Die verborgenen Früchte

by Anaïs Nin

book data

1,717 ratings, 3.71 average rating, 109 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		20%
4		39%
3		31%
2		7%
1		1%

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published

February 28th 2005 by Fischer Taschenbuch Vlg. (first published 1980)

details

Broché, 204 pages

isbn

3596164052 (isbn13: 9783596164059)

description

Evocative and superbly erotic, Little Birds is a powerful journey into the mysterious world of sex and sensuality. From the beach towns of Normandy to…more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2,293)

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Dec 24, 2008

Amanda rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: 2009, dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty

Read in March, 2009

I give Little Birds four stars in comparison to Delta of Venus' two, though as a stand alone, it would probably only get 2 or 3. There are almost no disgusting and despicable sex scenes in Little Birds, and for this, I am grateful. (As it turns out, I'm a bit prudish after all...)

Little Birds is set in various places around the world, but quite often set in New York and New Orleans. It feels more modern than Delta of Venus. It feels more aware, more present. And this, my secon...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

3 comments

Dec 01, 2007

Kitty rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: erotica, fiction

Read in January, 1980

recommends it for: adults interested in intelligent erotica

This book, along with it's companion book (they run together in my mind and am talking about both here), Delta of Venus, are wonderfully evocotive erotic stories. They are never the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am stuff of porn magazines. Sometimes magical, sometimes freaky, with a European sensibility, these stories are softly spellbinding. I can't help but get caught up in them whenever I pick up these books. Elena, Pierre, Leila, the Basque and Bijou, what a cool group of characters! And there are s...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

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Mar 29, 2008

Montambo rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: essays-or-shorts, maybe-it-was-my-mood, sexy-as-hell, this-shit-is-messed-up

Read in April, 2008

The best thing about Anais Nin is her name. So melodic.

And she was a great writer, however:
This book was not like her other writing I've read. It wasn't beautiful. Every erotic situation was simply explained like a list. It reminded me of the plain language version of state tests that our ELL students take. The writing was bland.

Also, there were a couple of titillating situations, but it started off with a pedophile (the recruits-schoolgirls-into-his-apartment-w...more

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Jun 29, 2007

Christine rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in August, 2007

Anais Nin is in no way a contemporary of Henry Miller! Maybe it's my narrow view of things (and my first time at reading erotica) but it's really not that good. Her stories are short and bland and unstimulating. Even the language is simple. I don't aruge that she's a good writer (I believe she is) but the only thing I found remarkable about the book was the preface in which she describes how hard it is to focus solely on eroticism and how it changes your life. I may give one of her other books a...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

Mar 14, 2010

Cheryl Gardner rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in February, 2010

This little book of short stories is by far some of the finest erotica ever written. Nin is a true master of love, lust, and the body’s betrayal of our innermost desires. Nin writes with a simple elegance. Never overdoing the imagery, we get just what we need to feel the work without a crass microscopic examination. Nin plunges deeply into the psyche of her characters, and we get more than an up-close and personal intimate glimpse of their inner turmoil as they struggle to break free of their ...more This little book of short stories is by far some of the finest erotica ever written. Nin is a true master of love, lust, and the body’s betrayal of our innermost desires. Nin writes with a simple elegance. Never overdoing the imagery, we get just what we need to feel the work without a crass microscopic examination. Nin plunges deeply into the psyche of her characters, and we get more than an up-close and personal intimate glimpse of their inner turmoil as they struggle to break free of their self-imposed sexual limitations. Her characters awaken, blossom like flowers covered in the morning dew, and perfume the pages before our very eyes.

Nin is not merely writing about sex or sexual taboos in these stories; she is writing essays on humanity’s constant battle to reconcile our inner longings and emotional conflicts concerning sex and death. She definitely pushes the boundaries, but she does it with such nuance and such poetry and such innocence that the disturbing subject matter feels tempered in order for us to achieve a greater understanding of themes presented.

