Nearer the Moon: From a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1937-1939 (Vol 4) (Hardcover)

by Anais Nin (Author), Gunther Stuhlmann (Author), Vicki Aus (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A preface by Rupert Pole, surviving widower of the bigamous diarist, who already had a legal husband when they married, contends that she wrote impulsively, at "white heat." The evidence is that she often paused to improve upon life, which in the two years, spent mostly in Paris, covered in this volume, consisted largely of cadging from her complaisant banker husband, Hugh Guiler, to support her lovers. One was the gaunt, bald sexual athlete and expatriate novelist, Henry Miller, who by then had parted from his wife, June. Another was the swarthy Communist activist Gonzalo More, whose appetite for sex overwhelmed his passion for politics, and whose slovenly wife encouraged his income-producing infidelity. Nin betrayed all three men, even on days (and nights) when she bedded them all. In her middle 30s, her erotomania left her little time for much else, but she managed to write pornographic (and then censorable) short fiction and reams of what later skeptics called a "liary." She was "a true Catholic," More told her. "You love the sin and absolution and regrets and sinning again." Yet she had few regrets but the unpublishability of her diaries. Her love seems entirely narcissistic in the manuscript volumes she filled over 52 years. But even so, her literary talent and the sensual intensity of her emotional life sets some of the pages in her diaries on fire. The first extracts, published in 1966 at age 63, established her (although she edited out some sensitive matter) as a cult figure. Since her death, Pole has been releasing the original diaries, Nearer the Moon, encompassing volumes 53 through 60. "I dream, I kiss, I have orgasms, I get exalted, I leave the world, I float, I cook, I sew, I have nightmares, I follow a gigantic creative plan," she claims. Her self-description says it all. One would hardly know that Nin was living in a France on the brink of war. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The origin of Nin's literary acclaim is arguably her Diary, "Journal of Love" series, which has received more attention from the reading public than any of her other writing efforts. This fourth volume of that diary following Fire (1996), Incest (1993), and Henry and June (1990; all Harcourt) covers the years 1937 to 1939. Her crucial relationship with Henry Miller continues during these years, while she lives out a love affair with Gonzalo More, a Peruvian revolutionary and musician. It is through Gonzalo, a proponent of Marxist ideology, that the apolitical Nin confronts political thinking, without committing herself to a particular trend. Meanwhile, she maintains her relationship with her husband, Hugh Guiler. At the outbreak of World War II she leaves for America. She will never live in Paris again. This episode of the diary reveals a more mature Nin. As a necessary sequel to the other volumes, this title is recommended for academic and comprehensive public libraries with strong women's studies collections.?Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 396 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH); 1st edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151000891
• ISBN-13: 978-0151000890
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #314,000 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So Near And Yet So Far, January 13, 2003

By	Ruth Edlund "dark goddess of replevin" (King County, Washington:) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This unexpurgated volume of Anais Nin's diary contains entries from March 4, 1937 to October 23, 1939. The preface by Rupert Pole (her Los Angeles widower, as opposed to the late Hugh Guiler, her New York widower) notes, "Toward the end of her life Anais and I discussed the original diaries, and she asked me to publish all her diaries just as she wrote them."

Having now read four volumes of the unexpurgated diary, it is my educated opinion that this was _not_ a good idea. It is unfortunate that Pole has dutifully released this volume of material in this form. It's like he published the first draft of a book--there is so much dross among the gold that I often felt that I was not so much reading as doing penance. It is apparent now that not all the material cut from the expurgated volumes was eliminated because of its scandalousness. If we have learned anything after the sexual revolution, surely it is that even the salacious can be dull.

And yet. And yet. Amidst Nin's whiny posturing, her mechanical proclamations of audacity and innocence, nestle passages of such power and beauty (especially starting in 1938) that this volume intermittently becomes riveting. There are also a number of entries where Nin drops her self-glorifying posturing and looks at her own behavior with clear and unflinching eyes. For the first time, for example, I began to understand what she saw in Gonzalo, something that was a mystery to me even from the previous unexpurgated volumes. She becomes enormously likeable when she appears to be displaying some candor.

I regard it as truly unfortunate that this book is unlikely to have many readers owing to its lack of editorial discipline. Be patient with it, but be prepared to skim, and don't read it as an introduction to Nin's work.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful and inspiring, April 13, 2000

By	adrienne duncan (california) - See all my reviews

nearer the moon is a book whic has affected my life in so many good ways. I have become a better lyricist, and a more insightful poet because of her ability to be so bold, honest, and real while being one of the greatist poets and writers of our time. Anais Nin's writting not only stands asa representation of how beautiful life is, but also stands as a bench mark in history. We can look into our past and see when her writing was rejected from culture and society, and see how far we've come. Through Anais Nin we can actully see Americas liberation process.