.
Great! I've been meaning to read her diaries ever since Rowena's reviews. Your review has definitely sealed the deal. This one reminds me of Harrison's The Kiss. Interesting. I think I'll start with the first one and move forward...
Cheryl wrote: "Great! I've been meaning to read her diaries ever since Rowena's reviews. Your review has definitely sealed the deal. This one reminds me of Harrison's The Kiss. Interesting. I think ..."The Kiss sounds intriguing to compare how Harrison visits the taboo of incest to Nin's. Thanks, Cheryl.
