The Journals Of Anaïs Nin By the Twilight Faerie  Throughout her life, as well as long after her death, Anaïs Nin remained an enigmatic and controversial figure.  Simultaneously admired and dismissed as a writer.  A feminist icon to some, a threat to feminism to others.  Not surprisingly then, the published diaries of Anaïs Nin continue intriguing generation after generation of women. For Anaïs, her journal served four major roles: escape, record of the “ideal life”, redemption and literary expression. The primary purpose was the creation of a story of the “ideal life”.  It was largely for this purpose that she weaved her life into a rich tapestry of loveaffairs, intermingled with countless and intricate lies. The lies were necessary to keep the delicate balance, which always seemed on the verge of shattering. As the maintenance of the balance proved to be very stressful, she often relayed on the journal to be her escape.  Whenever she was faced with the unraveling of her lacework of lies, she turned to the journal to evade the chaos. From the very beginning, the journal was her best friend, one that would not judge or abandon her, despite the advice of many, she refused to relinquish it. To escape the guilt borne out of the lies, the hurt caused to others, and the times she went against her own conscience, Anaïs wrote in the diaries in searchof redemption. She offered explanations and justifications for her actions, leaving the journal with a clear conscience and a firm belief in the correctness of her actions. Lastly, the journal served as a forum for literary expression. Many of her friends, upon reading the journal, insisted that it contained some of her best work. It was out of this that the desire to publish the journals was born. Especially as Anaïs found herself pouring all her passion and inspiration into it, which in turn took away from her fiction writing.  It was a closed circle with her on one end and the journals on the other.  Anaïs was borne out of the journals as much as the journals were borne out of her. For Anaïs Nin, her journals were the record, as well as the purpose, of her entire existence.   Anaïs Nin was born  on February 21, 1903, a typical Piscean in her love of poetry and illusions. The daughter of a world famous pianist (Joaquin Nin y Castellanos) and a Spanish heiress (Rosa Culmell y Vaurigaud), Anaïs was from her early childhood immersed in an artistic world. Yet instead of becoming an extroverted child, as may be expected in such an environment, she instead shrank back into her own world. When Anaïs was just eleven years old her father left the family. Although that was seen as fortunate by many, due to the fact that Joaquin Nin was controlling and abusive to Anaïs as well as her two younger brothers, this event left her heartbroken. It was the desertion by her adored father that gave birth to the journal, which started as a series of letters to him describing day to day events.  The Diary began as a letter by Nin, the child, to the father who had without apparent  reason left her. Thus initially, the journal was, like a primitive ritual, a concrete attempt  to maintain contact with the invisible and to confront the inexplicable. When the  continued absence led to a weakening of faith in the imminence of a reunion, the writing  of the journal became confessional and the Diary the outlet for questions directed  outward  but with answers discovered inward. This situation, in turn, gave the Diary a new and  romantic function:  to preserve the personal memory by creating the literary image and to  protect this image by keeping it secret(Hinz 97). The abandonment had left a permanent imprint on Anaïs Nin, one that was possibly the source of her general emotional instability. In addition to her excessive introspection, Anaïs became somewhat of a narcissist, as she herself was the only one she could trust. Her main goal was to protect herself from further hurt.   I am going to tell my diary a secret, I have made a resolution not to have any friends  and not to be attached to anyone outside my family. One can’t be sure of staying  anywhere and if one leaves, there is too much sadness(Nin 65). The journal became Anaïs’ escape from the world that had treated her so cruelly. It became her only companion, with whom she spent a considerable amount of time, causing concerned relatives to worry that it “made her even more solitary and withdrawn(Barr 29).”   Yet although her escapism was borne out of her childhood and adolescence, she never outgrew it. Even as an adult she preferred to concentrate on that which pleased her. That which did not go the way she wanted, or did not revolve around her, she ignored. Curiously, although she lived through two world wars, one would be hard pressed to find any mention of the two events in any of her journals, short of a few complaints about rations and the fact that one of her lovers seemed, to her taste, to be too preoccupied with it.   It was around the time of her adolescence that a preoccupation that would become central to her adult life was born.  A quest for the “ideal life”. That was the prime reason for her journal as well as her fiction. When asked why she wrote and what her ultimate aim in writing was, she replied “I want to give the world one perfect life(Nin).”   