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Inventing Anais Nin: Celebrity Authorship and the Creation of an Icon

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Inventing Anais Nin: Celebrity Authorship and the Creation of an Icon INVENTING ANAIS NIN: CELEBRITY AUTHORSHIP AND THE CREATION OF AN ICON Thesis presented by Anita Jarczok Under the supervision of Dr. Sinead McDermott and Dr. Patricia Moran For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted to the University of Limerick, September 2011 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the process of the construction of Anaїs Nin’s public persona (or rather personae) by herself and by the popular media in the United States from 1966 onwards, with a special focus on socio-cultural processes that contributed to the production and sedimentation of Nin’s public image. This involves, on the one hand, the analysis of Nin’s involvement in the process of self-construction and self- promotion; on the other, the study of how various media contributed to the invention of Anaїs Nin. I also analyse how Nin’s name and persona have been used and what she has come to signify. I investigate what Nin has stood for, what sort of statements she has been brought to support, what products she has advertised, and what debates she has triggered. In order to accomplish these aims, I rely on the archival research, textual analysis, an examination and application of critical theories to position my study. As far as a critical framework is concerned, I situate my study between autobiography studies and cultural studies. In particular, I combine celebrity culture studies with those that focus on the author’s (self) representation in the literary marketplace, and I foreground gender as a vital factor in constructing a public personality. i DECLARATION I, Anita Jarczok, declare that the content of this thesis is my own original work except where otherwise indicated with reference to secondary sources. Part of this thesis regarding Philip Kaufman’s film Henry & June, which is included in Chapter Four, has been published in a changed form in A Café in Space: The Anaїs Nin Literary Journal (2011). ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors, Dr Sinead McDermott and Dr Patricia Moran, for their constant support during the production of this thesis. Their advice and guidance was invaluable and their help with editing much needed and appreciated. I also wish to thank Dr Carmen Kuhling on whose stimulating module “The Sociology of Gender and Popular Culture” I had pleasure to teach and who took the role of my internal examiner, and Professor Brenda R. Silver for both her highly inspirational book, Virginia Wool Icon, and for her valuable advice on how this project can be further developed. This study was made possible thanks to the Women’s Studies scholarship that I received during the first year of my research and which was later replaced by funding from the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences. I would like to thank both institutions: the University of Limerick and the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences for financial assistance without which this research would not be possible. Last but not least, I am immensely grateful to my family and friends who supported me emotionally during my stay in Ireland. My parents in particular were a source of comfort and encouragement and not only during three years of this research but throughout my whole educational journey. Special thanks to Sunshine Kirst for helping me with obtaining the photographs of Anaїs Nin. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ I DECLARATION ................................................................................................. II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................... VII LIST OF APPENDICES .................................................................................. VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................. IX A NOTE ON PRIMARY SOURCES ................................................................... X INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 Rationale for this Project ............................................................................................ 2 Who is Anaїs Nin? – A Brief Story of her Personal Life Based on Anaїs Nin: A Biography by Deirdre Bair .......................................................................................... 5 Nin and the American Literary Marketplace ............................................................ 7 Diary vs. Diary ........................................................................................................... 10 Content of the Chapters ............................................................................................ 12 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................... 14 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 14 Academia on Nin’s Works ........................................................................................ 14 Academic trends in Nin’s criticism up to the early 1990s ........................................ 15 Academic trends in Nin’s criticism since the mid 1990s .......................................... 17 Autobiography Criticism and Nin’s Diaries ............................................................ 22 Celebrity Authorship ................................................................................................ 28 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 35 iv CHAPTER TWO: PUBLIC PROMOTION OF THE PRIVATE SELF: ANAЇS NIN’S SELF-CONSTRUCTION IN THE DIARY............................................... 37 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 37 Preparing the Diary for Publication and Attempts to Have it Published ............... 38 Various Levels of the Construction of the Nin Persona ........................................... 49 Nin the person vs. Nin the diary persona ................................................................. 49 Nin the diary persona vs. Nin the Diary persona ...................................................... 53 Nin the Diary persona vs. Nin the public persona .................................................... 56 Nin’s Self-presentations in the Diary ........................................................................ 57 Diary I 1931-1934 ................................................................................................... 59 Nin the writer ...................................................................................................... 61 Nin the artists’ friend ........................................................................................... 65 The bourgeois versus the bohemian Nin .............................................................. 67 Nin the woman .................................................................................................... 71 Nin the daughter in search of the father ............................................................... 75 The sexually ambiguous Nin ............................................................................... 76 Diary II 1934-1939 .................................................................................................. 77 Nin the woman writer .......................................................................................... 78 The bohemian Nin ............................................................................................... 80 Diary III 1939-1944 to Diary VI 1955-1966 ............................................................ 81 Nin the woman writer .......................................................................................... 81 The bourgeois versus the bohemian Nin .............................................................. 86 Nin the observer/ the commentator/ the artists’ friend .......................................... 88 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 90 CHAPTER THREE: PUBLIC RELATION OF THE SELF – ANAЇS NIN, FEMINISM AND CELEBRITY AUTHORSHIP ................................................. 93 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 93 Part One: Press Reception of Nin ............................................................................. 96 Reviews: General trends .......................................................................................... 96 Helping to maintain the legend of Anais Nin ........................................................... 99 Nin as the embodiment of femininity ..................................................................... 101 The business of reviewing ..................................................................................... 103 Nin the reviewer .................................................................................................... 110 Part Two: Nin’s Public Performances .................................................................... 111 General comments
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