Review by Choice Review
Bair is the author of two previous biographies, Samuel Beckett (CH, Jan'79) and Simone de Beauvoir (1990). Here, her experience as a biographer reveals itself in both the quality and readability of the prose. This, along with her comprehensive coverage, makes this biography superior to Noel Riley Fitch's Ana"is: The Erotic Life of Ana"is Nin (1993), which has limitations indicated by its title. Nin is, of course, famous as one of the most prolific diarists of the 20th century, a habit begun at the age of 11 as her family embarked on a sea voyage to America after they were deserted by Nin's beloved father. Her diaries eventually numbered 69 volumes with another 30 or so notebooks of more random entries. She is also know for her long string of lovers and friends, who included June and Henry Miller, Otto Rank, Antonin Artaud, Edmund Wilson, Lawrence Durrell, and Gore Vidal. Bair terms Nin "a 'major' minor writer" and frequently points out the ways in which Nin anticipated many markers of the late 20th century, including exploration of sexuality, psychoanalysis, and women's autobiography. Bair availed herself of the Nin archives at UCLA and elsewhere and consulted with Rupert Pole, one of Nin's two (simultaneous) husbands. The result is a balanced and evenhanded book with more than 100 pages of tightly packed footnotes and many illustrations. Strongly recommended for all collections. E. R. Baer; Gustavus Adolphus College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Anas Nin was a woman obsessed with self and sex, a weaver of elaborate lies and multiple identities, and one of the world's most famous diarists. She filled 69 volumes with her exploits, observations, and interpretations, labored painfully over her fiction, and finally, in the last decade of her unusual and flamboyant life, was granted the recognition she always craved. Although the diaries that made her reputation were heavily edited and reworked, her surviving husband, Rupert Pole, is currently releasing "unexpurgated" volumes, including the disquieting Incest: From a "Journal of Love" (1992). Literary scholar and author Nol Riley Fitch took a stab at an authoritative biography of Nin in Anas: The Erotic Life of Anas Nin (1993) and did capture the essence of her contradictory and determined personality, but Bair, distinguished and best-selling biographer of Simone de Beauvoir and Samuel Beckett, has been able to bring the ever-elusive Nin into sharper focus. Bair is the first scholar to be granted access to Nin's original diaries and to have the full cooperation of Pole and Nin's family and friends. Accordingly, Bair takes pains to treat Nin with the objectivity and critical analysis a writer, even a "major minor" one like Nin, deserves. This sterling biography clears up confusion on several fronts and offers the best portrait not only of Nin but of her husband Hugo Guiler, the man who "paid" for Nin's extravagant and, in some ways, pioneering life. --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Nin (1903-1977) is largely regarded as a sometimes risibly affected writer of erotic fiction (The House of Incest) and of a voluminous and sexually frank diary. National Book Award winner Bair (Samuel Beckett: A Biography) maintains that Nin is ``a major minor writer'' ready for critical rehabilitation. That claim is neglected as the author herself focuses on the stormy, lurid erotic history of an undeniably self-absorbed woman. Nin befriended James Merrill, Gore Vidal and Henry Miller, had affairs with Miller and her analyst, Otto Rank, and was a bigamist for half her life. The first biographer with access to Nin's complete diary, Bair uncovers extensive documentation of an incestuous relationship between Nin and her father, as well as suggestions of a sexual liaison with her brother Thorvald. The evidence for the latter exists only in the diaries, which Nin rewrote so heavily that their validity is suspect; one critic calls them ``liaries.'' The basis for Nin's fiction, the diaries were themselves intended for publication. Vidal assailed Nin for her ``thundering solipsism''a charge Bair tacitly endorses without any complementary argument about the aesthetic stature of a woman whose career rested on ``the fascination of herself as a subject.'' (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In her Samuel Beckett (LJ 6/15/78) and Simone de Beauvoir (LJ 3/1/90), Bair was overtly judgmental by a forthright middle-class ethic. Still, readers could appreciate that her fastidious grounding of verifiable facts made possible an exact correlation of literature and life. Classifying Nin as a "major minor writer" does not encourage readers to overlook moral lapses in the name of art. Bair clearly finds Nin distasteful, a self-victimizing nymphomaniac who victimized in turn. She was a narcissist, bigamist, and compulsive liar whose obsessive diary-keeping was both her personal art form and her personal undoing. In fiction, her surrealistic representation of eroticism made it seem like fantasy and hence more poetic than pathological. Called a decadent St. Theresa by a publisher's reader, she bore her final illness bravely. Bair has had access to 250,000 pages of Nin's unedited diaries and interviewed a staggering number of "witnesses." The result is compelling reading for literature and biography collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/94.]-Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Binghamton Univ., N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Though Bair can at times seem like a referee deciding which version of Nin's life is most accurate, this exhaustive account of the former feminist icon is impressive. The challenge of writing about Nin is the wealth of often disparate sources. Nin's published diaries, her fiction, and her ``unexpurgated'' diaries combine to give conflicting accounts of this bigamous woman whose most famous love affair was with Henry Miller. Bair (Simone de Beauvoir, 1990, etc.) gained access to the originals of the diaries (the unexpurgated versions were, in fact, heavily edited), Nin's voluminous correspondence, and many intimate friends, lovers, and spouses. The resulting biography is a fine one that traces Nin from her beginnings in Cuba, through her move to New York as a teenager; her life in Paris; her shuttling between New York, Mexico, and California; her literary career, which did little but sputter until the publication of her edited diaries in the 1970s, to her death from cancer in 1977. The engine that drove Nin and drives this story are her affairs, which began with her tumultuous relationship with Henry and June Miller. Bair describes the endless line of lovers, including Gore Vidal (they never consummated the relationship), other women, and her own father. Throughout, Hugh Parker Guiler, the husband she married while still young, remains with her, staying out of the way of her extramarital life to the extent that she was able to have a second husband on an opposite coast for over a decade. Along with the steady stream of peccadilloes, Bair offers just enough small details, such as the movies Nin went to see, to personalize the narrative. The only fault of the book is that Bair at times goes on too long in presenting all sides of debates over which version of various events is most true. Bair's Nin emerges as the complex woman she was, a woman who inspired both wrath and passion in those whose paths crossed hers.
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Review by Choice Review
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
