Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
350th out of 447 books
—
828 voters
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
The author's experiences in Greenwich Village, where she defends young writers against the Establishment, and her trip across the country in an old Ford to California and Mexico. "[Nin is] one of the most extraordinary and unconventional writers of this century" (New York Times Book Review). Edited and with a Preface by Gunther Stuhlmann; Index.
Paperback, 235 pages
Published
1971
by Harvest
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,013)
Highlights for me include when Anaïs Nin meets Maya Deren, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal. World War II ends. Nin's status as a temporary visitor in the U.S. expires or something, so since she can't go back to France (she doesn't state why), she will have to leave the country and come back as a permanent resident, and this volume ends with her on a road trip out west, then to Acapulco where she recalls the definition of "tropic" to mean "turning" and "changing" and that is where perhaps she will be r...more
Quotes:
"Olga had given herself to a cause, a system: this system and cause had failed. While she gave herself, her own development on a deeper level was static.
When the system failed (historically) there was never a question that it may have failed because it was composed of incompleted human beings, human beings who had cease to work on their individual development. And it is this development which I believe will influence history from within, rather than systems. If enough individuals had work...more
"Olga had given herself to a cause, a system: this system and cause had failed. While she gave herself, her own development on a deeper level was static.
When the system failed (historically) there was never a question that it may have failed because it was composed of incompleted human beings, human beings who had cease to work on their individual development. And it is this development which I believe will influence history from within, rather than systems. If enough individuals had work...more
In Acapulco - "We may seem to forget a person, a place, a state of being, a past life, but meanwhile what we are doing is selecting a new cast for the reproduction fo the same drama. And one day will I open my eyes in this beautiful, overwhelming place and see that I am caught in the same pattern, repeating the same story? I remembered that the definition of tropic was "turning," changing. and I felt a new woman would be born here."
The question of how to evaluate the later volumes of the Diary really comes up for me with this one. The editing brings in a host of friends and acquaintances, but Nin's relationships with them seem attenuated (and all of these original volumes were heavily edited, so far as I know). Nin's harping on the value of youth, because of its interest in the new, sounds self-serving at times (she was struggling to keep her fiction in print and to have it understood).
The book description really overstat...more
The book description really overstat...more
"A new women will born..."
Dec 29, 2008
Ciara
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anais nine devotees, diarists, aspirants of the printed word
Shelves:
read-in-2008,
autobio-memoir
more anais nin diaries. maybe this is the one where she & her friend gonzalo set up their own printing press? i think so. it doesn't work out so well.
May 15, 2013
Star
marked it as to-read
May 09, 2013
Joana Ribeiro
marked it as to-read
Apr 30, 2013
Michaela
marked it as to-read
Apr 30, 2013
Hifi
marked it as to-read
Apr 29, 2013
Ladonna
marked it as to-read
Apr 28, 2013
S
marked it as to-read
Apr 28, 2013
Emilyrose Siers
marked it as to-read
Apr 28, 2013
Adriana Hernandez
added it
Apr 26, 2013
Cate
added it
Apr 22, 2013
Tamie
marked it as to-read
Apr 20, 2013
Megan
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
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
More about Anaïs Nin...
Anaïs Nin was largely ignored until the 1960s. Today she is...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.”
—
155 people liked it
“The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.”
—
25 people liked it
More quotes…
