Reviews

Seduction of the Minotaur by Anaïs Nin

frumpburger's review against another edition

3.0

A little heavy-handed at times, in the way Nin often is, but a whole lot better than A Spy in the House of Love and certainly not as good as Ladders to Fire. The final installment of her 5-book "continuous novel." Perhaps I should have read them in order, but oh well. C'est la vie.

rokasha's review

2.0

Seduction of a Minotaur has some beautiful insights set sporadically throughout the text, though I found the book as a whole quite labourious. I am much more a fan of Nin's diary writing and short erotic stories than this.

I had to push myself to complete this book, though in it's defence it may have been a much better read in context to the other books in the series...

saracha_sams's review against another edition

adventurous reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

maya_irl's review against another edition

2.0

"What took place that night was not love of woman. It was a hope of an exchange of selves."

sarahhahmad's review against another edition

5.0

This was a spectacular conclusion to the Cities of The Interior series. Throughout the course of the series, as the women of the series detach from their male counterparts and infatuations, they begin to find themselves. During a time when women very much see themselves as an extension of or pertaining to man, this book was revolutionary in the revelation that women themselves play a unique role in the universe, and the searching for self in this book was powerful and poetic. Nin is an incredible writer, and I am so happy to have read this book. Nin explores the fluidity of gender and sexuality in such an amorphous and beautiful way, and in this last book especially, I liked the respect with which Nin captures Mexico, in direct contrast to the rigidity and nuclearity of the Occident. Here is my favorite quote: "Out of the full beauty of the tropical night, the full moon, the full bloom of the stars, the full velvet of the night, a full woman might be born. No more scattered fragments of herself living separate cellular lives, living at times in the temporary homes of others' lives."

eleanorbrustman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

screen_memory's review against another edition

4.0

“Some voyages have their inception in the blueprint of a dream, some in the urgency of contradicting a dream. Lillian’s recurrent dream of a ship that could not reach the water, that sailed laboriously, pushed by her with great effort, through city streets, had determined her course toward the sea, as if she would give this ship, once and for all, its proper sea bed."

It's been a while since I've last read Anais Nin. It's hard to find her lesser-known "continuous" novels in bookstores, as evidenced by the two years it's been since I've read anything I haven't yet read by her.

But God, I forgot how in love with Nin I fell some five or six years ago when I first read A Spy In the House of Love and House of Incest. I read her erotica first for some reason, and even the material in Delta of Venus and Little Birds was not without it's psychologically penetrating style. Nin championed literature as a means of psychoanalysis, and this is as evident in this book as it has always been (besides receiving psychoanalysis for some time, she and Henry Miller practiced as psychoanalysts for a brief period).

Anais Nin was definitely a huge influence on my writing when I first started writing seriously some six years ago, moving me to keep one critical eye trained inward. Reading through Seductions reminded me of how powerful of an influence she was back then with its intense focus on the "cities of the interior" as she called it.

heteroglossia's review against another edition

3.0

Was already warned that this book is very very peak white sensual soulful woman ~Finding Herself~ in the tropics. And WOW I tell you... it really was. I mean at that time, Anais Nin probably could not conceive how her well-intentioned idealisation of “natives” in Mexico (she even idealises the beggars!) is damaging and she was probably having a far more compassionate view than most with their colonial mindset but it was still so jarring to read! Natives would be compared to animals even! I really do love the words of Anais Nin but this book was a bit confusing because the setting seemed not very important except to really show her gift of sultry descriptions. Although I guess she also wanted a background that would aid in showing the tension between the “western developed” world and its rationality against the “undeveloped indigenous” untouched by modernity and more in touch with spirituality/their inner selves/passion. “The primitives were wise to retain their rituals” at one point, was said. The lazy native, natives who run amok, and other colonial stereotypes were in abundance. The plot was ?? Confusing ? And secondary really to the ponderings that the characters had, the interiority of the protagonist and the monologues on the human condition and desire that she loves to do. The ending was so fractured from the rest of the book too and was clearly her running off with her writing fictionally about Henry miller and June. Also this is where the phrase that was wrongfully attributed to her was from! “We do not see people as they are, we see them as we are.” It’s actually a Talmudic phrase. Anyway if you are a fan of Anais as I am, maybe this book is worth a miss.

eliahaber's review against another edition

2.0

Too segmented for my taste