AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE--FEBRUARY 2024--SUSAN SONTAG

I think the less I say about Susan Sontag the better. Although I recognize that she was an important woman of letters, social and political activist, critic and commentator on all aspects of our culture, an "intellectual powerhouse", she is one of those writers whose work does not call to me, and whose personality I find extremely off-putting. I read some of her essays in the 70s, and am willing to let that suffice. However, I have no desire to discourage anyone from reading her for the first time. For those who want to get familiar with her, and especially for those who already admire her work, PLEASE, post your own thoughts in profusion on this thread.

There is no scarcity of information about her on the internet. Here are some links to get you started.

A brief biography

Brittanica article A little more info here.

An excellent longer article from the Jewish Women's Archive

For the insatiable, this massive biography cannot possibly leave anything out: Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser.

Katie Roiphe review of collection of essays titled On Women, published after Sontag's death. This is an Atlantic article, but if you don't subscribe, you can access it with a free trial.

Excellent review of the Library of America collection of Sontag's Essays from the 1960s and 1970s

I have a hold on Illness as Metaphor and I'm just waiting for a notification that it's arrived at my local branch library.

>1 laytonwoman3rd: Well, I know nothing at all about Susan Sontag and have never read anything by her either. My local library is very limited in what they have of hers. I will be reading Reborn: journals and notebooks, 1947-1963 as my introduction to her writing.

I settled on On Photography, as its one of her better-known titles, has a pretty high rating on LT, and won an award! I’ll give it a shot.

Karen O

>2 cbl_tn:, >3 alcottacre:, >4 klobrien2: Great---I haven't put you off! Stasia, I'll be curious about your reaction to the Journals and Notebooks---started when she was 14!

I can highly recommend Benjamin Moser's biography Sontag: Her Life. I have most of her volumes of essays, which I've dipped into. Not sure whether I'll continue to do that, or focus on one volume.

I also enjoyed her novel The Volcano Lover.

Hi - I gave In America 3 stars - not real compelling reading.

>6 Caroline_McElwee: I picked up an ARC of that bio at a tiny little bookshop In Corning, NY, years back. They were giving away ARCs with the purchase of 2 books---I assume promotional copies they had received from publishers. I also have the Library of America's 2 volumes of Sontag's essays. I have read that the biography isn't one of the "Oh she was so perfect" sort, and I may give it the Nancy Pearl test. I've kept it on my shelves this long, and should really decide to read it or donate it.

>8 laytonwoman3rd: It is a very readable biography Linda, and yes, not totally hero worship for sure. Warts and all, but in a humane way, as in we all have warts per se. She was a challenging, but also quite an insecure creature I felt.

>9 Caroline_McElwee: It also seems to have a good deal of interesting historical perspective that might be pertinent just now, so as much as anything that could be worthwhile reading.

I picked up Susan Sontag On Women. I have never read anything by her so this will be an adventure. Hopefully she makes some interesting points. And I'm hoping she writes a bit about women's work so this can count under the Nonfiction Reading Challenge as well!

>5 laytonwoman3rd: No, not put off by your statements, Linda, more curious than anything. I will let you know how I feel about Reborn when I am done with it.

>7 m.belljackson: I have a copy of that somewhere, so my catalog tells me, but I haven't found it in any of the logical places.

>11 Kyler_Marie: That collection was edited by her son, I believe....a non-conventional thinker and quite brilliant writer himself.

I might try a work of fiction, either In America or The Volcano Lover. Still trying to decide ...

I started reading Reborn this afternoon and I must say that the breadth of Sontag's reading staggers me - and makes me feel illiterate, lol.

I differ philisophically from Sontag on so many levels. It is good to read her though and get a completely different world view other than my own.

"the breadth of Sontag's reading staggers me" I've had that feeling too, Stasia.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: Glad I am not the only one!

Going with On Photography.

I had to laugh at one of the entries from January 1957 as recorded in Reborn: "From now on I'm going to write every bloody thing that comes into my head." I thought she already was!

From Reborn on February 19, 1958: "Use libraries!!"

I am taking her advice - I checked the book out of my local library :)

I finished Reborn this afternoon. I can say with 100% certainty that Sontag and I would not have gotten on in real life. Our philosophies are too far apart. ("Don't be kind." Huh?) However, I can also say that I admire the width and breadth of her reading. The journals themselves I do not think lend themselves well for publication. They are choppy and disjointed in areas. As most journals go, people make private notes to themselves with little to no context and that is the case of Sontag's journals. I did appreciate some of the glimpses into her though. Overall, I gave the book 3.75 stars.

I have been reading a bit in the Moser biography---Lordy, what a disturbed and disturbing mother she had!

I'm trying to limit my challenge reading to books already on my shelves. I don't have a book by Susan Sontag, but I found a short story collection of various authors, Telling Tales, that has a story by Sontag. This collection has been on my TBR for over 15 years; it is edited by Nadine Gordimer and was a project to raise money for AIDS treatment in 2004.

Sontag's story, "The Letter Scene" didn't make much sense to me; I _think_ it was a series of scenes of people writing letters, but they were disjointed and I didn't see the point. I then read a story by Woody Allen, "The Rejection", which was so-so.

I tried a few other stories, but nothing seemed to capture my attention until I read Margaret Atwood's "The Age of Lead." In this story Atwood weaves the plight of the Franklin Expedition in 19th c. Canada to find the Northwest Passage (where all the men died of mysterious causes--only recently identified as lead poisoning) with the story of a present-day woman's relationship with a good friend who dies from an unknown disease in the early 1980s (later identified as AIDS). I thought it was brilliantly done and reminds us how, as modern as we think we are, there are always unknowns that can devastate.

So although the Sontag story was disappointing, I found a thought-provoking story by Margaret Atwood.

>23 kac522: I'd count that a win, especially since short fiction is so hit-or-miss with me most of the time.

The Sontag biography continues to engage me---doesn't make me want to read her particularly, but as a story, her life is fairly intriguing.

I read Illness as Metaphor this evening. I was also impressed by the breadth of Sontag's reading. This series of essays on the metaphorical use of tuberculosis and cancer in literature, psychoanalysis, and political discourse and theory started out as a series of lectures. She cites example after example from the literature in all of these fields, as well as medical literature. If I understood her argument, the use of poorly understood diseases as metaphors for social and political ills, or attributing illness to personality, character, or behavior, is harmful to patients with these illnesses. Patients need to deal with the reality of their illness, not the metaphorical interpretations that have been constructed around the illness.

I have located the sole Sontag book in my collection. I'll have to taste it. Oh yeah, The Volcano Lover.

I read Sontag On Women and I was truly looking forward to it but it was not my taste. Even in the instances where I agreed with her point, I didn't enjoy how she expressed it because of her use of language. It seems from the comments that I'm not alone in my views of her work. But I appreciate that this challenge motivated me to pick up something I wouldn't have otherwise selected!

I read Debriefing; Collected Stories which was mostly short story attempt but also some autobiography and essayist types. I would not be compelled to read other things by the author but I do think she is an intellectual and compulsive writer. I also briefly listened to u-tube of the author discussing Illness as Metaphor.

>27 Kyler_Marie: " I appreciate that this challenge motivated me to pick up something I wouldn't have otherwise selected!" That's what I hope for! I would have stalled on Sontag indefinitely, I imagine, without the impetus of this challenge. Now that I have sampled her life and writing, I feel justified is saying she's not for me. Although her intellect was incredible, I don't think it served her particularly well, and I lament the lack of fulfilling personal relationships in her life.

I've got a lot on the go, but am still slowly reading and enjoying On Photography.