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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
I normally don't read erotica, but I received this collection of short stories as a gift and figured I'd give it a try.
I actually really enjoyed Nin's "no nonsense" style of writing and her descriptions. As for the stories, very few intrigued me. But Nin does preface Delta of Venus that she wrote these stories for the pure pleasure of a particular male client who didn't want any poetry, just the down and dirty sex.
And that's exactly what you'll get. Some stories are funny, many have violence, some have incest. They are indeed across the board.
I might read another Nin novel, but erotic in general doesn't whet my appetite. (Did you see what I did there?!)
I actually really enjoyed Nin's "no nonsense" style of writing and her descriptions. As for the stories, very few intrigued me. But Nin does preface Delta of Venus that she wrote these stories for the pure pleasure of a particular male client who didn't want any poetry, just the down and dirty sex.
And that's exactly what you'll get. Some stories are funny, many have violence, some have incest. They are indeed across the board.
I might read another Nin novel, but erotic in general doesn't whet my appetite. (Did you see what I did there?!)
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Beautifully crafted. Stunning writing. Erotica can be beautiful and not trashy. The fact that this was written in an era where women were not often seen as sexually beings makes the book even more fascinating. Superb.
Some of the most horrifying, taboo subjects written unbearably well. Anais was really like, oh you want erotica? You got it sickos! Iconic. Gorgeous. I love taboo!
When I added this book to my list of must-reads I imagined it would be something like D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, a work I greatly enjoyed. But while Lawrence's Chatterley is a striking modernist novel about the class system, gender disparity, and sexuality with many well written and daring erotic scenes, Nin's Delta of Venus is a book filled with daring erotic scenes, with many well written stories about class, gender disparity, and sexuality thrown in. Delta of Venus is actually a collection of short works written by Nin for a collector of erotica. Her instructions were to eliminate poetic writing in favor of heavily descriptive sex scenes, but Nin melds description and story telling artfully. Her writing, her tendency to delve further and further into the relationships and personal emotions of her characters, reminds me Lawrence's modernist handling of prose, while her characters' sexual abandon reminds me of Martin Amis's more recent novel, The Pregnant Widow, about the feminist and sexual revolution of the 1970s (which, by the way, harks heavily back to Lawrence). This book probably isn't for everyone but Nin is credited with giving literature a language for sex and sensuality, and I think for giving women a place in that language as well. She continued what Lawrence started, and what society in general continued a few decades later.
Why bother with sub-par prose found in such books as Fifty Shades of Grey when you can read Anais Nin? I mean, honestly.
If you want to read a million stories about French people getting their freak on in a sticky sloppy way, then go for it. I didn’t really enjoy because the first story mentions both p*dophelia and inc*st, and ngl that freaked me out!!!
Well that was shocking. I am not sure how I feel, there were some pretty taboo subjects that I skipped over because I refused to go there. It has some great $7 words and it was well written. Alas, it had to be one of the raspiest books I have ever read...rape rape rape..be warned proceed with caution.