does not thrive on monotony, Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed, Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.
”
Provocative, evocative, shocking, infuriating to some,
Anaïs Nin's short story collection is a classic of the erotica genre, written in thes, It was incredibly groundbreaking for a woman to write about sex in way she did, disregarding all preconceived taboos in the process, This collection is not for the faint of hearts or moralists, These stories are not a mere vehicle to ignite desire but for a thorough exploration of all of the vast landscape of sexuality, sometimes the darkest places that erotic urges may lead one to.
If you're courageous enough to go on this journey you will encounter necrophilia, pedophilia, incest, bestiality, exhibitionism, rape, sparkled with orgies, sampm, sex toys and myriad other modalities of sexual behavior.
All most non of the stories are moral in a prudent sense, but these are stories about sexuality, not morality, In Camille Paglia's words:
"Sex is the point of contact between man and nature, where morality and good intentions fall to primitive urges.
I called it an intersection, This intersection is the uncanny crossroads of Hecate, where all things return in the night, Eroticism is a realm stalked by ghosts, It is the place beyond the pale, both cursed and enchanted, "
This book is that quote embodied, Writing style is raw, but never vulgar even in the description of the greatest vulgarities, which is brilliant in itself, with a flare of poetic, just enough so the good writing does not overshadow the point of the show, acrobatics of sex.
Nin knows what she is talking about in the exploration of erotic, and she is talking eloquently, honestly and naturally, not even bothering to exhibit her full literary talent in the process.
She uses erotica not for mere arousal, but education and expending the collective consciousness on everything in the realm of sexual, not excluding any perversion, not even the most deviant and socially unacceptable ones.
What I admire the most about the collection, is writing about the female perspective of sexual desire, while not exclusively connecting it to emotions, something that is usually conditioned to be tied to the expression of a woman's sexuality as an antidote to deeply embedded shame and guilt.
Nin's female protagonists are liberated, shameless, some would say unscrupulous, exhibiting the same obsessive quality of erotic desire that we usually only see expressed in men Lolita level and beyond.
Women in stories are unapologetic about their needs, free or all social conventions, completely embracing their fixation on sexual pleasure, which has equal, or even stronger intensity than men's.
“I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from a man's and for which man's language was so inadequate.
The language of sex had yet to be invented, The language of the senses was yet to be explored, ”
Erotic here is allembracing, even devouring all other aspects of characters, We learn about them solely from their sexual activities, exhibitions and drives, as that is their primary and only motivation, making them somewhat onedimensional, But also that is the point, How much can we learn about ourselves through our sexuality Psychoanalysts would say, everything, Sometimes it is enough to look at someone's sexual activities and habits to expose core psychological problems, But, a lot of the time, it is not that simple, Nevertheless, in some sense, the story that our sexuality is telling is the narrative of our lives,
Reading sitelinkDelta of Venus reminded me of the student days psychoanalytic seminar that focused on Perversions, I loved that seminar, just a vast exploration of the psychological deeps ends that shape the darkest and twisted desires, These stories made me reminiscent of that feeling, same drive to understand and explore, not condemn, making you observer in all kinds of deviant sexual behavior.
Later on, I discovered that Nin was herself a psychoanalyst allegedly not a successful one due to the sexual activities she practiced with her patients, but having read these stories, that is not at all surprising for me.
Working as a psychotherapist the central and supreme question is not "Is this right or wrong", but "Why" and the answer to that question could only be found facing the entity, not shouting the eyes and pretending it does not exist.
Too shy aways from perversion is to shy away from human nature, Yes, sexual urges are sometimes primitive, animalistic, some would say even demonic, But they are eternal forces in humanity, always at work beneath and beyond social convention, These short stories put you on the journey you would never be on, things you would probably never encounter in real life, or consider watching with your mere eyes.
And that is a great value of literature, I found this book rather difficult to rate, While I enjoyed quite a lot of what this book explored, there was some of it that was a little too much for me, and that coming from me, is seriously saying something.
Anais Nin, covers a variety of sexual subjects, some of those being exhibitionism, homosexuality, lesbianism, sadomachism and pedophilia, I have absolutely no preference to any of those subjects, and I feel easy reading about them, all except pedophilia, I was surprised that this book dabbled in that kind of area, and I skimmed the pages where that was present, as for me, it made for uncomfortable reading.