To achieve her goal, Anaïs Nin lived her life as a theater, which manifested itself in a number of behaviors. First, the lies:  to maintain her life by hiding certain aspects of it from those who might attempt to prevent her from living as she wished, as well as to embellish reality in the journals when facts were not quite as exciting as she would have wished. Second, the love affairs:  to present her as a true leading lady, adored by all. And a third, integral aspect, analysis. The latter was required to lessen the obvious strain of such a lofty goal, as well as keeping the ever-volatile Anaïs from a nervous breakdown.   She wanted an exciting, fairy tale life.  To be seen and adored as a goddess of sorts. Again in her journal she wrote “I refuse to live in the ordinary world as an ordinary woman.  To enter ordinary relationships.  I want ecstasy!”(Nin 193).   Anaïs was not one to be controlled by her feelings, she controlled them. She was a conscious player in the theater of her life, she created the plots and designed the costumes. She picked her fellow actors. All for the purpose of creating the “perfect life” in her journal. That became her lifelong quest. Her perfect opportunity came when she was introduced to Henry and June Miller.  An unconventional couple with an intriguingly bohemian lifestyle who were to become key players in the life of Anaïs Nin for many years to come. This event marked the true beginning of the most exciting part of her life.   There appears to be a pattern of Anaïs convincing herself. Consciously deciding what to feel (and when to feel it), so as to properly live the story she created for herself. She searched for things and people to make the diary exciting. She lived once in the world, and again in her diary where she prosaically described her experiences. She lived to make her diary rich. Needing only to embellish as opposed to creating full blown lies. The core was always true. Like a simple black dress. She merely accessorised it for the benefit of her journal. Her journal, being consequently a fiction based on true events.   The lies of Anaïs Nin have become legendary. She herself admitted to compulsive lying, blaming it on her desire not to hurt. But lies were necessary to maintain all that made her life exciting, desirable, and that was what she wanted the most. She lied foremost to her husband,  keeping from him the many affairs (one of which ended in another marriage, making Anaïs a bigamist for the last 20 odd years of her life), she lied to those with whom she had affairs, to keep them from knowing about each other, she lied to virtually everyone. Lies ranging from stretching the truth to the darkest of  perjuries.   Much like her lies, so did her romantic conquests become legendary as well. In love, she demanded perfection. Not surprisingly, she expected a “twin”(Nin 138). A man who would not only write his own journals passionately, but would read and appreciate hers. This role was first filled by her cousin, Eduardo. But as Eduardo’s mother, Anaïs’ aunt, was hoping for a wife “whose fortune and social standing equaled or surpassed his family’s(Barr 40)”, the two were separated. Little time was lost before Anaïs found another soulmate, Hugo Guiller, a man who would remain her husband until she died, all the while keeping a blind eye to the many affairs that took place during their 54 years together.  But what one must consider is the root of her dependence on romantic and sexual relationships. Through her journals --her insistence on including every complimentary comment, her desire to always have more than one lover etc.-- the reader senses an almost neurotic compulsion to be worshipped. A necessity  to have the power of making others dependent on (in love with) her. Insecurity, her self worth measured by the number of men who desired her body and mind. Anaïs had a romanticized vision of love, and she often described her affairs accordingly. Mentioning time and time again the worship and adoration bestowed on her by her many lovers.   Henry wrote me a letter after the concert.  I put it under my pillow last night:  Anaïs. I  was dazzled by your beauty!  I lost my head, I felt wretched.  I have been blind, blind, I  said to myself.  You stood there like a Princess. (..) The little tuft of hair coming up over  the crown, the lustrous eyes, the gorgeous shoulder line, and those sleeves I adore, regal,  Florentine, diabolistic! (Nin 160)   The reason for Anaïs’ infidelity, in a nutshell, was her compulsive need to be loved. She needed to be a figure larger than life, adored, or rather worshipped, by all that came in contact with her. This was just one of the facets of her goal of living the “perfect life”. To show the world that such a life could exist. Her life was a theater, her journals the script, her image of beauty and intelligence were her costumes. The journals hold a record of the many loves and lovers that played a part in the theater of her life. These are interspersed with much philosophical soulsearching, which reveals Anaïs’ desperate need to understand herself and to achieve inner peace. The one thing she always lacked.   Unfortunately, the life Anaïs led proved to be a strain on her in many respects. Physically, she was always of weak health. Often she fell into depression, for which she turned analysis. Anaïs was under the care of a number of psychiatrists throughout her life, including the renouned Dr. Allendy, followed by a student of Fraud, Dr. Otto Rank.     