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    The House of Incest
    The House of Incest
    The House of Incest
    Ebook40 pages34 minutes

    The House of Incest

    By Anaïs Nin

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    About this ebook

    The House of Incest, Anais Nin's famous prose poem, was first published in Paris in 1936 and immediately drew attention from the era's prominent writers, including Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell. While written in English, it is considered a landmark work in the French surrealist tradition and one of the most unique books in 20th century literature.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSky Blue Press LLC
    Release dateJul 14, 2010
    ISBN9781452405841
    The House of Incest
    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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    • 4/5
      This short text is worth relaxing into - it is visual, like a trip, a hallucinogenic journey into inner landscapes. There are some great lines in there, and the imagery warps and twists but is always balanced: the warped with the splendour.

    Book preview

    The House of Incest - Anaïs Nin

    THE HOUSE OF INCEST

    by

    Anaïs Nin

    The House of Incest

    Anaïs Nin

    Published by Sky Blue Press at Smashwords

    Copyright © 2010 Sky Blue Press

    Contents © 2010 The Anaïs Nin Trust

    http://www.skybluepress.com

    This book is available in print at Amazon.com

    ***

    ALL THAT I KNOW IS CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK WRITTEN WITHOUT WITNESS, AN EDIFICE WITHOUT DIMENSION, A CITY HANGING IN THE SKY.

    ***

    The morning I got up to begin this book I coughed. Something was coming out of my throat: it was strangling me. I broke the thread which held it and yanked it out. I went back to bed and said: I have just spat out my heart.

    There is an instrument called the quena made of human bones. It owes its origin to the worship of an Indian for his mistress. When she died he made a flute out of her bones. The quena has a more penetrating, more haunting sound than the ordinary flute.

    Those who write know the process. I thought of it as I was spitting out my heart.

    Only I do not wait for my love to die.

    ***

    My first vision of earth was water veiled. I am of the race of men and women who see all things through this curtain of sea, and my eyes are the color of water.

    I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self.

    I remember my first birth in water. All round me a sulphurous transparency and my bones move as if made of rubber. I sway and float, stand on boneless toes listening for distant sounds, sounds beyond the reach of human ears, see things beyond the reach of human eyes. Born full of memories of the bells of the Atlantide.

    Always listening for lost sounds and searching for lost colors, standing forever on the threshold like one troubled with memories, and walking with a swimming stride. I cut the air with wide-slicing fins, and swim through wall-less rooms.

    Ejected from a paradise of soundlessness, cathedrals wavering at the passage of a body, like soundless music.

    This Atlantide could be found again only at night, by the route of the dream. As soon as sleep covered the rigid new city, the rigidity of the new world, the heaviest portals slid open on smooth-oiled gongs and one entered the voicelessness of the dream. The terror and joy of murders accomplished in silence, in the silence of slidings and brushings. The blanket of water lying over all things stifling the voice. Only a monster brought me up

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