I loved this: the introspection, the analysis, the self-sabotage, and the destructive relationships.

Nin is so honest a chronicler in her feelings that you go beyond the discomfort of being in someone's most intimate thoughts and just accept them as a late-night daily recap conversation with a very very close self-analytical friend (which explains why I underlined and commented in the margins so much). To be fair though, this diary seems to be more "cleaned up" as there's a distinct lack of her home life as well as the more intimate aspects of her relationships. Just an immediate jump from her interior to her analysis sessions or her writing or her friendships.

I have a copy of Henry and June which promises to be the unexpurgated account of the same period and knowing Nin's usual reputation for erotica, perhaps I'll have to work my way up to it. ( )

Her erotic appetite compares to no other... for such a dainty bird. ( )

I bought these diaries at the Village Book Store in the Emory Village in 1977. I am glad I did, because they would probably have burned with the store burned. As a diarist myself there is so much here.It is so beautifully written.
A few quotes I underlined
"Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the hihgh moments I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous" p; 5
and
Dear diary, you have hampered me as an artist. But at the same time you have kept me alive as a human being. I created you because I needed a friend. And talking to this friend I have perhaps wasted my life." p. 260
No, you have not dear author. You have written essays, not common diary entries of comings and goings, meals, travels.

An unbelievable life. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. ( )