RECOMMENDED. Book. “Delta of Venus" by Anaïs Nin.

RECOMMENDED. Book. “Delta of Venus,” fifteen short stories by Anaïs Nin, published posthumously in 1977—though largely written in the 1940s as erotica for a private collector. Before I continue, my warning: Don’t even try to find the 1994 film version by Zalman King. First, that movie sucks. Second, this classic is meant for reading, imagining, and imagining, and imagining. All in your mind, feel it, into your loins. You dig? Don’t watch the movie!

       I must admit, I did see the movie. As I did see all movie adaptations of “Lady Chatterley's Lover” by D.H. Lawrence. Although you may contest me on the cinema versions of “Wide Sargasso Sea,” the postcolonial feminist novel by Jean Rhys, or both 1946 and 1981 Hollywood takes of James M. Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”  

       Nin’s erotica is sexuality or sensuality without malice yet it is straight through. If you are the kind of animal who gets turned on by Sophia Loren’s covered hips and open mouth and never with Pornhub, then this book is your firestarter. 

       A closer parallel is Erica Jong’s 1973 novel “Fear of Flying,” and “The Sleeping Beauty Quartet,” a series of four novels by Anne Rice under the pseudonym of A. N. Roquelaure. But still, “Delta of Venus” is my #1 erotica of all time. Mind you, I discovered this book when I was 13. Along with Ms Loren, Anais Nin introduced me to self-stimulation. TMI? 

       “Delta of Venus” is collection of short stories that were commissioned to then unknown “perv” (LOL!) a.k.a. The Collector who also sought erotic fiction from Henry Miller. Sure, you know that Anais was Henry’s paramour. The Collector dude was later revealed as Roy M. Johnson, a wealthy Oklahoma businessman and oil magnate. Who cares. But thank to him for the commissioned Anais work.      

       Mr Collector actually asked Ms Nin to chuck poetry and instead go for the jugular and deliver sexually explicit stuff. Yes, no Pornhub in those years yet. But Anais instead produced exemplary literary flourish and mindfuck (literally) that’d go way beyond pornography. You get it, Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian Sanskrit text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfillment, was a major reference but Nin’s reading takes us to the climax without really knowing it. I mean, that we were already there per episode. 

       These days when visual bombast and cryptic nonsense proliferate? Where is your imagination? Try “Delta of Venus.” But I am sure it is “banned,” LOL! No, it ain’t. Additional reading: “Little Birds,” also by Anais Nin. 📚✍️📚