On the beach with the mistress of erotica
SHELF LIFE
A lot of what I read these days is something I’ve read excerpts from before and happen to pick up again. This time, the excerpt was something I had stumbled upon in another book and was always curious about the way the actual book would be. It is a bit risqué, but then erotica always is.
Actually, I don’t even know whether you could classify this book as pure erotica, it is a very sensual set of essays, but it does depict the sexual act in some clarity.
The book is Delta Of Venus, by Anais Nin (and today, you will have to forgive me if my research isn’t always what it is, because my Internet is down, one of the perils of working from home, and so I’m depending on my cellphone for browsing). Nin was a French author of the early 20th century, who became famous for the publication of her journals and also, her erotica. She worked as a model, briefly, something that is mentioned frequently in her writings, she had an affair with English author Henry Miller and she was also a devotee of psychoanalysis and D.H. Lawrence. Quite the mixture.
For anyone keen to explore sensual writing, you could do no better than Delta of Venus. Nin herself dismisses it in the forward as “pornographic writing”, but in fact, the language is so fine and subtle and the nuances so clear, that you really get a good picture of French high society during that time. She began writing it during a particularly poverty stricken time in her life, when she was desperate to earn money, and regarded it as somewhat of a farce. Later, she decided to have it published, and well, the world got one of its finest erotic writers.
What I also like about Nin’s writing is that it caters to women. Not in the sense of titillation, but she takes into consideration the way women feel and act and think and that is rare in any piece of literature let alone something that has the propensity to be as base as erotica. She is very aware of the way people are prone to behave in certain situations and she brings that out beautifully.
I have a couple of other works by Nin as well, her diary recording her affair with Henry Miller called Henry And June and one of her novels, which I didn’t like quite so much. She is very good with non-fiction, literary essays, saying how things happened, but I think her tendency for fine prose gets a bit too cloying in her fictional work. I took a bunch of her stuff to the beach where it made perfect sense — sensual setting and sensual writing. That is something I believe in strongly, that your reading experience is heightened if you match the mood in the book to the place you’re in.
But even if you don’t have a chance to get away to the beach right now, pick up a copy. It’ll open your mind and slow down your limbs. It is the best way to get introduced to one of the oldest forms of writing and it’ll teach you something about the way life is elsewhere.
The columnist is an author
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