Anaïs Nin: Eros Unbound

I got this book as a birthday present from a friend, with an assignment to read it very carefully. She did not know the exact content of the book or that Anaïs Nin was well known for her erotic stories, but she was always attracted to the quotes of the author that she stumbled upon accidentally. They spoke of liberty and courage. Myself, I didn't know anything about the author, so the book was a wonderful discovery.


The imminent consequences are the following. Even though I am a gay man, I was really aroused when she spoke of erotic and sexual meetings between heterosexual men and women. Her writing has brought a whole new perspective on what sensuality is or at least what it could be. I am also motivated to explore it further, both in real and in writing. Well, you have been warned of the possible implications, now I can continue about the book.


Her writing is very simple and sometimes it flows in several directions. She doesn't care to make a point, she doesn't care about the narrative, but focuses on the experience of her female heros, a web of desires, temptations, inhibitions and new discoveries. They are almost all very young, below 30. Some of them are models that encounter painters and sensuality is really in the air. One of them is a women from high-class Parisian society that goes to an orgy. Each story is different, but points towards the intercourse and the orgasm. Some of them could be real, some of them pure fantasies.


Importantly, whatever she writes about, however far that may be from the codes of society, her voice is always tender, and even when sex is rough, the inner being remains gentle and that is probably what gives this work such potency. Her gentle voice in the expectation of an orgasm. Sometimes you are introduced to it through a particular scent from Morocco, sometimes through a magical night on a beach in Normandy and sometimes you cannot see the difference between art and life, all of it entangled into one.


The book itself is published by Penguin as one of 20 classics that speak of love. The author is one of three women (of which two are French) that ended on the list. Stories were collected from her two other books, The Delta of Venus and Little Birds. Somehow I feel that this is exactly what we need to appreciate sensuality in a world that is so much filled with sexual allusions for the purpose of marketing and profit and where sex has really became the product on our shelves, instead of it being a personal and mysterious experience.