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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
While many of the stories in this collection are super dated with some real old-school ideas about sexuality and perversity, Nin's style of writing was understated and beautiful, and I really enjoyed this volume. The preface was really helpful in understanding the context in which Nin wrote these stories - as a starving artist receiving a dollar a page from a mysterious collector - which helped me understand why sometimes the stories would change focus or end abruptly. What they lacked in structure, though, they more than made up for in artistry. Nin's writing is sensual, richly descriptive, and, naturally, a complete pleasure to read.
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The writing itself is beautiful, and this classic work of short stories was something I had to study in the past at uni and have slowly dipped in and out of since.
It's erotica, and as boundary pushing as Lolita, if not more so. The merit can be found in what I see as a daring and unrelenting pursual of truth in human sexuality, but the book has not aged well. Whilst Nin is at times incredibly liberal, she is also reductive, racist and fetishising in a way that I cannot appreciate.
There are snippets of especially poetic beauty, in writing and story. I could write essay after essay on this text, so I'd recommend it if you are willing to read it for what it is: a daring book on sexuality written by a woman in the 1970s. It explores the male gaze, power, private and public spaces, and sensuality as well as sexuality. But it is a text to be read critically, not to be absorbed without thought, because although I believe it has its place as a historic text, it is outdated in its ideals.
It's erotica, and as boundary pushing as Lolita, if not more so. The merit can be found in what I see as a daring and unrelenting pursual of truth in human sexuality, but the book has not aged well. Whilst Nin is at times incredibly liberal, she is also reductive, racist and fetishising in a way that I cannot appreciate.
There are snippets of especially poetic beauty, in writing and story. I could write essay after essay on this text, so I'd recommend it if you are willing to read it for what it is: a daring book on sexuality written by a woman in the 1970s. It explores the male gaze, power, private and public spaces, and sensuality as well as sexuality. But it is a text to be read critically, not to be absorbed without thought, because although I believe it has its place as a historic text, it is outdated in its ideals.
Anais Nin is engaged in a high wire act here, balancing finely-tuned prose written from the perspective of the women in the stories, without plunging into the muck where most eroticism descends. Not only is this work elegant in both ambiance and description, but it conveys an aura of exoticism as heady as a cloud of French perfume.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Drug use, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence
When I read the blurb I expected more female exploration around sexuality. Trigger warnings: paedophilia, sexual assault were explicit in just the first three stories. Not what I was expecting and not comfortable to read. I stopped after the first three stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence
Loving the idea, and her writing is amazing.
At certain points (almost all the time) she had me blushing. But, all in all a very pleasant read :)
"Only whores possessed sexual organs. Miguel had seen such women very early when his older brothers had dragged him to the whorehouses. While his brothers took the women, he caressed their breasts. He filled his mouth with them, hungrily. But he was frightened by what he saw between their legs. To him it looked like a huge, wet, hungry mouth. He felt that he could never satisfy it. He was frightened by the luring crevice, the lips rigid under the stroking finger, the liquid that came like the saliva of a hungry person. He imagined this hunger of women as tremendous, ravenous, insatiable. It seemed to him that his penis would be swallowed forever. The whores he happened to see had big sexes, big, leathery sex lips, big buttocks."
"she had readily accepted this and come to believe that slender, intellectual, positive women could not be desired."
"He liked the infernos of love, love mixed with great sufferings and great obstacles. He wanted to kill monsters and overcome enemies and struggle like some Don Quixote."
"Talking together is a form of intercourse. You and I exist together in all the delirious countries of the sexual world. You draw me into the marvelous. Your smile keeps a mesmeric flow."
"He was jealous of her future, and she of his past. She became aware that she was twenty-five and he was forty, that he had experienced many things he was already tired of and she had not yet known."
At certain points (almost all the time) she had me blushing. But, all in all a very pleasant read :)
"Only whores possessed sexual organs. Miguel had seen such women very early when his older brothers had dragged him to the whorehouses. While his brothers took the women, he caressed their breasts. He filled his mouth with them, hungrily. But he was frightened by what he saw between their legs. To him it looked like a huge, wet, hungry mouth. He felt that he could never satisfy it. He was frightened by the luring crevice, the lips rigid under the stroking finger, the liquid that came like the saliva of a hungry person. He imagined this hunger of women as tremendous, ravenous, insatiable. It seemed to him that his penis would be swallowed forever. The whores he happened to see had big sexes, big, leathery sex lips, big buttocks."
"she had readily accepted this and come to believe that slender, intellectual, positive women could not be desired."
"He liked the infernos of love, love mixed with great sufferings and great obstacles. He wanted to kill monsters and overcome enemies and struggle like some Don Quixote."
"Talking together is a form of intercourse. You and I exist together in all the delirious countries of the sexual world. You draw me into the marvelous. Your smile keeps a mesmeric flow."
"He was jealous of her future, and she of his past. She became aware that she was twenty-five and he was forty, that he had experienced many things he was already tired of and she had not yet known."