I should be your anti-audience for this. Sontag is usually an eye roll for me, despite her gifts. Her sanctification via photography drives me batty. I sure as hell would rather read Matthew Arnold.
But this is a beautiful essay from start to finish, brimming over with historical awareness, nuance, humor, canny judgment, and human sympathy. What a body of work you're putting together.
What an achievement, dude. Pairing this with the Janet Malcolm essay marks a Beglerian distinction between admiration and appreciation. You obviously admire these authors but youre terrific at using that as an instrument for excavating nuance.
It's heartening to hear an expert confirm that some of those essays are in fact pretty turgid and that it's not just going over the reader's head (a tactic I sometimes suspected Sontag of leaning on, when dusting over a weakness).
I was surprised at how embattled the release of Moser's book was -- especially over that accusation of false authorship. Especially because, from what I remember of the tone, there wasn't much denial of the book's quality.
Just came across this - great piece, and thanks for the offer (for someone else) to buy me a beer! Maybe I will write a little piece on my own Substack, since there is quite a lot I’d like to respond to.
New high water mark for Big Begs. This is how it's done.
I can't think of many contemporary authors who go for the same sort of spine-snappingly huge swings (in life and writing) as her and Mailer. I got depressed the other day when I thought that probably the writer/"public intellectual" who currently has a claim to that tradition is Jordan Fucking Peterson.
Henry, this was great! Incisive, biting, hilarious, but fair.
Also totally agree about the physical and moral courage Susan demonstrated in Saravego- her first defending Rushdie against Fatwa being a forerunner to this. Her lack of acceptance around death is another matter-maybe Susan should have stopped by Medjugorje while she was in Bosnia. Around the same time Susan was staging her famous production of Waiting for Godot, Randall Sullivan was undergoing a miraculous conversion to Catholicism on Apparition Hill. Anyone who wants to know what it was REALLY like on the ground during the Bosnian war, and the real danger that Susan herself faced, should read Sullivan's incredible book The Miracle Detective, at once a first person account of that conflict, as well as a mind-bending, frightening chronicle of how the Catholic Church investigates and verifies miracles.
Another monumental work on a complicated figure. Wonderful to read as usual. I can also imagine one of the satisfying parts of publishing this is being assured of at least a footnote in Pistelli’s weekly readings.
Another Susie reporting . . . Thank you for this. I didn’t know Sontag’s early LA culture moments, and I find myself softening toward her! I too loved that newstand at Las Palmas and Hollywood and it’s a crime such a heaven doesn’t exist today. Being a thoughtful kid in LA in the sixties and seventies was a special smog-sunset moment.
I was always cross with Sontag when I came of age in the “Harvey Milk” era, because her ridiculous closet case act, along with Annie Leibowitz and so many other lesbian NY artists, drives me nuts. Their gay male contemporaries, regardless of occasional Kinsey 5 flings, didn’t put up such a front.
I was publishing “On Our Backs” with in my milieu in the early 80s, and the intellectual women’s sex worker milieu was exploding. In that scene, to put up with “elite closeted artists” who acted like we were beneath their contempt was a real Seussian “Sneetches” scenario.
Again, strangely, in the same pre and post AIDS scenario, we were embraced by Sontag’s gay men peers, but held at arm’s length by the dykes of her salon, even if we occasionally we sought for their beds. I can only guess it was a crabs-in-the-bucket routine. They could pretend to be discreet about their sexuality (ha) or puritanical about radical porn/sex (double ha) — and therefore still invited to the right meal ticket?
That’s my only explanation. Anyway, after saying all this rude stuff, I read your whole story and as I said, “Viva Las Palmas!” — she must have been lonely for a long time before she met her people.
You really do meet interesting people on this website. Glad you enjoyed and appreciate the alternate perspective on the closet question. And yes, Viva Las Palmas-- I'll think of young Sontag forming her tastes next time I see a movie at the Egyptian.
Excellent as ever! Need to read Sontag more widely than I have. I’ve got the touchstone pieces under my belt but not much else.
(Not to nitpick, but as far as I’m aware, the “to philosophize is to learn how to die” quote comes from Montaigne via Cicero, not Socrates. Just wanted to say before a combined horde of classicists/philisophes come with the pitchforks.)
This is great! I think you got way more (and remembered way more; I read the book earlier this year and I think I had already forgotten huge chunks of it a few days after I had finished it) from Moser's excellent book.
I personally remain somewhat ambivalent about Sontag. Moser helped me understand the coherence of her work and how her personality and upbringing may have influenced her point of view (though, I have to say, some of Moser's psychoanalyzing came across as a stretch to me), but I continue to find much her work, even essays that are regarded as influential and canonical, incomprehensible. But Moser's book and this review are motivating me to give some of her books I struggled with (eg, "Regarding the Pain of Others") another shot in the New Year.
This is quite good! My late father shared a birthday with Sontag: 1/16/1933 but outlived her by a substantial amount. H/T to @Michael Chabon for drawing my attention to this essay.
I should be your anti-audience for this. Sontag is usually an eye roll for me, despite her gifts. Her sanctification via photography drives me batty. I sure as hell would rather read Matthew Arnold.
But this is a beautiful essay from start to finish, brimming over with historical awareness, nuance, humor, canny judgment, and human sympathy. What a body of work you're putting together.
