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Book Review: "Henry and June" by Anaïs Nin

3/5 -A sometimes vulgar account of intense human friendship and love...

By Annie KapurPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Image from my Instagram: @AnnieApproximately

Anais Nin, writer of "A Spy in the House of Love", met Henry Miller and his wife June and immediately became intensely involved with both of them. The book is a brilliant presentation of how love manipulates and moves, how it changes over time and how affection is different to obsession. But I think it is also important to think about the way in which it is written sometimes over-the-top and cannot really be comprehended too well. I would say that sometimes the writing can also be a bit annoying because there are far too many words that are not really saying anything. When I was going through to pick out the quotations, I was looking for ones that represented the writing style as something positive and not something that annoyed me slightly.

Let us have a look at some of the quotations that I think are better than the others in the book. Also, I would not say do not read the book because I gave it a lower rating, there is definitely an audience for these books and if you like this book there is nothing wrong with that. If you want to read the book, I would actually support that because you do not know whether you can really like something until you have read/watched it yourself. Go in with an open mind and read the book thoroughly.

Here are the quotations then:

"Years ago, when I tried to imagine a true beauty. I had created an image in my mind of just that woman. I had even imagined she would be Jewish. I knew long ago the colour of her skin, her profile, her teeth. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat in front of her I felt that I would do anything mad for her, anything she asked of me. Henry faded. She was colour, brilliance, strangeness. Her role in life alone preoccupies her. I knew the reasons: her beauty brings dramas and events to her. Ideas meant little. I saw in her a caricature of the theatrical and dramatic personage. Costume, attitudes, talk. She is a superb actress. No more. I could not grasp her core. Everything Henry had said about her was true."

When Anais Nin meets June Mansfield [Henry Miller's wife], she automatically falls in love with everything about her. It is kind of like the same unhealthy obsession she had with Henry Miller earlier on in the book. Do I think these people had some sort of menage a trois? Well, I honestly think so but I cannot be sure that all of it actually happened of course.

"I have seen romanticism outlast the realistic. I have seen men forget the beautiful women they have possessed, forget the prostitutes and remember the first woman they idolised, the woman they could never have. The woman who aroused them romantically holds them. I see the tenacious yearning in Eduardo. Hugo will never be healed of me. Henry can never really love again after loving June...That day in the cafe, sitting with Henry, seeing his hand tremble, hearing his words, I was moved. It was madness to read him my notes, but he incited me: it was madness to drink and to answer his questions while staring into his face, as I have never dared to look at any man. We did not touch each other. We were both leaning over the abyss."

As you can see, sometimes it can get a bit wordy without even saying anything but in this case, we can see the large spectrum of emotions being poured out at this very moment. But sometimes it can be less exciting and less tense. This is possibly the better example of what I was trying to explain before - it makes a more positive light of it.

"Late in the night he tells me about a book I have not read, Arthur Machen's Hill of Dream. And I am listening with my soul. He says softly, 'I'm talking almost paternally to you...' At that moment, I know I am half woman, half child. That the portion of me conceals a child who loves to be amazes, to be taught, to be directed. When I listen I am a child, and Henry becomes paternal. The haunting image of an erudite, literary father reasserts itself, and the woman becomes small again. I remember other phrases, like "I would not hurt you - not you." but unusual delicacy with me, his protectiveness. I feel myself betrayed. Overwhelmed with the wonder of Henry's work, I have become a child. I can imagine another man saying to me, "I cannot make love to you. You are not a woman. You are a child..."

It's strange how what he says to her kind of seeps into her obsession with him. I can understand it, but it is so weird that she would mix the two things together.

As you can see, there are better examples of the way in which over-wording is used in order to depict the most intense of emotions. I think if it stopped with these emotions then it would be alright, but I think that this gets belittled by the lack of control in the rest of the book.

literature
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About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

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