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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A tribute to Nin by one of her "Ninnies",
By
This review is from: Collage of Dreams: The Writings of Anais Nin (Hardcover)
During the late 1960s to early 1970s, Anais Nin, most famous for her multi-leveled diary and for her erotica, became something of a cult figure for young women. These young women affectionately referred to themselves as the "Ninnies." They bought her books, attended her lectures, carried on long-term correspondence with her (Anais vowed she would never let a fan letter go unanswered), and even attended informal workshops at her home. After reading COLLAGE OF DREAMS I am pretty certain that Spencer was a Ninnie herself.
COLLAGE OF DREAMS, like Bettina Knapp's ANAIS NIN, is inevitably a bit on the worshipful side. Rather than being a critical evaluation of Nin's work, it seems to be an advocate of her work, emphasizing all its wonderful aspects and never really touching upon its weaknesses. This is a wonderful breath of fresh air when contrasted with Deirdre Bair's verging-on-hostile ANAIS NIN: A BIOGRAPHY, but it doesn't do much in the way of helping the reader relate to Nin's oeuvre. In fact, Sharon Spencer writes a lot like Anais Nin herself, utilizing two hallmarks of Nin's style: a cascade of beautiful and luxurious words; bad organization of ideas. Each paragraph seems to contain at least four sentences that should've served as topic sentences for their own paragraphs. One gets the impression that Sharon Spencer would've liked to have been Anais Nin. As a footnote to the benign personality cult that formed around Anais Nin in the late 60s and early 70s, COLLAGE OF DREAMS is indispensable. Spencer's love of Anais Nin and Nin's work really comes through, and it is quite heartwarming. But for critical evaluation, and for a more balanced assessment of Anais Nin's successes and failures as a writer, I recommend ANAIS NIN: AN INTRODUCTION as well as THE CRITICAL RESPONSE TO ANAIS NIN.
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