This little book of short stories is by far some of the finest erotica ever written. Nin is a true master of love, lust, and the body’s betrayal of our innermost desires. Nin writes with a simple elegance. Never overdoing the imagery, we get just what we need to feel the work without a crass microscopic examination. Nin plunges deeply into the psyche of her characters, and we get more than an up-close and personal intimate glimpse of their inner turmoil as they struggle to break free of their self-imposed sexual limitations. Her characters awaken, blossom like flowers covered in the morning dew, and perfume the pages before our very eyes.Nin is not merely writing about sex or sexual taboos in these stories; she is writing essays on humanity’s constant battle to reconcile our inner longings and emotional conflicts concerning sex and death. She definitely pushes the boundaries, but she does it with such nuance and such poetry and such innocence that the disturbing subject matter feels tempered in order for us to achieve a greater understanding of themes presented.This is a wonderful introduction to Nin’s work. I highly recommend that all authors read her work, specifically authors who are interested in exploring sexuality in their own material. Her approach is genuine: voyeuristic without being intrusive. Those who are already familiar with the great erotic enchantress know this. This book is a must have for the collection. It is a book to return to with a blush and a smile over and over again. However, if you are looking for graphic depictions of sex, you will not find it here, for this is true erotica, and it takes a deeply subliminal approach, not plot laden poke and jab.To me, there is a huge difference between erotica and pornography. Erotic doesn’t even necessarily have to be about sex, and as a reader and a writer, I don’t need it to be. I find that erotica tends to titillate at a deeper more emotional level, and ambiguity can be used to great effect. Well-written erotica affects the reader beyond the physical, and often times that affectation is so powerful that the physical can be left out entirely. As for my own work, I do write a fair amount of sex, and it’s never comfortable no matter how many times you do it. Each scene feels just like the first time you did it yourself. It’s awkward and fumbling and downright un-poetic, but just like the rest of the story, sex scenes evolve during the re-writes. Sex for your characters can be a well-spring of self-discovery, and if done well, they can deepen the experience for the reader and move the story beyond the plot-line. Sexual motivation is deeply rooted, and exploring your character’s Id can be quite fulfilling, if not a bit frightening. Just watch your language, erotica can turn into cheap porn with just a few puerile words … it doesn’t take much, and not every story needs sexual exploration. You are the author: you know the story and the characters … you will know if the story needs it or not depending on your overall Thesis. The trial and error part comes in deciding how deeply to explore. Don’t justify the need: be sure it’s worthwhile for your characters to go there; otherwise it will just read like a bad segue.Of course, I am speaking of literary erotica here. If you are writing erotica for sexual titillation, meaning that you are writing pornography for the sole purpose of arousing the reader, then have at it: But you had better make it good. Clichés only leave my head throbbing and me longing for an aspirin. Spare me the twenty-inch manhood and the weeping multi-orgasmic vulvas paleeease.
This book would be a great read for someone too conservatively raised to appreciate visual pornography for its valuable lessons in learning how to be comfortable with yourself or your partner. It would be a valuable read for someone who did not know how to caress his or her partner to get them aroused for sex. If someone's fifteen-year-old son asked their mom or dad what sex was all about, first it would be wise to tell them about reproduction, how to avoid it until ready, venereal diseases, and so on; and then tell them about Little Birds, how it's available at the library, and how reading it would educate them in a way which is hard to explain by anyone but experienced confidants. The stories are written by a sensualist, it's bohemian erotica, tales of being taken, taking; the articulation of women who want what they want, when they want it, without shame: living in the dark ages as we do, stories like these are still considered taboo. The mention of puckered nipples, the clitoris, bulging cocks excreting, and so on; it's all so racy, isn't it? Little Birds is saturated with it, by way of models and muses being seduced by artists, mostly painters, sometimes American writers, and other times random men on the street. Whether it's sex in the sand with a stranger, or being shared by two men in a well-furnished apartment in New York through a fur coat, the reader is guaranteed to become aroused, and educated in a reality we should embrace, rather than ignore, while fumbling in the dark.
What do You think about Little Birds (2004)?
This is bad erotica. In 13 stories only one focuses on two people screwing because they like it. I read the whole thing and here are the stories (spoilers aplenty):1. Open with pedophilia2. Magic mystery sex with a stranger who romantically recounts being raped in a crowd while watching a hanging.3. Main character Lina just needs a bit of rape to get her to like sex.4. Adorable tales of boys molesting their little sisters, and how it leads to a vigorous incestuous sex life.5. This one is just boring and racist. A woman finally gets back at her cheating husband by -gasp!- sleeping with another man!6. The hot prude's husband begins to make secret paintings of his naked wife against her will. Then she catches him shtupping the paintings. So she tears her clothes off and just becomes Even Sexier.7. A virgin naif is introduced to sex by Scoundrel Artists. Bizarre stories of raping jungle women. Minor lesbian tryst due to horseback injury.8. This one I described only as "Whores, amirite?"9. How to shame a woman into submission and have her be grateful.10. Fantasies of beastiality rewarded by rape.11. How to get your husband to stop screwing "colored women"--just smell like one and it will "break the spell"!12. Two women enjoy a bit of sex and anal play. A little lesbian fondling. This is the best story and it is still rather dull.13. Two men take in a runaway girl and keep her for sex.The stories all reinforce sex as vile, enjoyed only by delinquent women, and necessitating trickery. The writing is very dry, which works against supposedly hot sex. The whole thing reads like a tame French translation of 50 shades.
—Aubariah
This book, along with it's companion book (they run together in my mind and am talking about both here), Delta of Venus, are wonderfully evocotive erotic stories. They are never the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am stuff of porn magazines. Sometimes magical, sometimes freaky, with a European sensibility, these stories are softly spellbinding. I can't help but get caught up in them whenever I pick up these books. Elena, Pierre, Leila, the Basque and Bijou, what a cool group of characters! And there are so many more. The sexual encounters depend on the development of the characters and there's more to them than you find in pretty much any other such stories. Very enjoyable!
—Kitty
“We don’t see people as they are. We see people as we are.”Anais Nin, at her best, is a writer who presents snapshots of erotica, cleverly written, poetic and raw – she is the foremother of flash fiction. Anais Nin’s Little Birds is Anais Nin at her best. From the introduction – which is in itself a great story to read, telling as it does of her struggles for money amd the necessity of her writing erotica – to the last story in this collection, Little Birds is a collection of great stories, of perversion and lust and even, occasionally, of love.Technically, adding Anais Nin to my Year of Reading Women is cheating – I’ve read her before, and I loved her before. And, seriously, when everyone on the planet has read Fifty Shades of Grey (charity shops are refusing copies of the book, they can’t sell it) there is no excuse for not having read this book. It took me a little while to get through, but only because I felt weird reading erotica at work…“Every gesture was one of disorder and violence, as if a lioness had come into the room.” It’s full of beautiful (and, frankly, arousing) prose.Pick it up.
—Chris White
