Even as a young girl, Anais Nin imagined her life as being full of luxury, travel, and adventure. When her father left the family, she felt she also lost the lifestyle of the musician: a life of color and prestige, a society life. She decided to become a writer so she could appear interesting and perhaps win back her father with her accomplishments. She had a chance to have a dancer's life of travel, adventure, pampering, and color, but sacrificed this life for her family. Life in America had been a struggle, hanging out with unfashionable friends and being an unknown compared to the glamorous European life to which she had become accustomed.
Years later, when Anais meets the Millers, she feels the need to create a fuller life for herself, one of tales to tell, experiences to be had, engaging conversations of which to be a part, just to keep up with them. Their Bohemian lifestyle seems more sincere to her, more interesting, richer than her father's had. A typical work day for she and Henry Miller amounts to sitting at a Paris cafe table, drinking a bottle of wine, talking. Now that's a job I could get used to!
As an adult, Anais found her father's lifestyle and people to be shallow and artificial and empty, regardless of the titles they could claim and the money they had. Henry's lifestyle and people were the opposite: deep, real, and full, despite their poverty. Because of her privileged background, however, Anais does bring an element of glamour to Henry's life by wearing beautiful clothes and fancy perfume, preparing elegant meals, lighting logs in the fireplace, and elevating his life to one of Bohemian Glamour in her presence.
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