Fire Book

To try to describe Anais Nin would be much like an attempt at catching a nebulae three galaxies over, and placing it in a jar. She is essence personified, and she is so absolutely bat-shit crazy that you can't help but wonder if all of us women shouldn't be like that, in order to feel the things she has felt. She had way more than just sex in her life: she had Brancusi and Dali as friends, was the love of Henry Miller's life, was the mistress of Otto Rank, had an incestuous relationship with her father, made love to women, and across all of that the only thing you can map is how absolutely and totally changed the people she touched were left.

Yes, she was absolutely insane to live the way she did, she was promiscuous and gave way too much of herself to the world, was an honest liar, was weak where she should have been strong and harsh where she should have been lenient. But she, as opposed to so many other women, was shining from the inside with such brightness, such intelligence, such natural sexuality, that men and women alike couldn't forget it.

I identify with Anais a lot, and I have said this across many reviews of her journals or writings; her relationship with Henry Miller is my favorite love in the literary power-couple dominion. This must not come across as if I love the fact that they cheated on each other with almost anyone and had massive fights that ended up with them hurting each other, or that she aborted his child. No. It has everything to do with how raw they both were, how they artistically clashed with each other and yet respected the other's work so much, how they were both amazing writers and how they helped each other create. I think that is a very beautiful thing.