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Many times, people can't say why to what they do. I don't know why it started, and I don't know why it ends.
She couldn't figure out how she got to the pond. Memories exist, but even their own memories can be deceptive, and she knows that people sometimes correct feelings or memories based on psychological needs. How terrible, what is real? She sometimes doesn't even know if their love is real.
But the memories of the waterside are beautiful. On the night of early autumn, the night birds are talking in their sleep on the branches of the big tree by the pond. The moonlight shone through the dream-bearing branches, shone on her floral dress, and sprinkled on the mirror-like water. He talks about childhood. He swims in the sea, and his younger brother runs on the shore. Until his younger brother is tired of running, he continues to paddle in the sea... He is the son of the sea.
At that moment she knew what was going to happen. She was doomed to fall in love with him. As he parted, on the slippery steps by the pond, he held her hand.
Anais Ning is an extraordinary little woman, a writer who cannot be ignored, and a brave daydream. Her name is unfamiliar to the vast majority of Chinese, and even well-read writers and scholars are not very familiar with this woman and what she does. In a way, she was the godmother of the "sexual liberation" movement that roiled America in the last century, but we know far less about her than another extraordinary woman, Simone Beauvoir. The latter's "Second Sex" was widely circulated in Chinese intellectual circles in the 1980s, while Anais' "Delta of Venus" (some people literally translated it as "The Delta of the God of Love") is rare here. known. In the West, she is known as a pioneer of physical liberation: "No matter what kind of love I can't resist, my blood begins to dance, my legs spread out."
Delta of Venus is an illuminating work of modern female sexuality, a collection of sex novels that Anais wrote in the 1930s for a dollar a page for a mysterious collector. The only request from the mysterious collector at the time was: no poetry, just sexual stories. This kind of writing for a dollar per page may have prompted Anais to study sex literature deeply, and may also be some incentive for her to try cheating, homosexuality and even incest. However, Anais' understanding of sex has always been romantic and beautiful, she wrote in a letter to the mysterious collector: "Sex is becoming explicit, mechanical, excessive, becoming a mechanical Once obsessed, it loses its power and magic and becomes a tiresome thing... Emotions, hunger, desire, lust, urges, whims, deeper relationships, can change the color of sex, Taste and intensity, how wrong it would be to not combine them with sex." Because of this, Anais Ning instinctively used women's unique sensitivity to describe sex when she wrote those sex novels, thus creating the A woman's language. Those sex novels were not officially published until Anais herself died in 1977. Within two years, the work had sold more than two million copies, making it one of the most widely circulated works at the time; by the 1990s, in the eastern United States alone, the work had reached its fifteenth edition. The text of "Delta of Venus" is not only full of the musical sense of poetry, but also breaks through the situation of male domination of sexual literature, and becomes a pioneer of female language in the field of sexual literature with the courage to be ahead of the times.
Anais Nin was born in Paris in 1903. His father is a Spanish musician and his mother is a French singer. When Anais was nine, her parents divorced, and when she was eleven, her mother took her and her brother to New York, USA. After arriving in New York, Anais was sent to a public school, but she only liked English and literature, and did not like standard education, so she quickly dropped out. After that, she became a frequent visitor to the public library. There, she didn't use a guide, but alphabetized the titles and read them locally. At the same time, she also learned Spanish dance to a considerable level.
In 1923, Anais married bank clerk Hugo Guiller and settled in Queens, New York City. The following year, she and her husband went to Paris, France, until 1939, when World War II broke out, when Anais returned to the United States and settled in New York City. While in Paris, Anais met Henry Miller with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. The friendship and love affair between Anais and Henry were not only crucial to their lives, but also a major event that cannot be ignored in the history of modern literature - at least, it directly influenced "The Tropic of Cancer" and "Henry and Henri" Joan" two works.
In 1932, Anais published D.H. Lawrence: A Non-Professional Study, the first female evaluation of Lawrence's sexuality literature; it was also a milestone in Anais' determination of her own literary style.
