House of Incest

House of Incest is a slim volume of 72 pages written by Anaïs Nin. Originally published in 1936, it is Anais Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with famous lovers like Henry Miller, nor does it contain graphic depiction of sex. Rather, House of Incest is a surrealistic look within the narrator's subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin's words, as she attempts to escape from "the woman's season in hell." In the documentary Anais Observed, Nin says House of Incest was based on dreams she'd had for more than a year.

Related Topics:
Anaïs Nin - Henry Miller

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Nin's usage of the word incest in this case is metaphorical, not literal. Toward the end of the book, the character called "the modern Christ" puts Nin?s unique use of the word into context: ?If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other... .: In other words, in this book the word incest describes a selfish love where one can appreciate in another only that which is similar to oneself. One is then only loving oneself, shunning all differences. At first, such a self-love can seem ideal because it is without fear and without risk. But eventually it becomes a sterile nightmare.

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An interesting footnote is that Nin was under the analysis of Otto Rank, a direct disciple of Freud, during the period of writing House of Incest. In fact, Incest: From "A Journal of Love"—The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932–1934), a collection of previously censored diaries that were not published until over a decade after Nin's death, reveals that the two were also having an affair.

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Rank helped Anais edit House of Incest. It's only fitting that he would help, since his most famous work is arguably The Trauma of Birth, and House of Incest is largely an attempt by the narrator to cope with the shock of the trauma of birth, the pain of being "jected from a paradise of soundlessness.... thrown up on a rock, the skeleton of a ship choked in its own sails."

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