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After years of knowing Anais Nin only as a crossword clue (many of those years believing her to be a him), I thought I should go ahead and pick up some of Nin's writing, most specifically, some of her journals as she is known to me most as a journalist, and then vaguely as an eroticist.

The vagaries of the library resulted in the volume of journal I checked out being the 2nd half of the unexpurgated account of Anais Nin's affair with Henry Miller. The timeline also covers Nin's affairs with her two psychoanalysts; Miller's wife, June; Antonin Artaud; and her father. That is quite a few people for two years, especially considering that she was involved with most of them simultaneously. Not to mention the fact that she was married during this period as well.

Leaving aside all the accounts of her sexual encounters, perhaps the best thing about Anais Nin's journal for me was the opportunity to read another woman's thoughts, and be able to relate to them in a different way from men's autobiographical accounts. Nin explores thoroughly in her journal what it means to be a woman, a married woman, an unfaithful woman. She discusses the difficulties she has focusing on her own writing when she is supporting the writing both of her husband, Hugh Guiler, and that of Henry Miller. Her criticism and feedback become so necessary to Miller that when she vacations away from him, he is unable to write, edit, or otherwise work. Nonetheless, she has the continual sense that her own writing, although perhaps not as "important" as Miller's, is excellent, and has its own place in the world. Incidental people that she meets throughout the journal constantly tell her that her own writing is far superior to that of Miller's, and that she should leave him in order to focus on her own work. This conflict, although not central to the narrative, is vital to it. Nin struggles with her need to be a provider to the men in her life, the needs the men have for her to provide for them, and her desire to be protected, cared for, and provided for herself. Essentially, Nin articulates beautifully the continual feminine conflict of being a wife and mother while being "the weaker sex".

Towards the end of this particular volume, however, Nin begins to seem rather fickle. She cannot decide whether she still loves Henry. She cannot decide if she still loves her father. She constantly wavers between which of her many lovers is her favorite. Nin seems to lose a sense of self in her efforts to juggle, care for, and satisfy all of her men. She fades beneath the questions about which men to stay with, which to jostle. The last hundred or so pages of the volume were therefore unsatisfying for me. The previously strong, independent Nin becomes subject; dependent on Henry for his neediness; dependent on her analyst, Rank, for his approval.

I had intended to check out other volumes of Nin's journals, but after consideration, I think the one volume is all I can swallow at the moment. Perhaps I will dabble in more at a later point, but not likely within this 50 books cycle.