This is a wonderful introduction to Nin’s work. I highly recommend that all authors read her work, specifically authors who are interested in exploring sexuality in their own material. Her approach is genuine: voyeuristic without being intrusive. Those who are already familiar with the great erotic enchantress know this. This book is a must have for the collection. It is a book to return to with a blush and a smile over and over again. However, if you are looking for graphic depictions of sex, you will not find it here, for this is true erotica, and it takes a deeply subliminal approach, not plot laden poke and jab.

To me, there is a huge difference between erotica and pornography. Erotic doesn’t even necessarily have to be about sex, and as a reader and a writer, I don’t need it to be. I find that erotica tends to titillate at a deeper more emotional level, and ambiguity can be used to great effect. Well-written erotica affects the reader beyond the physical, and often times that affectation is so powerful that the physical can be left out entirely. As for my own work, I do write a fair amount of sex, and it’s never comfortable no matter how many times you do it. Each scene feels just like the first time you did it yourself. It’s awkward and fumbling and downright un-poetic, but just like the rest of the story, sex scenes evolve during the re-writes. Sex for your characters can be a well-spring of self-discovery, and if done well, they can deepen the experience for the reader and move the story beyond the plot-line. Sexual motivation is deeply rooted, and exploring your character’s Id can be quite fulfilling, if not a bit frightening. Just watch your language, erotica can turn into cheap porn with just a few puerile words … it doesn’t take much, and not every story needs sexual exploration. You are the author: you know the story and the characters … you will know if the story needs it or not depending on your overall Thesis. The trial and error part comes in deciding how deeply to explore. Don’t justify the need: be sure it’s worthwhile for your characters to go there; otherwise it will just read like a bad segue.

Of course, I am speaking of literary erotica here. If you are writing erotica for sexual titillation, meaning that you are writing pornography for the sole purpose of arousing the reader, then have at it: But you had better make it good. Clichés only leave my head throbbing and me longing for an aspirin. Spare me the twenty-inch manhood and the weeping multi-orgasmic vulvas paleeease. (less)

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Feb 07, 2008

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: an-all-time-favorite, erotica

Read in January, 1982

I was a kid when I discovered this on someone's bookshelf and spirited it away. My love of erotica was born...or grew up, because now that I think about it, I was much younger when I reread the spanking scene from Tom Sawyer with great relish and shame. My five star books are ones that left a deep impression, and Anais Nin's fantastic, nasty little sensual wanderings certainly made a mark on me.

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Sep 05, 2008

Erika rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: other

Read in September, 2008

This book was interesting. I was surprised to come across it while browsing at the library. Who knew? I had read Delta of Venus years ago and remember thinking that it was interesting (and informative), but that the writing style felt a little stiff. I have found that I still feel that way, but that I had missed the insight into our natures that really are what make the work enduring.

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Aug 05, 2009

Grace Johnson rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in August, 2009

My boyfriend had pulled this off the bookshelf and I thought he was going to read it. Turns out he was just looking for something to put under the laptop to shield his lap from the heat. (apropos) No matter. I took it as a sign and decided to read it. I loved 'Henry and June' so thought I might really like these stories. As far as erotica goes, it was pretty tame by today's standards. It's funny to see how many times a person can write the words "fever", "heat" and "hard...more

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Jul 02, 2007

Miss CC rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: sex

I think I only read this because I thought I should, as if it's required reading for people who like sex.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

Mar 15, 2008

Nora toomey rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

this is how I learned about sex. Thanks mom and dad for owning it! Also, I stole it from you.

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Oct 12, 2009

Kristin rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in October, 2009

An interesting collection of very short erotic stories. I don't read very much erotica, so I can't compare this to anything, really, but it did certainly remind me of Memoirs of a Beatnik in many ways. Some of the writing is lovely, some is awful. The characters are mostly caricatures, but overall I liked it alright and was able to read the whole thing in just two hours. I suspect that if the stories individually and the book as a whole weren't so short, I might have grown bored. I'd really...more

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Sep 03, 2008

Joshua rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: sexy-time

I found this book long after discovering "Delta of Venus" as a boy on someone's book shelf. I read "Little Birds" as an adult and I believe it should be taken in tandem with the former rather than separately.

