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    Collages
    Collages
    Collages
    Ebook132 pages2 hours

    Collages

    By Anaïs Nin

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Collages is Anaïs Nin’s last work of fiction, and is, as the title suggests, a collection of interwoven stories, opening and closing with the passage: “Vienna was the city of statues. They were as numerous as the people who walked the streets. They stood on the top of the highest towers, lay down on stone tombs, sat on horseback, kneeled, prayed, fought animals and wars, danced, drank wine and read books made of stone.”

    The central character, Renate, is a sort of “master of ceremonies” for Nin’s modern fairy tales, as she floats through the narrative and communes, in one way or another, with each of the “storytellers.” Among them are: Varda, the artist whose interaction with his daughter causes him to spin story upon story in order to win her over to his artistic way of thinking; Henri the chef, who names each of his dishes after celebrities and has stories for the most interesting of them; Nina, a young woman whose spontaneous musings lead casual observers to believe she is insane; Nobuko, the Japanese actress whose charming commentaries and letters are laden with magical yet incorrect English; Bruce, whose betrayals to Renate with boys are written in story form hidden in Chinese puzzle boxes; Count Laudromat, the exiled royal whose father-in-law is an owner of laudromats; the French Consul and his wife, who are writers with extremely different outlooks on love and passion; John Wilkes, the “millionaire patron of the arts” who is actually a gardener; Dr. Mann, an Israeli with the unusual pastime of meeting and kissing famous women authors; and the enigmatic Judith Sands, who may have actually “written” Collages.

    Collages is Nin’s most light-hearted writing, and, in that sense, is perhaps her most entertaining book. As Henry Miller commented, “The best of collages fall apart with time; these will not.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSky Blue Press LLC
    Release dateFeb 26, 2012
    ISBN9781452475493
    Collages
    Author

    Anaïs Nin

    ANAÏS NIN (1903-1977) was born in Paris and aspired at an early age to be a writer. An influential artist and thinker, she was the author of several novels, short stories, critical studies, a collection of essays, nine published volumes of her Diary, and two volumes of erotica, Delta of Venus and Little Birds. 

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    Reviews for Collages

    4/5

    43 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Nin is one of my very favorite authors - she has a way of making even the most mundane topics *glitter*
    • 3/5
      Not sure what happened here, where some characters came from or went or even exactly what their part was, but mostly I enjoyed it and had an idea of where I was, and the language itself could be just delicious, and the entire book was full of vivid colors, their sensations, like the inside of a kaleidoscope or indeed a collage. Not much plot or point really, but a collection of brightly patterned impressions of exotic cloth and spices, far-off countries and strange, idiosyncratic characters. Short and sweet.
    • 3/5
      I loved the erotic element in Nin's other writings; here she focusses instead on the human element, exploring personalities and sensibilities, her writing suffused with clear detail and telling anecdotes. It was an entertaining read but also somehow disposable given the impact of her other work.
    • 4/5
      Marguerite Young said she loved this book the most of any written by Anaïs Nin. It was the literary form Nin had said she wanted to achieve in her writing most of all, but not at all what she is famous for. The text rambles much as the work of Young does, and the characters are just as eccentric and fantastic as well. Nin’s dreamscape challenges our own view of reality, and delightfully creates an alternative world many of us might enjoy and prefer than the one we think, or imagine, we live in. Though the work is erotic in the sense of its total aliveness, to my regret there is actually no graphic sex in it at all. But there is a vivid description of an LSD trip that Nin could not have made-up unless having had some prior use and experience in its mind-altering qualities. Even though the gifted Marguerite Young carefully introduced me to this book in one of her fair reviews, it still had many surprises. It is certainly a book I will revisit, if time permits.

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    Collages - Anaïs Nin

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