Seduction of the Minotaur — Anais Nin

Seduction of the Minotaur is an example of Anaø¯s Nin€™s most mature and cohesive fiction. The central character, Lillian, arrives in an exotically primitive Mexico from New York, in part to forget her crumbling marriage and to find flow in her life after years of stasis. She befriends Dr. Hernandez, who, like Lillian, is also trying to forget, to escape, which he does with violence, shocking Lillian into facing her inner demon, the €œMinotaur.€ Critic Oliver Evans says of Seduction of the Minotaur: €œIts symbolism is the most complicated of any of Miss Nin€™s longer works€¦and at the same time it makes more concessions€¦to the tradition of the realistic novel: the result is a work of unusual richness.€ Consider this passage: €œIt was the time of the year when everyone€™s attention was focused on the moon. €˜The first terrestrial body to be explored will undoubtedly be the moon.€™ Yet how little we know about human bei