"In Favour of the Sensitive Man" by Anais Nin: a distinctly different approach to feminism (In Favour of the Sensitive Man: And Other Essays - Anais Nin)

Member Name: theabster

Product:	In Favour of the Sensitive Man: And Other Essays - Anais Nin
Date:	25/11/08 (290 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not just for women!! Essays are not too long and cover many subjects, including exotic travel

Disadvantages: Not for those who are cynical about poetic prose or convoluted language.

"In Favour of the Sensitive Man" as both the essay and title of the book housing a collection of pieces documenting the life and works of Anais Nin, is an utterly magical and poetic piece of literature. If you have not read any of her books before, I urge you to start. It will be particularly of interest to you if you like classical fiction (like D.H. Lawrence especially), philosophy, poetry, psychology or feminist literature.

Anais Nin was born on February 21st 1903, to two artistic parents in Neuilly, France. With Cuban parents but a French ancestory she lived her childhood between Cuba, Barcelona, France and New York. A troubled relationship with her father and the feelings associated with being uprooted so often features heavily in her writing. Beginning her work with a critical evaluation of the works of DH Lawrence, entitled "D.H. Lawrence, An Unprofessional Study", the distinction of her style of prose from previous writers began to take form. She really understood D.H. Lawrence, she marvelled in his work, yet she struggled for recognition for many years both to get this book published and her further works battled the same repression. The barriers of writing non-conventionally in a time in which female writers were lacking equal recognition became both the struggle and the highlight of the work she was to create. Nin lived the 'true' Bohemian lifestyle, perhaps most famously with fellow writer Henry Miller in both Paris and New York City and her work is, in a sense, semi-autobiographical. Central themes to her work include feminism, sexuality, art, beauty and so on, but first and foremost she engages in a study of what it means to be an intellectual and creative woman and offers an intensive study of the power and complexity of human relationships. She delves deeply into the world of psychoanalysis (she worked closely with the likes of Otto Rank, a pupil of Sigmund Freud) yet offers a worldview that is both self-critical and self-empowering. To quote from one of her diaries:

"We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely. We write as the birds sing, as the primitives dance their rituals. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing. "
February 1954 The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5

What is most distinct about Anais Nin, however, especially in "In Favour of the Sensitive Man", is her poetic style that deconstructs some of the most conventional rules of structure in literature and narrative. She is most famous for her diaries: "the unexpurgated diaries of Anais Nin", that offer an insight into the dramatic and fabulous life she led. Yet she repeatedly told others that she did not want to be put on a pedestal, despite the fact she knew the power her work would have for women without voices, for unpublished writers, for unrecognised artists. Described as "lyrical magic", she creates an atmosphere of sensuality and the importance of the feminine so resolutely in her creative writing. It is beautiful, honest, intelligent and compassionate- a testament, perhaps, to the writer herself. Deener Mezger, a close friend of Anais, said of her, as much as she seemed impromptu, she was a devoted writer and meticulous craftsman, and that "dazzled by what seems exotic or dramatic, one misses how hard she worked". She wrote every day for at least five hours, every morning, without fail and not because she was driven to be published but because she simply adored writing. It was her escape, her way of dealing with the intensity of emotions she derived from everyday experience. She understood both the difficulties and the creative beauty of being committed to the artists life.

In the particular essay this review focuses on, she describes the need of contemporary society to embrace a new image of masculinity that is developing in contrast to previous negative stereotypes. She describes how the liberation of women has to allow for the liberation of what it means to be masculine, and that a new type of man, suited to the liberated woman is emerging. The boundaries between what makes a man masculine and a woman feminine are being blurred and amalgamated, yet intensified in a wholesome and evolutionary way. The new man is suited to the new woman because he is sensitive, he is vulnerable and he is creative: he is the artist, the musician, the writer. A man is allowed to cry, because it shows he has feeling. Anais describes the power of 'the feminine': intimacy, integrity, erotic, colour, love, feelings, personal, interior and the dream. If man can reverse the historical stereotype of masculinity being violence, power, aggression and shading or evading emotional intensity and the woman can take masculine qualities without losing herself, then the new couple that will emerge will be something very special indeed. Man needn't lose all his qualities- he should retain ambition, power and so on, but through a the lens of femininity indulge in the creation of a entirely unconventional psyche. To quote:

"For the new woman and the new man, the art of connecting and relating separate interests will be a challenge. If women today do not want a nonexistent husband married to Big Business, they will accept a simpler form of life to have the enjoyment of a husband whose life blood has not been sucked by big companies. I see the new woman shedding many luxuries. I love to see them, simply dressed, relaxed, natural, playing no roles. For the transitional stage was woman's delicate problem: how to pass from being submerged and losing her identity in a relationship, how to learn to merge without loss of self. The new man is helping too by his willingness to change too, from rigidities to suppleness, from tightness to openness, from uncomfortable roles to the relaxation of no roles...do not I say to today's women, please do not mistake sensitivity for weakness. This was the mistake which almost doomed our culture. Violence was mistaken for power, the misuse of power for strength." (In Favour of the Sensitive Man, Anais Nin)

Other essays in this volume include:

Women and Men

Eroticism in Women
The New Woman
Anais Nin talks about being a Woman: An Interview
Notes on Feminism
My Sister, my Spouse
Between Me and Life
Women and Children of Japan

Writing, Music and Films

On Truth and Reality
The Story of my Printing Press
Novelist on Stage
Out of the Labyrinth: An Interview
The Suicide Academy
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling
Angel in the Forest
Edgar Varese
At a Journal Workshop
Henry Jaglom: Magician of the Film
Un Chant d'Amour
Ingmar Bergman

Enchanted Places
The Labyrinthine City of Fez
Morocco
The Spirit of Bali
Port Vila, New Hebrides
The Swallow Never Leave Noumea
My Turkish Grandmother


This is not her best work by any means- I enjoy her novels more because they are so poetic, divulging and non-contrived. Her other works include: Collages, Cities of the Interior, the diaries, the Delta of Venus, Little Birds and so on. It is breathtaking, stunning and I have not been able to read anything else with so much appreciation since. It is revolutionary and I just read little bits here and there when I am not reading one of her novels all the way through.

I'll leave you with my favourite quotation from "Under a Glass Bell",

"I feel a fatigue of the tongue seeking to utter impossible things until it twists itself into a knot and chokes me. I feel a fatigue at this mass of nerves seeking to uphold a world that is falling apart. I feel a fatigue at feeling, at the fervour of my dreams, the fever of my thought, the intensity of my hallucinations. A fatigue at the sufferings of others and my own. I feel my own blood thundering inside of me, I feel the horror of falling into abysms. But you and I would always fall together and I would not be afraid. We would fall into abysms, but you would carry your phosphorescences to the very bottom of the abysms. We could fall together and ascend together, far into space. I was always exhausted by my dreams, not because of the dreams, but because of the fear of not being able to return. I do not need to return. I will find you everywhere. You alone can go wherever I go, into the same mysterious regions. You too know the language of the nerves. You will always know what I am saying even if I do not."

Summary: Clear, concise, original and compassionate thought