The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky

De: Joan Acocella - editor, Vaslav Nijinsky

Narrado por: John Rubinstein

In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and began to go mad. A prodigy from his youth in Russia, Nijinsky came to international fame as a principal dancer in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. When psychosis struck, he began to imagine himself as married to God. Although he lived another 30 years, he never regained his sanity.

This diary, which he kept in four notebooks over six weeks, is Nijinsky's confession and his prophecy, the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of the experience of entering psychosis.

©2006 Vaslav Nijinsky (P)2009 Phoenix

A fragmented mind

An utterly distressing narrative and a depressing read.

It hurt to see how great Artists suffers internally.

It hurt even more knowing that the original copy was heavily edited by his wife because she wanted to keep his reputation intact and legacy alive; by removing most of his projected hatred at her, and his passive homosexuality.

However, beside a few chapters showcasing his true feeling regarding his abusive patron and the messiness of afternoon of Faun with Debussy, the memoir is a paranoia infused read.

He suffered so much despite his brilliance and that’s his tragedy.