"And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Writer and lover Anaïs Nin has always been seductive to me. For a few days now, I've been considering writing about her life. Last night, I had this dream. I dreamed that Anaïs Nin and me were in a theater, and we got bored. We went out to walk Paris streets, and stopped at one big crossroad between boulevards. Jane Birkin was there with us. It was foggy and wide on the streets. We talked about common things you talk about when having a cigarette on the street. As a child, I was in love with Paris and what Paris meant to certain writers, but by the time I visited, well, it was 21st century and I was a bit disappointed. But, in this dream, with Anaïs Nin, I could feel what Paris was to her. I exclaimed: For the first time, I see the beauty of your Paris! And she laughed and hugged me. The feeling of discovering her Paris in a dream made me wake up very inspired to tackle her life and work this morning.
Anaïs Nin was born in January 1903 in France. She was raised there, and spent some time in Cuba and Spain as well. She lived between the US and France for most of her life. Her most famous works are her journals, which she started writing when she was 11. She also wrote novels, essays, critical texts. In 1920, she married for the first time. Together with her husband, a banker and an artist, she moved to Paris. She began her writing career and was transformed upon meeting Otto Rank, psychoanalyst who was one of Freud's closest colleagues. After her second session with him, she wrote of her desire to be "re-born" as a woman and an artist. While she was in Paris, Nin met Henry Miller. He was an American writer who was very controversial in the States at the time. His novels were banned from the US until 1961, due to his subjects such as social criticism, sex, mysticism and surrealism. Although Anaïs was married at the time, she had an explosive affair with Miller, and basically supported him, as he lived the life of a struggling artist. She was passionately in love with both his body and his mind. Over some 20 years, they exchanged many beautiful letters that have since become precious literary heritage. By the end of the 40's, Nin returned to the States with her husband. In 1955, she married 16 years older actor Rupert Pole, while still being married to her first husband Guiler. She lived with Pole until her death in 1977.
In 1940's, Nin, Miller and their friends were broke in Paris. They agreed to write erotic stories for an anonymous collector for a dollar a page. Anaïs' stories were later published in books Delta of Venus and Little Birds. Sexually, her father and Miller left the biggest mark on her. Her first book was called House of Incest, but she only ever insinuated the abuse from her father. As far as Miller goes, she was sexually obsessed with both him and his wife, June. It is unclear whether Anaïs and June ever consummated their relationship, but to Anaïs, June was the ultimate femme fatale - she often praised her and gave her gifts.
Anaïs is often cited as the first woman who wrote erotica in the west. her stories were explicit yet subtle. She was first introduced to erotic writings in her late teens. She found erotic books in the apartment she rented with her first husband in Paris, and after that her view on sex has changed, she was no longer innocent.
When I was maybe 12 years old, I found in our library one book by Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy. The book is semi-autobiographical, documenting his life in Paris: the drinking, the writing, the sex. It was the first time I ever masturbated, reading that book. For years, it was my hidden treasure. One time, many years later, I found a copy in the house of a new lover. He had a beautiful house on the sea side, there was a thunderstorm, we were exhausted from fucking, just lying there under the red lights, and I picked up that again. It was as good as it always was, and I read it to my lover in whispers.
So my first lover was definitely Henry Miller, but one summer I accidentally found Delta of Venus, book of erotic stories by Anaïs Nin. These were long, hot days full of silences and glances between me and one married man we shared a house with. I knew nothing could happen, because we were all friends and I really liked his wife, but I couldn't help but tremble every time he came close to me. My days were spent applying coconut oil, wearing long dresses without a bra, accidentally rubbing off of him in passing. I was more horny than I ever was, with no chance of release, and yet I enjoyed it. I could feel all this sexual energy build up inside me, flow through me, making my eyes and skin glow. Anaïs' stories came as a breath of fresh air. While the sex I had with Miller's stories was quick, dirty, urgent, with Anaïs I could take my time. Yes, she wrote about sex in detail, but she also paid attention to emotional cues, she set beautiful scenes. Miller's stories made me so excited I had to put the hand down my pants immediately, but Anaïs kept me burning on a quiet fire. I became friends with her, she became my secret. I carried the book around with me all summer, its pages became wet and wrinkly. While I could never read Miller without jerking off, there were times I just read Anaïs' erotica for the gentle beauty of it. Of course, I masturbated to her stories - at the beach, at work, under covers with people around me.
I don't know exactly how would I describe the difference between the style of Miller and Nin. One was clearly male, and one was clearly female, whatever that means. And for me, Miller was always the lover, while Anaïs became a friend.
In the end, I would like to quote one of my favorite letters, that Miller wrote to Anaïs in 1932:
Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't 'let's be sensible'. It was a marriage at Louveciennes—you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled and poisonous. Everything I do and say and think relates back to the marriage. I saw you as the mistress of your home, a Moor with a heavy face, a negress with a white body, eyes all over your skin, woman, woman, woman. I can't see how I can go on living away from you—these intermissions are death. How did it seem to you when Hugo came back? Was I still there? I can't picture you moving about with him as you did with me. Legs closed. Frailty. Sweet, treacherous acquiescence. Bird docility. You became a woman with me. I was almost terrified by it. You are not just thirty years old—you are a thousand years old.
...
I say this is a wild dream—but it is this dream I want to realize. Life and literature combined, love the dynamo, you with your chameleon's soul giving me a thousand loves, being anchored always in no matter what storm, home wherever we are. In the mornings, continuing where we left off. Resurrection after resurrection. You asserting yourself, getting the rich varied life you desire; and the more you assert yourself the more you want me, need me. Your voice getting hoarser, deeper, your eyes blacker, your blood thicker, your body fuller. A voluptuous servility and tyrannical necessity. More cruel now than before—consciously, willfully cruel. The insatiable delight of experience.