This book is, in my opinion, a genuine masterpiece. However, this is not even close to being a traditional novel. Anyone who picks up this book expecting a traditional novel is going to be very, very disappointed. This is really a prose poem and the images and the language are dense. The book is short but it will take even the most attentive reader multiple readings to untangle all of it. There is a continuing thread that ties the whole work together, but it follows a kind of dream logic, as opposed to the linear logic of a traditional novel. The attentive reader should eventually be able to follow the thread, though there are always going to be places of relative obscurity, as there are in even the most well interpreted dreams. I would recommend reading the short section on House of Incest in
Anais Nin: An Introduction
by Benjamin Franklin and Duane Schneider. Franklin and Schneider walk through the book section by section and illuminate the fundamental preoccupations that structure the movement of the dream.
Nin is an amazing writer. She has as much talent as any writer I have ever read. Some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read is contained in this little book. This book will probably never be as widely read as I think it should be because most people prefer realistic fiction. Nin's writing is an attempt to explore the unconscious through images and evocative language. She does not describe, in this work at least, a linear realistic narrative and it is understandable that many people will feel lost reading a work like this and prefer to read works where they know where they are and what is happening at all times. For those who are willing to work a little, and who are comfortable with a certain degree of confusion, and who love beautiful and evocative language and imagery, this book will be something to return to over and over for new riches.
One of the traits of literary modernism is experimentation with new forms and I think that Nin's writing represents a path not taken by modern literature. To me, a lot of modern fiction is ultimately derived from Kafka. A lot of modern literature attempts to highlight the absurdity of modern life (bureaucracy, mass production, consumerism, etc.) by mixing realistic elements with strange and absurd elements (think of Chuck Palahniuk). I love Kafka, and I have nothing against that particular strand of fiction, but Nin's work represents what I think is another possible path. Rather than attempting to diagnose our social neuroses or the dehumanizing social conditions of our lives, Nin dives into the personal psyche to diagnose the personal neuroses we all suffer from. The book is an attempt to get below the level of consciousness, to reach the deep inner springs of our lives and our desires, and to expose the deep psychic conflicts that stand in our way, and hopefully, achieve a new level of insight and healing.
This book is really about a person who is afraid to live. They are overly sensitive, like the modern Christ, who Nin writes "is crucified by his own nerves, for all our neurotic sins" (47). The modern Christ has had all his skin pulled off and is told "to live, to walk, to run" (47). He is balanced by the paralytic who cannot feel anything and worships the mere absence of pain. All the characters in the book are aspects of a single self that is attempting to find its way out of the house of incest (an image of narcissism and self-involvement) to life beyond. It is about all the invisible changes that take place below the level of consciousness. In Samuel Beckett's play
Endgame
he talks about how qualitative change seems to come out of nowhere. Someone is caught in a codependent relationship and it seems like it will never end. Every day is the same and seems to bring no change, and then miraculously, one day someone leaves. Beckett sees that as a mystery. How can the piling on of days that are exactly the same ever produce a real change?
I think Nin's book is really about the silent processes taking place in the deep levels of the psyche that ultimately lead to those kinds of changes. It seems like nothing is happening but there are all of these conflicting personalities struggling within the self and one day, we find, like the dancer at the end of the book, that our arms have grown back, and we can dance, and move on to a new chapter of our life. At one point Nin describes a forest "Trees reclining, woods shining, and the forest trembling with rebellion so bitter I heard its wailing within its deep forest consciousness. Wailing the loss of its leaves and the failure of transmutation" (37). While this scene seems to describe the frustrating and terrifying stasis that the narrator has fallen into, her failure of transmutation, I think the book is ultimately a celebration of the mysteries of transmutation. None of us are stuck in our own personalities forever. There are all sorts of invisible processes operating in us that will bring about change whether we want it or not. That is a hopeful message and this book is a beautiful exploration of the creation of our still uncreated selves.
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Mr. B. K. Hamill
was a birthday present for a good friend, and she loved it so thank you
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2015