Member-only story
Rethinking Anais Nin
As a young female college student at Oberlin, I became immersed in the writings of Anais Nin — her books, and perhaps even more interestingly, her diaries (the unexpurgated ones). They were and still very much are, riveting.
I related so much to Anais in so many ways. She was often criticized by other female writers as being “too feminine” and this was something that I could very much relate to (and still can). She wrote from a very feminine perspective and her mantra of how “A woman’s power lies in her very femininity” also very much resonated with me because: how often in my own life, had I been made fun of for being just that? In other words: being myself.
To be sure, there was much about Anais, that even such a fan of her work as myself was (and still is) which defies explanation: perhaps the most shocking of which was her physical affair with her father as an adult married woman. I remember reading the “Incest” diaries with a pounding heart and utter disbelief, and yet, in the middle of it all there was this: a woman in pain who was attempting, however misguided, to both understand and heal her inner pain — it was definitely not the preferred method, I am sure, and yet, in her own ways, she was very much a trailblazer and WAY ahead of her time.
