A Spy in the House of Love

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A Captivating, Complex Female Character - Rated
Anais Nin superbly creates a captivating, complex female character – Sabina – divided between her will to live multiple lives, and escape the routine of an ordinary existence; and her sense of guilt, personified by the Lie Detector, which follows her virtually everywhere. Her promiscuous search of love culminates in an emotional break down which revels her fragile nature and her naiveness in trying to escape reality by constructing her perfect, idyllic love dimension, out of multiple superficial love relationships.

The story line is not meant to be followed in a chronological order. There is an element of repetition that, though has been criticized, in my opinion works in favor of the concept on which evolves the whole story and Sabina’s psychology. There is also a poetic component that enriches the narrative, although it is not as keenly developed as in other works of Anais Nin, such as in Under A Glass Bell.

A Spy In The House Of Love can be a perfect introduction to Anais Nin and her writings, but it can be also appreciated as a distinct fiction story. This book, although relatively short, manages perfectly to develop Sabina’s complicated character and her psychology, absorbing completely the reader in its dimension. Therefore, I vividly recommend this book to all readers in search of a short fiction story but still capable of captivating the reader through the complexity of its main character.

great - Rated
This is my favourite book ever - though it's not an easy read it isn't very thick either so I guess these 2 factors compensate for one another. The story is about a woman who wanders from one love affair to another and although the writer is distictly feminine in her outlook, she doesn't get bogged down with making the action too "womany" which I feel is the failing of many female writers. The language is brilliantly poetic