Anais Nin-Scandalous, Glamorous, dark, unforgettable!
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are”.
Remember when I said that March would be dedicated to writer and diarist Anais Nin? Well obviously that didn't happen. I got so absorbed in the first of the two bios that I read of hers that I never got a chance to actually read her work.
"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.
It's funny how you can feel a connection to a person, artist, stranger even before you know anything about them, that was the case for me and this writer (for many years). The fragrance named after her, Anais Nin, was the first adult perfume my mother ever bought me at 12 (I remember begging her to buy it because it reminded me of one of my favorite grade school teachers).
Over the years I've become known as a Quote collector, I even had an ex boyfriend accuse me of always speaking in quotes, and as I looked back through my many journals I see quote after quote I've saved from Nin's work. So finally I decided to read her bios and what a trip that was. As a bio lover I can say that I am rarely shocked at the strange lives people concoct for themselves, but Nin's life was one shocker! In the award winning, 520 page bio, brilliantly written by journalist and literary scholar Deirdre Bair, there was almost nothing this woman didn't do. Bigamy, incest, lies, deceptions, abortions, buying love, ego, narcissism, sexual seduction and conquests that had no bounds (even gay men she seduced) and most of all manipulation of herself and others that was limitless.
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls”.
Anais was born in France (on February 21, 1903) but raised in Spain. She was part Cuban, French and Danish ancestry. throughout her life she was a nomad, living throughout the world, never feeling as if she really had a home. From a very young age she developed an attachment to journal writing that completely defined and controlled her life and writing career until her death. The journal became her home, her one constant. As a journal writer myself (from the age of 9) I understand the compelling need you develop to capture every moment of your life on paper. There was many years when I wrote almost everyday or spend hours each week writing what I had missed. For the last 5 years or so I have been much more sporadic, only finding myself writing regularly when I'm really experiencing things that I need to release by writing about it. But Anais wrote daily, hours a day, more then once a day. She made her husbands and lovers read her journal and insisted they also keep journals. She used the journal as her only true confidant, the one place she felt the need to be honest at all times, (ironic sense it was later revealed that much of her early diaries were revised numerous times so that she could get interest in them for publication) ultimately her journal took on a life of its own.
"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy”.
Though she got married at 18, and remained married to the same man Hugo Guiler until her death on January 14 1977, she had numerous affairs. Most notably with Henry Miller (famous writer of Tropic of Cancer). Her affairs with some of these men were so bold, and lasted years (Miller was 10 years), and she went on to enter into a second marriage with Rupert Pole (an actor 16 years her junior), even as she remained married to Guiler, convincing both men that she was loyal to each one, even as she traveled back and forth (supposedly on writing assignments) living months at a time with both men. At the time of her death she set up her will so that Guiler would receive her royalties from her writing until his death (as a way to make amends for, and reciprocate, all the financial and emotional sacrifices he made for her throughout there tumultuous marriage) and once he died the remaining royalties would go to Pole who she remained with even after she confessed to him she was still married to her first husband (Pole and her received and annulment and remained lovers until her death).
As a writer and a woman I found that though I related to her in the early years of her life, towards the middle and onward her choices became a prime example of exactly how I do not want to live my life. Always carrying the deep deep scars of being deserted by her father as a child (whom she later reunited with and had a sexual affair with! Yes, I said affair with her own biological father!) Anais became obsessed with using her beauty, charms and money to get men, care for them and control them. She was extremely promiscuous, meeting with many of her men within the same day, having many abortions through her life, and constantly trying to walk this tight rope of a life in which she ultimately sacrificed her growth as a writer, and joy as a woman, by giving all her resources away, sexuality, money, time, attention, even her own writings (which they some went on to interpret and gain fame from) to men who recognized the opportunity, took it and used her for all it was worth (especially Henry Miller). It's an example of how insecurity and a strong need for adoration and attention can be used against you by people with their own agendas and desires. At the same time she was conscious of her addictions and willingly went forward with them. It was not until her later years that she wished she had not spent so much energy trying to buy love and take care of others.
“There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do”.
Because of this need of hers to live "only the high moments in life" and "live the dream" she was always chasing a fantasy, obsessively absorbed in her own world, which made it difficult for her to become the writer she dreamed of, which requires one to look outside yourself and lose yourself in order to capture life in words so that others can relate and enjoy it. This is why she never received the recognition she longed for, even now though her work is popular and her persona of sex, passion and confessions remain fascinating, she is still not regarded as one of the great writers of her time. Which devastated her even in her own time (she wrote honestly about watching artist that were once friends and lovers become revered in their own time). Because she wrote about herself obsessively, she never grew completely out of journal writing and herself as the subject, she became known as a "major minor writer". Critics of her books (and readers) often found her fictional work lacking depth, lacking realistic well developed characters, and weakly veiled attempts at publishing her journals in the guise of fiction.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage”.
Despite it all I admire her passion, her vivacious personality, her daring attempts to achieve her dreams, and the way that she relentlessly worked to get her work recognized despite the tremendous rejection she received. Though she lied about a lot of things (including her age), she did not let age define her lust for life and desire to grow and learn new things, meet new people, and become a new person. She was always reading, traveling and taking on daring risky challenges, all in the search for that dream, the dream she once said, was always a few steps ahead of her.
In the 70's after she began to enjoy great fame (especially amongst feminists) she received a backlash, one for lying in her journals and two, for pretending that her wild, free, artistic life was achieved without the support of a man. She had purposely took out any mention of her long marriage to Guiler (who loved her unconditionally and provided the money she used to take care of herself, her lovers, and get her work published) in an attempt to be viewed by the world as a woman who had lived on her own terms (which she had) and done it on her own (which she had not). This need to create a image (completely true or not) has both destroyed and illuminated her life and image to this day.
in many ways Anais was also a very insightful woman, having a rare ability to capture a feeling, belief, experience in just a few lines. I guess that's why her work is so often quoted. Well hers was a very interesting life, interesting read and is a prime example that living your life to the fullest (mistakes and all) is the only way to live.
“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person”.
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