Thank you! No offense meant to Matthew Arnold.
What an achievement, dude. Pairing this with the Janet Malcolm essay marks a Beglerian distinction between admiration and appreciation. You obviously admire these authors but youre terrific at using that as an instrument for excavating nuance.
It's heartening to hear an expert confirm that some of those essays are in fact pretty turgid and that it's not just going over the reader's head (a tactic I sometimes suspected Sontag of leaning on, when dusting over a weakness).
I was surprised at how embattled the release of Moser's book was -- especially over that accusation of false authorship. Especially because, from what I remember of the tone, there wasn't much denial of the book's quality.
Sontag’s black marble grave is kissable, but you won’t leave a lipstick mark like the ones on de Beauvoir’s grave
Just came across this - great piece, and thanks for the offer (for someone else) to buy me a beer! Maybe I will write a little piece on my own Substack, since there is quite a lot I’d like to respond to.
Thank you! Please do if you’re so inclined.
New high water mark for Big Begs. This is how it's done.
I can't think of many contemporary authors who go for the same sort of spine-snappingly huge swings (in life and writing) as her and Mailer. I got depressed the other day when I thought that probably the writer/"public intellectual" who currently has a claim to that tradition is Jordan Fucking Peterson.
Thanks man. Give it a few more years, it'll be you and me.
Great piece! It will send me back to her writing, which is the best compliment I can give you.
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you, Henry!
Henry, this was great! Incisive, biting, hilarious, but fair.
Also totally agree about the physical and moral courage Susan demonstrated in Saravego- her first defending Rushdie against Fatwa being a forerunner to this. Her lack of acceptance around death is another matter-maybe Susan should have stopped by Medjugorje while she was in Bosnia. Around the same time Susan was staging her famous production of Waiting for Godot, Randall Sullivan was undergoing a miraculous conversion to Catholicism on Apparition Hill. Anyone who wants to know what it was REALLY like on the ground during the Bosnian war, and the real danger that Susan herself faced, should read Sullivan's incredible book The Miracle Detective, at once a first person account of that conflict, as well as a mind-bending, frightening chronicle of how the Catholic Church investigates and verifies miracles.
Another monumental work on a complicated figure. Wonderful to read as usual. I can also imagine one of the satisfying parts of publishing this is being assured of at least a footnote in Pistelli’s weekly readings.
lol, you got me
Another Susie reporting . . . Thank you for this. I didn’t know Sontag’s early LA culture moments, and I find myself softening toward her! I too loved that newstand at Las Palmas and Hollywood and it’s a crime such a heaven doesn’t exist today. Being a thoughtful kid in LA in the sixties and seventies was a special smog-sunset moment.
I was always cross with Sontag when I came of age in the “Harvey Milk” era, because her ridiculous closet case act, along with Annie Leibowitz and so many other lesbian NY artists, drives me nuts. Their gay male contemporaries, regardless of occasional Kinsey 5 flings, didn’t put up such a front.
I was publishing “On Our Backs” with in my milieu in the early 80s, and the intellectual women’s sex worker milieu was exploding. In that scene, to put up with “elite closeted artists” who acted like we were beneath their contempt was a real Seussian “Sneetches” scenario.
Again, strangely, in the same pre and post AIDS scenario, we were embraced by Sontag’s gay men peers, but held at arm’s length by the dykes of her salon, even if we occasionally we sought for their beds. I can only guess it was a crabs-in-the-bucket routine. They could pretend to be discreet about their sexuality (ha) or puritanical about radical porn/sex (double ha) — and therefore still invited to the right meal ticket?
That’s my only explanation. Anyway, after saying all this rude stuff, I read your whole story and as I said, “Viva Las Palmas!” — she must have been lonely for a long time before she met her people.
You really do meet interesting people on this website. Glad you enjoyed and appreciate the alternate perspective on the closet question. And yes, Viva Las Palmas-- I'll think of young Sontag forming her tastes next time I see a movie at the Egyptian.
Excellent as ever! Need to read Sontag more widely than I have. I’ve got the touchstone pieces under my belt but not much else.
(Not to nitpick, but as far as I’m aware, the “to philosophize is to learn how to die” quote comes from Montaigne via Cicero, not Socrates. Just wanted to say before a combined horde of classicists/philisophes come with the pitchforks.)
Damn my dilettantism is showing! I've passed this correction on to the Editorial Department.
Oh how I wish Sontag was around to chart the 2020s. The Moser biography is my planned xmas break read. Great article and enticement to crack it open.
simply delicious
This is great! I think you got way more (and remembered way more; I read the book earlier this year and I think I had already forgotten huge chunks of it a few days after I had finished it) from Moser's excellent book.
I personally remain somewhat ambivalent about Sontag. Moser helped me understand the coherence of her work and how her personality and upbringing may have influenced her point of view (though, I have to say, some of Moser's psychoanalyzing came across as a stretch to me), but I continue to find much her work, even essays that are regarded as influential and canonical, incomprehensible. But Moser's book and this review are motivating me to give some of her books I struggled with (eg, "Regarding the Pain of Others") another shot in the New Year.
This is quite good! My late father shared a birthday with Sontag: 1/16/1933 but outlived her by a substantial amount. H/T to @Michael Chabon for drawing my attention to this essay.
So good dude