Is Anais Nin a good writer? Ought we take her seriously?

Apparently some do, but the description on the back of the Penguin edition about sums up this book. It is culled from the "unexpurgated" diaries of Ms. Nin during the period when writer Henry Miller and his wife June Masefield figure large on her horizon. It is a "compelling account of a woman's sexual and emotional awakening."

If you don't groan at that charmless phrase, variations of which are so thoughtlessly used to describe any risque tome penned by a woman, you may enjoy "Henry and June" here. But what this really is, this diary, so obviously written with publication in mind (so much of it is flowery, "daring" and "conflicted"), is a record of one person's unchecked narcissism. It is the diary of a spoiled little rich girl and her self-created problems.

No one comes off well in this. The husband is the world's most oblivious cuckold. The psychoanalyst is a bit of a charlatan who secretly lusts for some Nin. The writer is a would-be volcano who's disappointingly a kitten at heart. His wife is surely a neurotic Fury who'll end up destroying everyone in the end. Alas! But the narrator comes off worst of all.

She loves her husband Hugo, that bland boob, or... wait! she loves Miller, who she's sure will be a great literary genius or... no, maybe she hates Miller and loves her analyst, who can seemingly read her like a book, play her like a violin, or... no, it's June, Miller's wife, absent for most of the time in question, but always present as the object of Nin's lesbian dreams, who dominates all, all! Sigh. Whom she loves depends on the week, really, but most assuredly she loves Anaïs. And one's appreciation of the book depends on how much Anaïs one can stomach. I made it to the end after a stretch, but didn't feel very good about it.

The world of Anais Nin is a world of fantasy, sensuality, and erotism.

Anaïs was a fragile figure, both physically and psychologically. She carried the shadow of her father's abandonment, which haunted her throughout her life. She sought the father figure in older men who made her feel loved and protected.

Anais was insecure, not feeling attractive in the eyes of men, yet she had an enormous curiosity for new sexual experiences. When she met Henry and June, it was June who she felt a strong attraction to. When June traveled, she drew closer to Henry, first through the sharing of writing, and then through the man himself. It was with him that she transitioned from a girl to a woman and lost all her preconceptions and shyness. She surrendered to the giving and then plunged into uncertainty and suffering.

Anais lived everything with an exaggerated intensity. She loved her husband with tenderness, Henry with passion, felt sorry for Eduardo, and I don't even know what she felt for Fred. In truth, she felt the need to provoke men and to feel admired by them. She alternated moments of exaltation with others of profound suffering. She underwent psychoanalysis but ended up involved with the therapist.

Perhaps she didn't want to give up any of them because each in their own way completed her in some form. But she was inconsistent. One day she loved Henry, the next day she didn't, she was jealous of June, but then she loved June and was jealous of Henry, then she was angry with her husband but soon felt sorry and turned the anger towards Henry... She loved too much and suffered too much.

I liked the delicate and emotive writing, which reveals well the woman that Anais was, letting passion and drama flow from the words in an intense way.

I didn't want it to end.

That's not to say that it didn't end rather abruptly.

Why, Anais?
By the way, I have been reading simultaneously both the English and the Greek version.

And I have to say, Babasakis' translation in Greek is absolutely superb!

The way he has captured the essence and the nuances of the original text is truly remarkable.

It's as if he has breathed new life into the story, making it even more engaging and captivating in the Greek language.

Each word seems to be carefully chosen and placed, creating a beautiful and流畅的 narrative.

I find myself completely immersed in the story, thanks to his excellent translation.

I can't wait to see what other works he will translate in the future.

Hopefully, there will be many more to come.

The journal entries that have been selected, which showcase Anais Nin's affair with Henry and June Miller, have the power to make any woman's desire burn with intensity.

Anaïs, in an effort not to cause harm to her husband, removed these particular portions from her diary that was originally intended for publication. I can completely understand her reasoning. What she wrote within those pages is incredibly sensual and liberating in a sexual sense.

Having been born and raised Catholic, I was personally sexually repressed. This book, however, opened up an entirely new world for me. I had no inkling that as a woman, one could truly enjoy sex and that it could be so much more than just for the purpose of reproduction. Any curious reader is bound to find the writings both interesting and highly sensual, offering a peek into a realm that may have been previously unknown or unimagined.

It is through works like these that our perspectives on sexuality can be expanded and new understandings can be gained.

Anais Nin has been an idol of mine for a long time. There are few women of literary stature whom I find relatable. As a young reader, I cherished Judy Bloom. However, as an adult woman, I was thrilled to read Anais Nin. She was intelligent, witty, and sexually provocative.

I admire her supreme linguistic talent. Her writing, in whatever form, always maintains a powerful poetic lexicon. She made love most fervently when she held the pen in her hand. This excerpt from her personal journal is so very intimate, full of sexuality, but you can feel her grace and delicate vulnerability. It is something deeply personal left for us readers.

I also admire Nin because she was an uninhibited sexual being long before it was socially acceptable. Is it even acceptable today? "Sensuality is a secret power in my body, someday it will show, healthy and ample. Wait a while." Her thoughts and feelings are confident as she expresses herself, an empowering embodiment of feminism even by today's standards. Her confidence becomes emboldened with lovers.

