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41st out of 85 books
—
24 voters
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 2: 1934-1939
Beginning with Nin's arrival in New York, this volume is filled with the stories of her analytical patients. There is a shift in emphasis also as Nin becomes aware of the inevitable choice facing the artist in the modern world. "Sensitive and frank...[Nin's] diary is a dialogue between flesh and spirit" (Newsweek). Edited and with a Preface by Gunther Stuhlmann; Index.
Paperback, 372 pages
Published
March 25th 1970
by Mariner Books
(first published January 1st 1967)
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A favorite author, if you like memoir, this woman had the mind of a poet...she is said to have embellished some things, or lied outright in some of her diaries...but perspective...is everything, and no one can take away a persons belief and one's belief is one's reality, now, isn't it?
Therefore ...if she believed her so called lies...then they were hers to believe. And if her truth was not so true for the next person, it was still her way of seeing and believeing so...or perhaps she wasn't lyin...more
Therefore ...if she believed her so called lies...then they were hers to believe. And if her truth was not so true for the next person, it was still her way of seeing and believeing so...or perhaps she wasn't lyin...more
Dec 11, 2008
Ciara
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
diarists, world war two buffs, sad europeans, psych nerds
Shelves:
read-in-2007,
autobio-memoir
the thing about anais nin's diaries is that they are all drawn from a much larger work--that of nin's life-long diaries. so each volume is just an excerpt, & as such, it's not like one volume really stands out thematically from the pack that much. history/politics-wise, i think this is the one where the going is getting rough in europe, & world war two is about to get started. nin is participating a lot in cafe/salon culture, making friends with various artists, reading manuscripts, stil...more
2 likes
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underwhelming. nice writing at times but she doesnt seem like a particularly insightful, intelligent or interesting individual tbh
On so many instances, it was like reading my own thoughts on the page.
I loved the thoughts, the questions, the self-diggings, the observations, and the words and sentences that carried those to the page ...
Does this mean that an Iranian woman is having the same thoughts and concerns of a western woman but half a century later? or do western women still have the same thoughts and concerns today as Nin's, feeling connected to her diary as strong as before, which will lead to the idea that literatu...more
I loved the thoughts, the questions, the self-diggings, the observations, and the words and sentences that carried those to the page ...
Does this mean that an Iranian woman is having the same thoughts and concerns of a western woman but half a century later? or do western women still have the same thoughts and concerns today as Nin's, feeling connected to her diary as strong as before, which will lead to the idea that literatu...more
New York and Paris. Gonzalo the hunky Spaniard--guitarist, revolutionary, gigolo--and his awful crippled wife, who move in with Anais on the houseboat in the Seine (not a spoiler!) The Spanish Civil war. The end of Anais and Henry. The advent of the outrageously young, the dizzily intelligent Laurence Durrell. The visit to Fez and the publication of House of Incest. Oh, the older I get, the better these Diaries are--now that I've heard of Brassai and Artaud and James Laughlin the publisher, I've...more
I really haven't loved her ficiton as much as I thought I should considering what an amazing woman she is, and sadly, I've been somewhat disapointed by her diaries as well. I really think she is just one of the coolest human beings that has ever existed, but I can't help but be bored sometimes by her outlook on life. I think I'll put off reading the other volumes of her diaries until I'm at a different point in my life. Reading Nin is definitely something you have to be at the right place to enj...more
Jun 30, 2009
Shasta McBride
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
heady women who think about what others are thinking maybe a little too much
Recommended to Shasta by:
ze world.
I completely fell in love with Anais Nin and gobbled up her first three diaries. And then, just like that, I saw the movie Henry and June a few weeks ago, and, well, her Diaries were off-loaded to the guy at the Goodwill Donation center this past weekend (along with All the Sad, Young Literary Men, Then We Came To The End, and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People).
