There's lots of talk in this entry of the Diary about differences between America and Europe and between the East and West coasts.
There is concern about lives becoming less meaningful, less vital, less sparkling and warm in America than they were in Europe. Anais and her friends feel more restrictions, less freedom, less tolerance, less intimacy with other people. Harlem and MacDougal Alley in New York city seem to be the exceptions.
Anais also feels that America does not want her writing. Rejection by American publishers makes her feel "deprived of existence, forced back into solitude, disconnected from life. Being published would have been a bridge between myself and American life. Without it, it means a shrunken life, a small world, less expansion and contact with the world." she says.
Citizen Kane has been released, and Anais talks about how it magnifies the drama of emptiness, an emptiness she never experienced in Europe. She says Kane was the symbol of inhumanity, the absence of the capacity to love, the symbol of greed, a total failure as a man. He seems to represent America to her.
Meanwhile, Henry Miller is in Hollywood where he believes he has finally found what he's been looking for in America - "the vital spot for people like us." He says in Hollywood, he has begun to get something out of America and is filled us with things to write about. Out West, they are isolated from the rest of the country, in a favorable climate, have sun and water and mountains, and people are genuinely good hearted.
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