Nin is the epitome of unbridled lust for life. She lived her life to the fullest, unafraid to explore her desires and express herself. Her writing and her life serve as an inspiration to me and many others. She shows us that it is possible to be a strong, independent woman and still embrace our sexuality and our femininity.

What have I learned from Henry and June?

I have learned that if I were to have a passionate affair with Henry Miller, I should avoid the chaos caused by his narcissistic and borderline-personality wife June. However, that would result in a rather dull diary. After all, what would a diary about 1930s Paris be like without a highly charged emotional and sexual ménage à trois?

The 28-year-old Anais Nin longs for creative and sexual awakening. Her eight-year marriage to Hugo Gullier has become stagnant. Then, Henry Miller enters from stage left. Henry is crude, bold, intelligent, affectionate, and the complete opposite of Hugo. Henry is also having serious problems with his bisexual and femme fatale wife June. Anais dives into the messy relationship with a psychological splash, and before you can say "earth mother", she begins to nurture June and compete with Henry to write the "truth about June". These books would become Anais's "House of Incest" and Henry's banned classic "Tropic of Cancer". Of course, Henry and Anais fall madly in love, thus initiating an affair that would become a literary legend and last, on and off, for the next three decades.

This is an excellent, albeit rambling, tale about various kinds of awakenings.

What is all the hubbub, bub? I'm trying to find out.

Three months later, I have determined that this book is totally boring. I know she's a seminal writer in her genre, but whatever. The writing style and musings seem utterly self-absorbed and kind of obnoxious.

It's as if the author is so focused on her own thoughts and feelings that she forgets about the readers. The story lacks excitement and fails to engage me on any level. I keep waiting for something interesting to happen, but it never does.

I understand that some people might appreciate this type of writing, but it's just not for me. I prefer books that are more action-packed and have a clear plot. Maybe I'm just too impatient, but I don't see the point in reading something that doesn't hold my attention.

In conclusion, I would not recommend this book to anyone. It's a waste of time and money. There are plenty of other great books out there that are worth reading.

I absolutely loved the prose. There is not a single word that is placed randomly. How I envy being able to write so beautifully. It would be a perfect book if it weren't for the rather narrow bourgeois perspective that is taken on the theme.

The prose in this work is truly captivating. Every word seems to be carefully chosen and placed, creating a beautiful and engaging narrative. It's a pleasure to read and admire the author's skill in crafting such lovely sentences.

However, the limited bourgeois perspective on the theme detracts from the overall perfection of the book. It would have been even more remarkable if the author had explored the theme from a more diverse and inclusive range of viewpoints.

Despite this flaw, the beauty of the prose still shines through, and it's clear that the author has a great talent for writing. I look forward to seeing how they develop and grow as a writer in future works.

Nin's diaries hold a significant place in my perception. To me, they serve as a powerful warning against the perils of residing solely within one's own mind.

Her diaries are filled with spiraling obsessions that consume her thoughts, delusions that distort her reality, and lies that add a layer of complexity to her already tumultuous inner world. These aspects are profoundly disturbing, yet they also draw the reader in.

The writing, on the other hand, is exquisite. Nin has a way with words that makes her descriptions come alive and her emotions palpable. The whole read is fascinating, as it offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a highly complex and troubled individual.

Despite the disturbing nature of some of the content, Nin's diaries are a valuable source of inspiration and reflection. They remind us of the importance of staying grounded in reality and of the dangers of getting lost in our own thoughts and fantasies.

This book is among those that have deeply affected my existence up to the present moment. Even from reading the description and the controversial opinions about Anais Nin's diary, I knew that I would form a strong, blooming connection with her story. I say "blooming" because in these 260 pages of the book, Anais managed to convince me to read all her other works, as well as those of D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller, towards whom she had strong passions at that time. Therefore, I am convinced that this interaction of mine with the author is only going to bring many more other indirect links through literature and psychoanalysis.

Although this is not a work of fiction, it can be said that it has a beginning and an end, like any other narrative; Anais at the beginning of the diary is not the same Anais at the end, and the events she writes about evolve in a fascinating way in turn. In 1931, Anais was 28 years old and married to Hugo, a man who loved her sincerely and simply, and for whom she had the same kind of love without drama or burning passion. Although up to that point in her life Anais had still deceived her husband, everything changes when she meets the Millers: Henry and June. First of all, Anais forms a passion for June, finding herself partly in her and somewhat desiring to assimilate her traits, and then she falls irremediably in love with Henry. The middle part of the diary refers to the relationship between the two lovers in the absence of June, a utopia that is going to be ended at the moment of her return; June has great power over both of them and Anais and Henry are convinced of this, neither of them being able to give up the marriages they have in the past. If there could be a climax, it would be precisely the course that their relationship is going to take after June returns to the story. What will be chosen because of their love then?