How could I fall so hard and then feel so duped? I don't know. What does that say about moi? I don't know. I think what got to me...more
How could I fall so hard and then feel so duped? I don't know. What does that say about moi? I don't know. I think what got to me...more
The book falls apart in my hands. Its as if no one has read it for 40 years. The pages have turned yellow brown with age and stiffened with coldness. It’s brittle and frozen. It comes undone in my hands as if the sheer touch of it is too much to handle. It is overwhelmed. Has it waited out death for 4o years to die in warmth? But I cannot allow this. I will not aid in the murdering of something once so beautiful and filled with a thousand lives. The pages fall off like the hair of a chemo patien...more
For some reason I enjoy "hanging out" with Anais during the summer. So to keep in form, I read Diary 2. Not as good as the first, I still enjoyed her artistic writing style (even the mundane is viwed as art) and her colorful life. It is hard to imagine doing some of the impulsive things she does (e.g. leaving her home to purchase a riverboat, etc). In addition she continue to play the "savior" role for people around her, often at the expense of her own physical comfort. These types of experience...more
Poca objetividad con esta escritora, al menos 10 estrellas. Su erótica pluma es una de las más bellas de todos los tiempos! La epoca en la que vivió fue también muy prolífica y estimulante, fue amiga de pintores, dramaturgos, escritores, bailarinas, psicoanalistas, entre ellos Artaud y Miller, dos hermosos monstruos!
I spread out on my bed all the gifts I brought from New York. A set of wooden dishes with astrologic symbols against blue-painted edges. We will have a dinner and invite Antonin Artaud.
-Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin
-Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin
Bought at Myopic Books the weekend before Christmas. The guy in front of me was buying Tropic of Capricorn for his girlfriend (?). I said, "Oh, ours go together!"
Marvelous.
Read all about her affair with Henry Miller.
had the whole set and read them all at 17 or 18. Enthralled then, would probably be less enthralled and more irritated were I to read them now.
Rather than talk about what I learned, I just wanted to warn people that before buying these books they should check to see whether it is the "censored" or "unexpurgated" version. I didn't know and bought 3 "censored" volumes (this was because people she mentioned were still living at the time of publication. Republishing was the full version. These are still worth reading if you can find the uncensored ones...
Aug 20, 2012
Rebekah
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adult,
memoirs-biographies-diaries-etc
There are a lot of thoughts in this diary that I loved, and those gems made this book well worthwhile. However, I found I lacked interest in her life, and this being a diary, there were a lot of entries about her problems mothering her friends with their various problems and vices. It was a struggle for me to finish this, but I did enjoy her insights.
giving this four stars even though i found all her ruminations on the differences between women & men annoying. not sure if i overlooked that in the first volume or if it was heavier in this one. anyway, her writing is magic & reading the diaries always inspires me to write more in mine.
This ought to be read in the fall, sitting on a bench in Thompkins Square Park (in the East Village), while sipping on an Americano from 9th Street Espresso. Ideally you'll be resting your feet on a skateboard. Or maybe that's just me.
Knowing about the life of Anais Nin, I can only regard this work as utter fiction. Her adolescent and arrogant delusions are at times amusing, other times embarrassing. Yet there is something interesting.....
Nearly breathless, I will write something in here soon.
Again- best life ever? It's fun to live through her vicariously. And you do feel a little like you are doing something bad by reading someone's diary...it's awesome
She is a completely self-absorbed peacock, but she sure constructs beautiful, perfect sentences. And, if it is even half true, she had quite the life...
Aug 23, 2007
Alyssa
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Nin fans, Miller fans, the obscene
Shelves:
literature
That she (Nin), wrote so prolifically for so long, and lived an extraordinary life all the while, makes this a great read-knowing you can keep learning more.
Aug 18, 2008
Eric
is currently reading it
Her writing is pure, honest. Fascinatingly intimate glimpse into the unfolding of life and the flowering of human beingness.
Mar 03, 2012
Natalie
added it
Re-reading so I can make my wall through to the last few that I am yet to.read.
Sometimes you just need to read her.
Sometimes you just need to read her.
Read this one for grade school. Interesting person. A certain mover and shaker.
I always love her diaries... now onto House of Incest!
really lovely, but going on the backburner.
Read this along with her letters to Henry Miller
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French-born novelist, passionate eroticist and short story writer, who gained international fame with her journals. Spanning the years from 1931 to 1974, they give an account of one woman's voyage of self-discovery. "It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all." (from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, vol. I, 1966)
Anaïs Nin was largely ignored until the 1960s. Today she is...more
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Anaïs Nin was largely ignored until the 1960s. Today she is...more
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“Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.”
—
48 people liked it
“Three or four threads may be agitated, like telegraph wires, at the same time, and if I were to tap them all I would reveal such a mixture of innocence and duplicity, generosity and calculation, fear and courage, I cannot tell the whole truth simply because I would have to write four journals at once.”
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21 people liked it
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Sep 09, 2012 05:21am