I noticed that Anais herself was watching "Henry and Joan" (also translated as "The Third Love") by the great director Philip Kaufman in 1990 - a movie based on the novel of the same name by Anais . This work not only records an important event in the history of modern literature - the love affair between Henry Miller and Anais Nin; A masterpiece that explores the most hidden and deep connotations of women. At least, Kaufman tried hard (or respected the original) to do it, and showed the most primitive thoughts, dreams, intuitions, instincts, lusts and infidelities of women through the charming and brave Anais. Little Women, Kaufman recreates women's thoughts, actions and their sexuality on screen in a neutral way. He kneads real desire, outbursts of passion, and secret indulgence into a poetically captivating image that makes this film irresistible.
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In the movie, everything revolves around Anais, and Henry and Joan are just a story, an episode in Anais’ life—perhaps an unforgettable episode, but it’s not that much. It's a story without a period.
Anais is a young woman with money, leisure and talent. In the early part of the last century, she and her husband came to Paris from America—note, the whole story takes place in Paris, and only in Paris, dreaming of becoming a writer. She lived a rich and comfortable life, too normal and too mediocre, and all her passion seemed to come from reading. Even though the "Little Willow" as her husband lives in love, her daily life is lackluster, so that in addition to her admiration for Lawrence, she can only squander her imagination in her diary.
By chance, she meets Henry—a wild, romantic, self-righteous, self-righteous fellow, a down-and-out writer from Brooklyn, New York, to Paris. Because of Henry, Anais met Henry's coquettish, depraved and charming wife, Joan. Joan told Anais, she said: "I've done the most immoral, nasty things, but I've always done them in a very beautiful way...I feel so innocent now.
Even nasty things have to be done in a beautiful way, that's the way a 100% woman thinks. Thinking that everything done in a beautiful way will be beautiful and innocent. Women live for beauty.
As a result, Anais fell in love with Joan. She felt very fresh about Joan's life style and way of thinking, which was completely different from ordinary people. She was curious and even revered all the breaths that Joan exudes. - Joan Lying, drinking but always beautiful, Joan's background as a homeless entertainer, Joan's wandering homelessness, Joan's mysterious and wealthy godfather... Joan, a downright "bad woman" in the eyes of the public, in Ana In Yisi's eyes, however, she became the embodiment of freedom and art, the embodiment of Lawrence. In Anais' view, Joan is as beautiful and transparent as glass—perhaps, Anais saw her daydreams in Joan. She kissed Joan with saintly devotion.
But then Joan floated away again - back to America for a tour. Anais was lost as if she had collapsed, and she fell ill.
At that time, Henry was just a nameless writer with a high mind, and he fermented his inspiration in Paris with the money given to him by his wife, Joan. He lives in a dilapidated house full of cockroaches and writes a novel based on Joan. But more often, he acts like a prostitute, drinks alcohol, and goes crazy with a group of run-down street entertainers...
Out of curiosity, or to experience Joan's life and continue her love for Joan? Anais began to try to enter Henry's circle, cautiously and curiously, she saw a completely different picture: people full of madness, excitement and passion, doing abnormal, indecent but powerful matter. Gradually, she began to sink in, into Henry's life, into Henry's body, into the confusion, the madness, the powerful shaking of sex—she fell in love with Henry, or in love with Henry lifestyle. They frantically let each other's bodies enter and merge, and sex has become no longer a physical need, but a mental need. Anais said that in this kind of love, she felt the freedom, strength and purity that she had never had before...
Feeling the purity in the depravity, is this what the lives of those entertainers are all about?
Anais began to write, also using Joan as the material - Joan became the woman she and Henry shared. Besides having sex, they explore Joan together.
Henry said he didn't understand why Joan was always jealous, hurt, always lied, kept lying.
