A lady whose higher successes was basically composing an incredible number of words and you will reading that knows just how many hundreds of thousands alot more – no get it done into the Sontagiana can also be fail to speak about the 15,000-publication collection inside her Chelsea flat – have for a change started decisively captured with what she named “the picture-world,” the newest counterfeit reality one to threatens so you can ruin our very own worry of your actual industry.
She wished their welfare getting mutual from the the, and also to react that have equivalent power to almost any work she enjoyed would be to promote the woman certainly one of the girl most significant pleasures
You can argue towards philosophical coherence, this new political implications and/or establish-date value for the tip (one of the main claims away from “Into Picture taking”), but it is hard to reject that Sontag currently belongs more in order to pictures rather than conditions. It could be inevitable whenever Sontag’s passing, brand new literary image she invested a life constructing – one to strict, severe, unpassioned mind – could have been peeled away, revealing anyone hiding trailing the words. The latest unhappy child. The brand new mercurial mom. The new devoted, sometimes impossible pal. In the era out of esteem Television, we might have lost our cravings to have tough courses, however, i relish tough characters, additionally the biographical Sontag – courageous and you will imperious, vulnerable and you can volatile – surely fits the bill.
ten “Interpretation,” centered on Sontag, “is the revenge of one’s intelligence on art. Significantly more. Simple fact is that payback of your intelligence through to the world.” And bio, because of the exact same size, ‘s the revenge away from look through to the newest intellect. Living of your thoughts are turned “the life,” an effective coffin loaded with rattling items and you will spectral suppositions, smaller an invite to see otherwise reread than a handy, bulky excuse to not ever.
The purpose of so it article, and that turns out to not end up being as simple as I was thinking it will be, will be to fight you to definitely tendency. I can not reject the reality of picture or perhaps the emblematic cachet of the identity. I do not have to devalue the methods Sontag serves as an effective talisman and you may a society hero. Every I really want to say would be the fact Susan Sontag mattered due to just what she wrote.
11 Or perhaps I should merely state that is why she matters for me. Inside “Sempre Susan,” Sigrid Nunez identifies Sontag because:
. the opposite from Thomas Bernhard’s comic “possessive thinker,” whom feeds for the dream that every guide or decorate or piece of tunes he enjoys has been made only for and you will belongs exclusively so you’re able to your, and you may whoever “art selfishness” makes the concept of anyone else watching otherwise appreciating the fresh new work out-of wizard the guy reveres sour.
The newest variously desperate and domineering companion
I am the contrary of the. Really don’t need to express my welfare, even when the work out of flick critic pushes me to create they. We cling so you can an enthusiastic young (and possibly including a generally men), exclusive money regarding the works I love very. My devotion so you’re able to Sontag features will decided a key. She is never tasked in any path We got when you look at the school, if in case their name ever emerged while i was in graduate university, it actually was having a particular condescension. She wasn’t good theorist or a student but an essayist and you may an effective popularizer, and therefore a detrimental match the brand new desperate careerism that dominated new academy at that time. In the world of social journalism, this woman is commonly dismissed just like the an enthusiastic egghead and you will a great snob. Not value talking about, therefore i mainly failed to discuss the woman.
twelve Nevertheless, We remaining learning, having a keen ambivalence you to definitely shown hers. Perhaps the lady most well-known article – yes being among the most debatable – try “Cards towards ‘Camp,’ 
” and therefore scrutinizes a technology discussed because of the “the fresh spirit regarding lavishness” with careful sobriety. The latest inquiry arises from blended ideas – “I am highly interested in Camp, and you may nearly because strongly offended from it” – that are heightened unlike fixed, hence curl from 58 designated sections of the fresh “Notes” such as for example tendrils from inside the a skill Nouveau print. In writing from the a style off expression that’s overwrought, fake, frivolous and you will theatrical, Sontag adopts a style that is this new antithesis of the many people things.