Jan 28: Anais Nin, Ladders to Fire

Only interesting, perhaps as a result of this reader’s masculine viewpoint, because of its obvious and revealing portrayals of Henry Miller in the role of Jay and of June Miller as Sabina. Taken as biography, engrossing and wonderful.

I extended my walk all the way to the Hermosa Pier (about 2.5 miles, one-way) in order to absorb more of its pages, and stopped at Marine to soak up a few more. I lay back upon the low concrete fence for six pages while the man in the blue shirt serenaded the ocean with his harp concerto.

I was also struck by how much overlap there is in vocabulary between Nin and Miller. They have stolen each other’s words like lovers stealing kisses: “semitone, excrescence, phosphenes, charivaris, fanfaronade, fandangoe, ridotto, coruscating.” I will rob corpses. I believe they would have liked this idea.

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