The delta of Venus
The Delta of Venus is the title of an erotic prose volume by Anaïs Nin . The book, whose title is an allusion to the triangular shape of female shame , contains 15 short stories about sex , lust and passion .
History of origin
In 1940 the writer Henry Miller had to accept an anonymous "collector" offer to write erotica for one dollar per page because of financial difficulties . As a result, Miller's friend and lover Anaïs Nin also took advantage of this source of income. In her diaries from that time you can read how reluctantly she accepted these orders.
The client demanded “concentrate on the sex” and “leave out the poetic frippery”. Nin resisted these requirements that she had to meet. She soon built secret irony into the narratives to caricature sexuality; the collector did not notice. Ultimately, she wrote to him: “We hate you. Sexuality loses all power and magic when it is presented excessively, exaggerated, mechanically, when it becomes an obsession. It becomes dull. "
Publications
The stories were published as an anthology in 1977. In 1980 there was also an illustrated edition with pictures by the photographer Bob Carlos Clarke .
In Germany, The Delta of Venus was confiscated in 1983 along with other book titles that were regarded as pornographic and harmful to minors.
A complete German-language paperback edition has been available since 2002. An audio book as an unabridged reading with Angela Winkler as the speaker was published in 2006.
The book was also made into a film by Zalman King in 1995 with the title Delta of Venus with Audie England .
content
The book consists of 15 individual stories:
- Elena
- The Hungarian adventurer
- Mathilde
- The boarding school
- The ring
- Mallorca
- Artists and models
- Lilith
- Marianne
- The veiled woman
- The Basque and Bijou
- Pierre
- Manuel
- Linda
- Marcel
criticism
Henry Miller called the volume "poetic and pornographic, sensual and sensitive"; it is a "shamelessly beautiful book". The New York Times praised the work with the words: “This is the most beautiful and most direct book that has ever been written by a woman. What makes it a double pleasure is its language: delicate and smooth, direct and sensual. "
literature
- Anne T. Salvatore: Anais Nin's Narratives. University Press of Florida, 2001, ISBN 0-8130-2113-8 .
Web links
- Bibliography by Anaïs Nin
- The film Delta of Venus in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anaïs Nin: The Delta of Venus. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-453-03253-5 . P. 7ff.
- ↑ Anaïs Nin: Delta of Venus. Harcourt, New York and London 1977, ISBN 0-15-124656-4 (hardcover)
- ↑ Anaïs Nin: Delta of Venus. Harcourt, New York and London 1986, ISBN 0-15-625277-5 (paperback)
- ^ Anaïs Nin: The illustrated Delta of Venus. WH Allen, London 1980, ISBN 0-491-02773-7 .
- ↑ Book market: Stupid things again . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1983, pp. 210-213 ( online ).
- ^ Roland Seim: Between media freedom and censorship. Telos Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-933060-00-1 , p. 236.
- ^ Argon Verlag , Berlin, ISBN 3-87024-427-5 .
- ↑ German version of AVU - United Video (abridged version, 88 minutes, VHS only)