Although Henry is the most often mentioned in her writings, Anais also divides her love with her cousin, Eduardo, with whom she has a long, rather unhappy love story, with Hugo, with her psychoanalyst, and with other men by chance. The narrative thread becomes useless from this point and only introspection remains, for which Anais educates herself better and better, coming to understand her beginnings and the reasons why she is never completely satisfied with those around her. In this diary, we have the beginnings of what I am convinced was going to be a great writer of her time, a successful woman who managed to seduce and soften the hearts of many important men with whom she came into contact. If we were to follow her pattern, I would say that each man this woman met several times reaches a point where he allows himself to be subjugated by her apparent kindness and innocence, as well as by the wild fire that they all feel in her, desiring to be devoured.

Anais tells how she and Henry build each other up and she manages to come out of her own shell, to get over the traumas of her childhood and to become a woman in the true sense of the word, the woman she always wanted to be. Over the months that pass, it seems to Anais that she has waited all her life for this kind of love and spiritual fulfillment that she has from 1931 onwards and she no longer understands how she could have led such a barren life in the past, compared to the thirst for carnal passion and not only that she feels all of a sudden. She constantly oscillates between the men in her life, has doubts about their sincerity but also about her own sincerity when she speaks to them or writes in her diary; she is a woman who knows her qualities and defects, recognizes her victories and losses, but always gets up and walks forward gracefully towards a new conquest. Her writer's spirit is the one that always pushes her to seek tragedy, to set fire, to attract those who love her by making them jealous, deliberately hurting them in turn, just to prove her power. Her diary was not published for people to decide the morality of her character because Anais recognizes from the beginning that she is an incestuous being, who seeks to have as many different adventures as possible, to experiment with men and women, to get lost in this world of folly just to come back later, to write, to reinvent herself as a human being. This charming woman managed to inspire Henry to write her passionate letters, perhaps like he had never done before for anyone, to dedicate passages from his books to her and to be forever inflamed by their love. This connection between the two writers is one of the most fascinating that I have ever read about, the one that any writer can secretly aspire to, like a kind of "forbidden paradise".

The fascination that Anais exercised over others also applied to me from the beginning; I found myself completely in every word of hers, in every mistake or tear, in every self-accusation and self-flagellation, in every fear of hers. When Allendy psychoanalyzed her, clearly explaining the links between her past, her thoughts and the actions that her instinct pushed her to do, I felt myself being psychoanalyzed too, thus coming to understand myself better. Although I don't believe in reincarnation, my soul and Anais' soul must have met or are going to meet somewhere in this Universe, because otherwise I can't explain these huge similarities between us two. I evolved along with Anais, I faced my fears along with her and I can't wait to see where her steps took her later, after she finally learned to really walk.

The end is rather abrupt but perfectly expected after all the analyses made by Anais during her extra-marital relationship with Henry Miller; the man whom she had financially supported, helped to edit his book and satisfied in every way was going to be claimed by his wife who secretly accused him of the same things that he reproached her for, especially towards Anais. Their story remains immortal both through authenticity and through the fact that these words have survived time, that they have come to be read almost a hundred years later and will continue to inspire writers or ordinary people to give their hearts what they need, without fearing social norms. Perhaps many who will read her diary will consider that Anais was simply lacking in judgment, a naive woman, easily manipulable, but that's exactly what the men who fell into her trap thought too, remember this aspect. For me, "Henry and June" remains a treasure that I discovered just in time, which propelled me into a world of self-discovery and appreciation of the true genius minds of humanity. No other book, let alone a non-fiction one, has made me feel so integrated into the story, body and soul next to the protagonist (or author in this case), and for that I am all grateful.

Anaisa Nina, a remarkable writer, was born in 1931. In Paris, she met the bohemian writer Henry Miller and his stunning wife June.

Immediately, she fell in love. Without hesitation. Deeply.

Anaisa enters the chaotic world of Henry and June and discovers within herself a woman... filled with passion and love for both of them.

She writes, "I will sit down to write a letter or a diary, seeking the truth, but perhaps in the end, the greatest melody will prove to be me, even greater than June, even greater than Albertine, for I imitate the truth."

Anaisa's journey of love and self-discovery is a captivating one, filled with the turmoil and beauty of human emotions. Her words and experiences continue to inspire readers to this day.

Her story is a testament to the power of love and the courage to follow one's heart, even in the face of unconventional relationships.

Anaisa Nina's life and work are a valuable addition to the literary canon, offering a unique perspective on love, art, and the human condition.

This book was truly lost on me.

I simply couldn't fathom the significance of that incessant nagging. One moment, the characters were professing their love, and the next, they were despising each other.

This cycle continued on and on, with them never reaching a decision about what they truly desired.

On numerous occasions, I had the urge to shout, "Stop making all that fuss and get on with living!"

Perhaps I lack the romanticism to understand the torment that Anaïs Nin intended to convey.

However, it's also possible that this book is just plain boring and lacks a captivating narrative.

Maybe if the story had been more engaging or the characters more developed, I would have been able to appreciate it.

As it stands, though, it failed to hold my interest and left me feeling rather disappointed.

I'm not sure if I would recommend this book to others, as it seems to be more of a chore to read than an enjoyable experience.

But perhaps there are those out there who would find something of value in its pages.

Only time will tell.