- Paperback: 212 pages
- Publisher: Swallow Press; 1 edition (Jun 30 1986)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0804008795
- ISBN-13: 978-0804008792
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 1.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #144,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loving Rebellion and Defense: Manifesto of Authentic Depth in Novels, April 3 2012
By G. Charles Steiner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Novel of the Future (Paperback)
I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is a manifesto and it is noticeably angry or in rebellion against the stifling conformity of so-called mainstream novels with their staid literary conventions. I would disagree with the previous reviewer that what Anais Nin is arguing for is a post-modern esthetic. Not in the least. And thus the reviewer's comments that this book feels dated rings false and insincere. Nothing at all is dated about the book except the date it was printed. The book is about the nature of a modern novel from Nin's own visionary perspective, one rooted in her own attempts as a novelist, attempts that were based in keeping a diary, and a vision rooted in her attraction to certain works that reveal an organic understanding of the unconscious. Nin discusses the relationship between the inner and outer realities of the individual psychoanalytically and literarily.Reading this book in 1993 for the second time, I learned more about Nin's methods of writing. Reading this book for the first time when I was 20, there was a lot I didn't understand though I felt I did understand. At 43, I understood better why my 20-year-old self didn't quite grasp the first time around everything the author wrote. Nin had sent me an autographed copy of this work when I was 20, writing on the front page of it, "All I know about writing." Nin's "all" is much, indeed. Nin uses dreams to help her write fiction that is inspired by the events in her diary. She descries absolutistic objectivity as a myth. What she strives for, however,is simply trying to be fair, particularly when it comes to making portraits about others. People are a mixture of bad and good qualities and virtues.
This is a book that can be read for a century or two and will retain its freshness and vitality. She provides a list of books both within the book and at the back that she herself admires and loves. Thus, this is a work that keeps on giving and refreshing one's understanding of life.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
This Future Was Yesterday, Aug 22 2008
By nonlinearize - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Novel of the Future (Paperback)
This book, a manifesto of sorts, is probably of most interest for close followers of Nin's work. Written in 1968, the book serves as an exploration and defense of Nin's creative process, and while it was probably fairly engaging at the time, "Of the Future" definitely feels a little dated today. Nin is perhaps best known for her erotic short fiction, and all of her work develops from a commitment to bringing the unconscious substratum of experience into the forefront of the reader's perception, "to proceed from the dream outward" and, fundamentally, to write about what's really going on within the mental and emotional worlds of her characters.Throughout this book Nin periodically rails against the stuffiness and insincerity of writers and artists preoccupied with conventional realism. Mostly, however, she devotes herself to repeatedly stressing the importance of integrating psychoanalytic and surrealist insights into contemporary art, of exploring and communicating the subjective experience. What she is basically arguing for, though she doesn't seem to realize it, is post-modernism.
This is why the book feels dated: in the past few decades we've already seen, in frequently overblown variations, both the positive and negative ramifications of the kind of art and writing that Nin is arguing so enthusiastically for here. There are definitely some perceptive observations, insights and rewarding anecdotes throughout the book, but the reader will have to work for them, trundling along through what amounts, in part, to an argument for the validity of her own output. I've read one of Nin's novels and was quite impressed, but the lengthy excerpts from a number of her works included in "Of the Future" don't seem to make for very good demonstrations. She talks quite a bit about her own work in this book, and for the devoted reader there appears to be lots of good stuff here. For me, though, it was a little too self-concerned and really rather boring.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that much of what Nin calls for is an assertion of independence and individuality in response to the stifling conformity of life in 1950's post-war America. Now, existing as we do in a hyper-individualistic, narcissistic world culture, we may actually begin to imagine the trajectory of the "novels of the future" as a re-envisioning and return to the collective, to a new articulation of community and possible balance between extremes...
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