What I can say is that thanks to encountering Anias Nin as a boy, I grew up viewing sexuality and sexual attraction as something that takes place mostly in the mind and it is that tension that she describes, between desire and fear/exhileration, and t...more

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Apr 27, 2009

Jody rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in June, 1993

This book is the very first erotica book I've read. I found it in a box of children's books I friend gave to me for my 2 year old son. I read it all the way through and wondered what kind of person would write such things. And then I started to think about the things in my life that might have been so strange as well as erotic. That was years ago. The other day I was in B and N and found one of her books and remember that time in my apartment long ago. Thank you Anaïs Nin!!!!!

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Mar 05, 2009

fbuser34601785 rated it:

(review of isbn 0140184716)

Read in March, 2009

Well, well, well. Anais Nin, I had heard that she was into sex, but I thought she wrote stories with sexual undertones. Nope, Anais Nin is the mother of modern erotica, and I have to say, although this book played with my sense of right and wrong, her style and tone are uniquely her own, her stories are captivating, albeit at times wholly disturbing, but there is value in experiencing her work. Beware, her stuff is not for the faint of heart, but it will appease the human curiosity.

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Aug 21, 2009

Mary rated it:

(review of isbn 0553134655)

Read in August, 2009

i found this book at the used book store in centreville where i worked for a short time between germany and moving back to pittsburgh...this was the first i read of anais nin, and some of the most beautiful, erotic writing i have ever encountered. i recently revived my interest in her after seeing the film 'henry and june,' which, while problematic in some ways (sexualized sexual violence) is a very beautiful, stylish, sensuous writers' autobiography (it illustrates the relationship between nin ...more

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Jan 04, 2010

Dessa rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Wow...I can see why this book was banned. It had sexually fantasies in it that were extremely taboo for its time. The stories real even taboo to tell for this time period. The man that exposed himself to the little girls from the school totally blow me away. I liked that fact that the stories were short also. What I honestly liked most about the book is the fact that it wasn't written like a smut book. It was very well written...

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Apr 23, 2008

dead letter office rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

i thought this would be more powerful one way or another than it turned out to be. she's famous as a writer of erotica, but i thought her stories were unexceptional and not the least bit shocking by comparison with some of her contemporaries (henry miller comes to mind). to be fair to nin, i thought she was a much, much better writer than henry miller, who i think gets a lot of credit for being brilliant where he was just being shocking (and shockingly self-absorbed). someday i want to track dow...more

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Mar 01, 2009

Aligato rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Read in February, 2009

Really short little stories about sexuality in Paris and early 20th century New York. I picked it up on a whim from the library selections shelf (around Valentine's Day, they can justify putting this one out in front :) because I wanted to explore a little of Nin's work. I don't know if it was really worth the read, but I might read more of her things if I'm in that time period of a mood.

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May 20, 2009

Libby rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

bookshelves: erotica

First things first - paedophilia does not erotica make! That is my line in the sand and any other sexual act or fetish that is consensual is just fine and dandy by me.

Once I was past the creepy namesake of the book I was able to enjoy the beautiful Nin's grasp of the sensual. She manages to capture the warm quirkiness of human sexuality without making it clinical or mechanical.

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Nov 23, 2009

Bobbi rated it:

(review of isbn 0156029049)

Owns a copy — Read in November, 2009

recommends it for: People with an open mind to sexual experiences

What I loved best about this book is that all the stories in it were very easy to read. They were very succinct stories, all very erotic or perverted. The language is very proper, and I definantly learnt some new words! The only downside to this book spawns from it's upside...it was too short and I wanted more!

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