Anais said, "Maybe you didn't ask the right question. If it were me, I'd ask 'Why does she need to lie?' 'What is she afraid of?' or 'Who is she afraid of?'" That's the question women think .
For the same things, men and women will have completely different views, or different ways of thinking - Anais's profoundness will only get people's attention in the future. As a later New York Times book review said: her work was the first sexual literature written by a female writer in a fully open style, the founder of the female language in contemporary literature, the slowly developing, The founder of modern female sexuality literature with profound influence.
Kaufman respects the original book, and in the movie he solemnly presents the "women's point of view". In my opinion, this is the seriousness and value of the film. More seriously, Kaufman did not flaunt the so-called alternative behavior and thinking of the artists. As the director of the film, he is always awake. He tolerated any attempt by Anais, and he gave women the greatest freedom—for Joan, and for Anais. He allowed them to dream and be self-willed, but he never lost his mind and did not allow abnormal joys to kill normal, healthy ones.
Finally, near the end of the movie, Anais wakes up from her groggy daydreams—a painful process. Anais got into her husband's car somewhere and went away from Henry. That means she will go back to her old life, and she will say goodbye to those crazy experiences - another piece of beautiful glass is broken, and the once ignorant "Little Willow" cried silently...
Later she wrote - —I
cried that morning I cried
because I loved the street
and took me away Henry
brought me back to him
I cried because it
was so painful to be a woman
I cried because from now on
I won’t cry anymore
I cry because of the pain of losing
but I'm not used to his absence...
It was not an ordinary lovelorn, just as it was not an ordinary love. It was a metamorphosis, a metamorphosis that turned into a butterfly. Broken glass, waking up from a daydream—a brave daydream she had spent sixteen years in Paris. The price of growing into a real woman turned out to be so expensive.
The original book by Anais has now also been published in Chinese, and I have watched the film adapted from the original book four times. I have also lived in Paris, where the story takes place, four times. I've always wondered, if Henry and Anais hadn't met in Paris, would this story still have happened? Could Henry still write Tropic of Cancer? Could Anais be the godmother of the later "sexual liberation" movement?
Will not. can not. Paris, only Paris, is the most wonderful dream bed.
In Paris, in the summer of intermittent rain, I like to wear a short trench coat and stroll in the deep alleys of the Latin Quarter. I watched the raindrops drifting to the bookstores one by one along with the church bells. There are so many bookstores, and the dust under the books at the bottom all know some old secrets—the romances of literati or artists. On a rainy day, the air was full of cold blues—blue as jazz playing in the café next door to the bookstore, with saxophones playing one after another, and jazz drums to the rhythm of the drizzle, sometimes tight and sometimes slow. . Such an atmosphere, poetic and inclusive, is the best time to daydream.
I don't often go to Montmartre and the Red Mill at night, and no one takes me. Only once, in winter, did he take me there. It's just walking around in the alleys of Montmartre Heights, going to the coffee shop, and never dared to walk into any of the Fengyue Shops - we are neither Henry nor Anais, we are too well-behaved or too much. mediocre. Because of the cold weather, it is rare to see women standing on the street to greet customers in the middle of the night. However, even now, the warm popularity overflowing from those bars, cafes or Fengyue shops at night still makes the night in that area full of poetic lewdness, secret fury and ambiguous temptation - enough to provoke the most human nature. Essential impulse. Perhaps, that is some kind of power to unearth the dream of art.
I often go to Montmartre during the day. Sometimes the sky was as blue as solidified, like a huge sapphire inlaid on the top of the hills and highlands, without a single cloud. Today's painting guys still follow the "gold rush" method of those who played art many years ago - moving a small iron chair and placing an easel, painting slowly and meticulously in the shade of a tree, and when they are tired, they go to the neighborhood where the smoke is full of smoke Sit in the cafe - George Sand and Chopin spent time there many years ago. I also often hang out in cafes, write a postcard, have a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette, or stare at the people who are drawing. Sometimes I wonder if Strickland, who had a good day in London in Somerset Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence," but ran away from home and went to Paris to go mad, was also in the Blue Hills area. Has the world ever had his dream of being a painter? Anyway, Picasso was mixed in this area. There is a house where Picasso once lived in the alley near the Hill Square, and there is a bronze medal at the door as proof. In the past, more famous or unknown artists left many stories here, only the blue sky on the top of the alley knows...
