If Baudelaire thought of love as “the traditionally artistic attempt to escape boredom,” then Anaïs Nin waged a war of attrition. Nin’s effusive narrative, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin 1939-1947, chronicles the vast annals of love and literature in the first 8 years Nin came to the United States after fleeing Paris and the encroaching WWII. This compilation of entries has been re-printed in 2013 after Nin’s second/simultaneous husband, Rupert Pole, commissioned them the year her first husband, Hugh Guiler died in 1985. However, Nin’s diary is not just a torrid, Don Juan-esque description of her sexual exploits. She also probes deeply into concepts like love and happiness with the spasmodic élan of a woman on fire. She is a neurotic, a visionary, and a ravenous epicurean of the known world. [Read More]