This however was not enough, as too often Anaïs Nin resorted to slight manipulations, which gave her an impression of power, but in reality kept her from being cured. She refused to reveal herself to her analysts fully, preferring instead the non judgmental diary in which to seek consolation and redemption.   Anaïs Nin used the journal as a tool by which she could separate herself from her own life. This is perhaps most clear in her now-legendary description of the day she gave birth prematurely to her still born child. The entire incident is written in beautiful prose, and is perhaps the most artistic couple of pages in all of her written work, yet “what makes this writing ultimately horrifying is the realization that Anaïs Nin is once again the observer of her own life, and that this experience, like any and every other, become real only when she wrote about it(Barr 202)”.   The one aspect of herself that Anaïs felt the greatest compulsion to vindicate in her journals were the many lies that were so crucial to the maintenance of her “ideal life”. The lies (for despite her vehement denials to the effect she lied even to her diary) were always lies of exaggeration, omission and embellishment. Never pure lies. And even these lies she defended, justified:   Her lies were not harmful, she wrote, because “even when I lie, I lie only mesonages  vital, the lies which give life.” She defended them as “not superfluous, unnecessary or  venomous or self-glorifying”. and justified them as “different kinds of lies, the special  lies which I tell for very specific reasons--to improve on living.” That she lied to “improve reality” became both excuse and justification, as she exerted  others to “live  life as a dream, make the dream real (Barr 133). ” As her journals progressed, despite the fact that her lies increased in number and complexity, she wrote in her diary that “reality deserves to be described in the vilest of terms” (Nin 148)   But as redemption, the journal served not only to redeem her own faults. Rather, it also served as a kind of redemption for the faults of others. A compensation for all that Anaïs perceived those around her to lack:   I am hellishly lonely. What I need is someone who could give me what I give Henry:  this  constant attentiveness. I read every page he writes, I follow up his reading, I answer his  letters.  I listen to him, I remember all he says, I write about him, I make him gifts, I  protect him....he cannot do this....None of these men can do it for me. I have to turn to my  diary, to give myself the kind of response I need.  I have to nourish myself.  I get love, but  love is not enough.  People do not know how to love (Nin 467).   Yet as much as the journal was much needed salvation for her self, it had the opposite effect on her writing. The journal became a literary addiction. All of her feelings and inspiration were absorbed by her daily journal writings leaving very little left for the writing of novels. Dr. Allendy, attempted to free Anaïs from the journals against her own will, and “to give up writing in the diary meant relinquishing control of her life.” Instead her journal became an even more indispensable part of her. Many times in her life she would make futile attempts to wean herself from the diary:  She was trying to break herself of pouring every emotion into the diary each day and  then having nothing left over for fiction. Now her technique was to begin as if she were  sitting down to write an entry in the hope that her fictional thoughts would flow as  smoothly as her diary writing. She even went so far as to insert the blank pages on  which she planned to write fiction into the diary, in the hope  that some sort of “magic”  would infuse her imagination(Barr 228).   Anaïs Nin was a devout diarist, rarely letting a day go by without numerous pages being filled in the burgundy ink she favored. But for her, the journal was much more then just a record of each passing day. It served alternately as the last strand of stability to which she could grasp, much like a drowning shipwreck. A last form of stability for her often confused and complex life. A forum for her writing and a “best friend” to whom she could always turn. The last escape from all that haunted her. A confessional before which she could unburden her tortured soul. A collection of elaborate philosophies written in poetic prose.   One could argue whether or not Anaïs Nin achieved the perfect life for which she strived. That however seems irrelevant. For indisputably she lived her life to the fullest, and in doing so, has provided future generations with a life to aspire for. She made it as a writer in a hostile male dominated literary world. She was loved and admired by many. Through all this, she never once abandoned the journal that grew to become an integral part of her. She  could not exist without it as much as the journal could not exist without her. Thanks to that fact, we are provided with a rare account of the life of a remarkable woman. And so, although the tangible part of her is gone, the ethereal part remains forever in her journals, for all those who have themselves ever longed for the ideal life.   Bibliography   return to the twilight