Then, of course, Henry Miller became famous. In his famous (or notorious) Tropic of Cancer, the down-and-out 1930s life in Paris is one of his favorite memories. I'm afraid it's not just because of Anais, there was another important woman in his life during that period.
Henry was married five times in his life, but only his second wife, Joan, was crucial to his literary career. Joan met Henry Miller in 1923, when she was a Broadway dancer in New York, and Henry was a personnel manager at Western Union. The following year Henry married Joan, and under Joan's encouragement, he began to specialize in writing. During this period, Joan had tried her best to support the two. When Joan came to Paris from New York to visit Henry in 1931, he introduced Joan to Anais. The two women were immediately captivated by the charm of each other. This entangled passion continued until the last week of June in January 1932, when June came to an end when she returned to New York. In October 1932, when Joan returned to Paris again, a complex emotional entanglement broke out - an unusual love triangle, not two women fighting for a man, but a three-way battle - and everyone was deeply involved. In love with the other two, it's just that Joan can't stand the triangle. In the end, Henry and Joan divorced at the end of 1932, and Anais' intervention was undoubtedly the most direct reason. Two years later, Henry published Tropic of Cancer in Paris, and Anais Nin wrote the preface to this extraordinary book; five years later Henry published Tropic of Cancer. With their bold and explicit language and sexual description, these two books brought a huge shock to the Western literary world and became the pioneers of the European literary avant-garde. At the time, Henry's work was banned in almost all countries except France. In 1961, after a historic lawsuit, Tropic of Cancer was finally published in the United States—Henry Miller became a household name and was even hailed by the 60s counterculture as a prophet of freedom and the sexual revolution. Subsequently, the ban of his other works was lifted one after another, and Miller's works were finally recognized by the world literary circle.
In her more than thirty years of association with Henry, the fate of Anais' work is roughly the same as Henry's.
Anais Ning returned to the United States and began to concentrate on sex literature in the 1940s, but all American publishers refused to publish her work. As a result, Anais had to pay to print and distribute her own works. Thanks to her unique descriptions and insights into women's sexuality and sexuality, Anais's "underground" works still win many readers. In the 1960s, the United States began the "sexual liberation" movement, and Anais's works received widespread social attention. At the time, almost every feminist had a copy of Anais' book. "Gosh, there is a woman who actually enjoys the perfect life - she travels the world independently, lives independently, does what she wants, and she has her own sexiness, her possessions and everything!" The voice of an American woman in her diary. At that time, the goddess Anais in their hearts was nearly sixty years old. Her novels and essays not only became popular in the United States, but also became the enlightenment works of the "sexual liberation" movement. At the same time, Anais has also become a spokesperson for women's literature. After the 1970s, Anais was regarded as the pioneer of modern female sexuality literature, and made important contributions to the development of sexuality literature in the world literary world.
In 1977, at the height of the sexual liberation movement, godmother Anais Ning died. The US "Newsweek" published an obituary saying that Anais "is one of the most important writers in modern literature".
Due to her influence, literature departments of many institutions of higher learning in the United States and other Western countries have established a sex literature major in comparative literature. Anais' works are not only the enlightening readings for this major, but also the most discussed readings. At New York University, the "Anais Ning Memorial Scholarship" has been established since the year after Anais' death in 1977, which is awarded annually as an honorary award to a doctoral student majoring in comparative literature.
In early 2003, on the centenary of Anais' birth, Columbia University in New York City once again hosted a series of "Nights of Sex Literature" to honor this extraordinary woman.
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