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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Anais Nin was the master of building illusions, but this the volume where she begins to pull them away and see how her dream world was wounding her rather than protecting her. Featured a great intro by Kim Krizan, who wrote a great book of essays delving into Anais.
feels wrong to rate someone’s diary, so i won’t. but i loved this. she speaks to my soul.
Llevo tanto tiempo leyendo a Anaïs Nin que ya es más amiga mía que algunas de mis amigas. Pero que ninguna se me ofenda, por favor. Es que esta señora era pura introspección y puro fuego. Podría haber vivido en cualquier época y el resultado de estos diarios fascinantes sería el mismo porque en ellos habla de lo universal, de lo único que importa en realidad. Os recomiendo que también vosotras os hagáis sus amigas. Ya veréis como después lo entendéis todo. Pero todo.
"Only in fever do I feel life."
Nin is nothing without others-- a depressive shell of a soul-- but with others, she is beautifully, wonderfully, achingly everything. She cannot endure the mild temperament of simple love, of settling, of ennui. She is manic and wild and obsessed with her lovers, a chameleon-collage of them all. And I can't get enough.
To be in love with passion is to be absolutely mad, a manic enigma. Nin expresses it perfectly.
I have never related so deeply to another description of a vicarious life through passion. I am obsessed with Nin's writing. It brings me great peace to know I'm not alone in my love for love, and in the ensuing madness.
Nin is nothing without others-- a depressive shell of a soul-- but with others, she is beautifully, wonderfully, achingly everything. She cannot endure the mild temperament of simple love, of settling, of ennui. She is manic and wild and obsessed with her lovers, a chameleon-collage of them all. And I can't get enough.
To be in love with passion is to be absolutely mad, a manic enigma. Nin expresses it perfectly.
I have never related so deeply to another description of a vicarious life through passion. I am obsessed with Nin's writing. It brings me great peace to know I'm not alone in my love for love, and in the ensuing madness.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Mirages brings Nin’s complicated, dramatic, and lust-filled affairs to the forefront, as she searches for the real lover who understands the depths of her being. Oftentimes, I saw myself in her––her anxious attachment style, the idealisation of a partner’s potential, always living in the dream, and how the unhealed wounds of her father plagued her romantic life.
And yet, in a strange paradox, Nin has the rare power of being completely open and vulnerable, but carries the heaviest secret of all: somehow keeping her numerous affairs (and even second marriage!!) from her devoted husband, Hugo. I still can’t wrap my brain around how he could have been completely oblivious to Nin’s unfaithfulness. I suppose sometimes we only see what we wish to see, blinding ourselves to the truth.
Regardless, it’s a fascinating diary filled with sexual exploration, the lovers that come and go, sensitivity, and healing, healing, healing. It is a constant journey of being pulled into the darkness of the shadow self and finding the light again and again ("I touched the bottom again and then liberated myself”).
Here are a few of my favorite quotes, to gain a sense of Nin’s poetic and lovely writing style:
“I felt the flow again, the mellowness, a sense of connection with the currents of life. I am in the dream again.”
“Yes, I am in love; it is a feeling that opens one like a flower, fills one with essences that make one mobile and singing like the wind or the sea.”
“I am so open to the world, so open, so much in contact with it, it is like a huge cosmic love affair!”
“I gave myself to the sea and returned with strength.”
“I live openly, ready for the pain, the separations and losses. I am not holding on. Open and free, sad at moments, but knowing the deep joys are worth all that follows. Deep joys. One must be willing to suffer, to surrender.”
“Pleasure is always there, always possible, when one is not obsessed with a quest to conquer the unattainable, to force one’s will upon the unwilling, to change the unchangeable, to conquer what is not conquerable, to want what cannot be taken.”
“The cage is open, but I don’t know how to fly.”
“How some can find the entrances to the being, and others cannot.”
And yet, in a strange paradox, Nin has the rare power of being completely open and vulnerable, but carries the heaviest secret of all: somehow keeping her numerous affairs (and even second marriage!!) from her devoted husband, Hugo. I still can’t wrap my brain around how he could have been completely oblivious to Nin’s unfaithfulness. I suppose sometimes we only see what we wish to see, blinding ourselves to the truth.
Regardless, it’s a fascinating diary filled with sexual exploration, the lovers that come and go, sensitivity, and healing, healing, healing. It is a constant journey of being pulled into the darkness of the shadow self and finding the light again and again ("I touched the bottom again and then liberated myself”).
Here are a few of my favorite quotes, to gain a sense of Nin’s poetic and lovely writing style:
“I felt the flow again, the mellowness, a sense of connection with the currents of life. I am in the dream again.”
“Yes, I am in love; it is a feeling that opens one like a flower, fills one with essences that make one mobile and singing like the wind or the sea.”
“I am so open to the world, so open, so much in contact with it, it is like a huge cosmic love affair!”
“I gave myself to the sea and returned with strength.”
“I live openly, ready for the pain, the separations and losses. I am not holding on. Open and free, sad at moments, but knowing the deep joys are worth all that follows. Deep joys. One must be willing to suffer, to surrender.”
“Pleasure is always there, always possible, when one is not obsessed with a quest to conquer the unattainable, to force one’s will upon the unwilling, to change the unchangeable, to conquer what is not conquerable, to want what cannot be taken.”
“The cage is open, but I don’t know how to fly.”
“How some can find the entrances to the being, and others cannot.”
Very interesting but too much psychoanalysis- the last few sections focused on it very heavily and it was frustrating, although it seemed to help her work through some of her issues.