Apart from that, this book makes for sensual erotica, and considering it was written in the's, it was masterfully done, Anais Nin, is almost poetic in her writing, sometimes making the reader feel what the characters are feeling, and that takes talent, The characters are richly textured, and I could even connect to some of those characters,
Unfortunately, I did notice a sort of pattern with the stories, if you like, I felt like it was repetitive in the sense that a troubled, depressed but gorgeous female needs some male attention, and then happens to meet a headstrong, possessive male, and then for days they go into hiding, making love all day and night, lots of orgasms involved etc.
. I could just tell that Anais Nin wrote this for entertainment and fulfillment for a male, and if you read this, it is highly evident,
Nevertheless, I still enjoyed this book, and appreciated the writing style immensely, I'm looking forward to reading more from this author, Basically, Its a book about horny people doing Haraam things,
Like very, very Haraam things, Honestly I liked this book, It is erotica but it is classic and I love everything that have been written so many years ago when I wasn't born yet and people still devour them like they were recently published.
It's just that don't read this book straight in just few days, It could be numbing and lose its meaning, You see, the book is composed of short stories about sexual encounters and Anais Nin made sure that each story is different from the others by delving into different sexual subjects, mostly nonstandard note: I did not call these abnormal so as not to attract haters like bestiality, incest, pedophilia, sadomasochism, exhibitionism
or homosexuality.
If you are not into these, your reading will be more of awe and surprise that people, even in the's when these short erotic short stories were written, were already doing these things.
Or maybe they were doing those and we are no longer since we have now have easy access to pornography or sensual images in the internet that can easily satiate our eyes when it comes to absurd things that we thought do not exist.
movie adaptation by Zalman King,In her preface of this book written in, Anais Nin said that she was commissioned by an unnamed publisher, only known as "The Collector" to write erotic short stories.
This was in the's and she got this job only when Henry Miller got so busy he could not write enough to supply "The Collector.
" So, Nin sent some samples and the publisher said to forget about poetry and focus on the sexual acts, So, Nin did and thus these stories published as a book posthumously after her death,
Surprise, surprise though, Even if Nin thought she made the stories devoid of poetry, her natural beautiful prose still manage to make into them, In particular, Nin gave the distinctive sensual voice for her women characters, What do I mean by this At some points in our lives, we, men excuse me if I should speak only for myself but I know I am not a sexual deviant love watching porn films even those XXXrated movies without recognizable plot at all.
Well, especially when I was a lot younger haha, But women Like my wife, she loves her Xrated film to have love story incorporated in the plot, Otherwise, she would go to sleep while I still enjoying the movie,
That's why this book is highly recommended to all erotic fans who enjoy classic works of the masters, It isn't like the filthy sitelinkFifty Shades of Greystar even if so many people have read and liked it, This one has poetry and that distinctive feminine sensual voice that only Nin could produce,
I say classic so woe to you, E, L. James. I think you have to be a little on the sick and twisted to get off on this book, Well, parts of it. Here are some examples of the icky ickiness Anais Nin writes about in Delta of Venus,
Dude lays in bed early in the morning, and some kids who live in the house come in and horse play around his room.
He gets a hard on and encourages them to frolic about on top of the covers,
Same dude, decades later, takes custody of his teenage son and daughter, Then he fucks 'em.
A different dude burns some lady's cootch with a hot pipe,
Another dude helps some man take a dead body out of the river and then he fucks the dead body while water pours out of her orifices.
A lady rides a horse bareback, and gets all horny from the feel of the horse's rough coat against her clit,
etc
Ew, right I mean, she does have some good stuff in the book, but honestly, it's so overshadowed by the ick, that it's hard to lose oneself in the writing.
That being said, I'll admit that the reason we read Anais Nin inis to gain some perspective on the history of erotica, moreso than for sexy fun times.
There's no doubt that Nin was remarkableafter all, she's female working in a maledominated industrybut her writing is flat and stale kinda like this review, Very few of her stories were fleshed out, and I found that she was missing the intense emotional connection I'd expect from a woman writer the poeticism is noticeably absent.
I'm completely and utterly disappointed, Maybe I set my expectations too high, . .
Here's the blurb on the back of the book this edition published in thes:
Thirtyfive years ago, Anais Nin created the female language for sexuality.
She did it for a wealthy male patron for,a page. He ordered her to "leave out the poetry," but she simply couldn't, The publication of Delta of Venus now makes available to the rest of us the seductive, erotic and fullbodied nature of her writing, And it reveals Anais Nin as a woman ahead of her time,
Well Mr, or Ms. Blurbist, you couldn't be farther from the truth, Or further. Whatever.
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