Henry & June

Recently read Henry & June. From The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin.

The word unexpurgated alone drives you to the book store in a frenzy to purchase this book. (Editor's note: Book store is an antiquated reference. Book stores no longer exist. They have been replaced by over priced coffee hawkers, and smart phone boutiques.)

Anais Nin is describes as a French-born novelist, passionate eroticist, and short story writer. She lived from 1903 to 1977 and gained fame largely from her journals.

She kept detailed journals for most of her life, beginning at the age of eleven, and was brutally honest in them regarding her thoughts, her feelings, her impressions and opinions and experiences.

Henry & June covers the period between October 1931 to October 1932. A period of time when she lost herself and discovered herself through a torrid affair with Henry Miller. Just before Henry Miller was to achieve fame as a novelist.

Anais Nin was married, Henry Miller was married. June was Miller's wife, who Nin was also attracted to and who she flirted with. June travelled during this period, which allowed Miller and Nin to investigate passion.

And investigate passion was what they did. Miller was a passionate man, an experienced and improvisational lover. Nin was somewhat naive at the time but emotionally open to expanding the boundaries of her life. In fact, hungering to do so.

They engaged in a ferocious affair of both the body and the mind. The journal is explicit in describing their sexual joys, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg.

It is also explicit in describing their conversations and impressions, their opinions of life and relationships, their exploration of and attempts to understand and maybe redefine what it means to love, to be in love, how best to live a love and a life.

Passion of the mind.

Some would view the whole scenario as scandalous, especially given the period when it was written. Some would consider Anais Nin a harlot.

Others might consider her a seeker, a lover of life. Some are described as afraid to die, others are described as afraid to live. She was unafraid to live.

The rules have been laid down centuries ago defining how life should be lived and how relationships should be conducted. Humans are too complex to be restricted by rules. Each life answer is individually determined.

Anais Nin chose to live vibrantly, writing her own rules as she went and sometimes breaking even those.

Passion runs wild in these journals. Passion of every intensity and definition, physical and of the mind and emotions. Passionate thought, passionate questioning, intense self examination and change, intense risk and reward.

However you choose to label Anais Nin, it cannot  be denied that she grabbed life by the throat and fought furiously to shake answers free from the mystery that shrouds it.