Reviewed by Jianda Johnson
(3/8/00)

And the day came
when the risk to remain
tight in a bud
was more painful
than the risk it took
to blossom.

--Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)

Would you rather spend time in an erotic writer's body or inside her mind? Before you answer "both," let me ask you this: when you think of Anaïs Nin's prose, what keywords come to you? Sexy? Sure. How about: stylish, intelligent, Henry Miller's literary lover, anima and animus, and charmed erotica? These ideas are still accurate in my estimation, but reading this Parisian-born author's diary (one of at least 10 published volumes) has added color and dimension to my heretofore limited view of Anaïs, the bemused muse.

I picked up this volume in particular because I knew of her wild jaunts and artsy all-night chats with her myriad artistic friends from this era -- like avant-garde musicians Varèse and John Cage, and filmmakers Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren. I prepared for a luscious deluge of whimsical sexspeak. Instead, I found a reflective, self-aware treatise on the beauty and value of sexiness.

For Nin, there was no division between mental discourse and physical intercourse. What one did behind closed doors was one's own business, and love (which to her, included sexual expression) was the only law. Anaïs, with utmost respect for the privacy and sex lives of friends and lovers alike, engendered a kind, painstaking caution in editing, omitting, and receiving permissions about every passage in her diaries. The delicate balance of detailing her life, making a living for all of her prose, diaries or otherwise, and protecting these individuals she encountered were always in her consciousness.

In this volume, she's less cautious about what she chooses to disclose. While she still keeps others' lives sacrosanct, gone are the fetters for her own life. She excerpts rejection letters in the diary, and even includes a critique of a previously published volume. She admits and accepts her so-called neuroses with a calm centeredness about her state of being.

Perhaps her admitted affair with noted therapist Dr. Otto Rank symbolized her transcendence into becoming her own sex therapist. This volume was to be one of her last, a swan song of sorts, and she knew it. Nin might have preferred the term "albatross song," as the passages in this work are like the bird flying gaily off of her own dainty neck, and back to its rightful place in the sky.

"Pleasure is an attitude, not a person or place," she writes, "Just as guilt was my greatest tormentor." Much of her work details that interplay between sin and absolution. In this volume, however, she finally ends her relationship with self-torture. This alone is a pleasure to read.

Erotic writers might find this book to be particularly moving. Anaïs jumps from her dread (and gradual loving acceptance) of unsexy housework to attending a party where a woman exposes her gorgeous breasts for kicks, to a rather blasé reaction to the selling of a collection of her diaries as "erotic fiction." Ho-hum, from dishes to great knockers to creating literary history, all in a day's work.

Meanwhile, she pontificates about the merits of Jazz and Surrealism, the power and symbolism that dreams bring up, and the drama of the self. Filled with anecdotes, sexual remembrances and musings about topics as diverse as LSD, virginity and Beatniks, Nin's eclectic and informed delight in it all is captivating.

While not as sexually-charged as, say, Andy Warhol's diary, Nin's journal truly emphasizes the "love" in lover as she observes the world around her. Warhol saw sex as incidental kitsch, as sexy for others. Nin's diary style is much more empowered, à la Marguerite Duras, her contemporary. Nin was a woman enamored with beautiful ideas and beautiful people (who were in turn enamored with her). Sexual reflecting pools abound in this book, and to Anaïs and her friends, a Picasso painting might be sexually appealing. Sensuality reigns supreme, even in the mundane. There's a joy and gratitude that manifests when life energy quivers in your cerebellum, all the way down to the loins, and this work reminds you of that.

The diary does feature select "teasers." When propositioned by a lady friend for instance, Anaïs informs her she "never loved a woman sexually," not even June Miller (Henry's wife). One wonders today, might that be like Bill Clinton's "never had relations" comment? But here, nestled behind a makeshift geisha girl's wall, there's no need to pry further.

If you're really hot to get turned on, I understand that Nin's earlier diaries (1930s) chronicle the days of her first sexual exploration. There are also choice highlights in this volume, which include a poetry reading scene in which Allen Ginsberg bares his soul and his ass to prove a point, and a real (gasp!) erotic prose-poem called "Sinfonia Erotica" (Don't blister your fingers turning to its first page, number 270).

When Anaïs Nin finally decided to share her musings with the public, she worked like mad to get the diaries she had hidden all her life published. We find her at volume six getting her literal affairs in order, releasing the sad, mournful hooks and hang-ups she had tied in with sexuality, and writing the piece knowing full well it would be published. Confident in this knowledge, she includes select gifts for the reader that resonate well after the read is over.

"If my lover is irritating," Nin muses, "I will think what a beautiful alibi he gives me for going on a journey....If my lover talks too much, I will look out of the window and listen to the rain and think of how well they synchronize." This is the mindset that gets couples through bed death. It re-ignites passion after a long sex slumber.

It's everything a good lover should aspire to be.