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27th out of 31 books
—
31 voters
As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 (Journals of Susan Sontag #2)
This, thesecond of three volumes of Susan Sontag’s journals and notebooks, begins where the first volume left off, in the middle of the 1960s. It traces and documents Sontag’s evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world of New York City to world-renowned critic and dominant force in the world of ideas with the publication of the groundbreaki...more
523 pages
Published
April 10th 2012
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published April 1st 2012)
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If weird and bizarre Orientalist aphorisms are dealbreakers for you (and they are for me. We all have our Things) then it would be best to skip 1968 and parts of 1972-73. There's also some REALLY UNFORTUNATE RACIST/ABLEIST TERMS used at around p.345, so maybe skip that too. Maybe you're wondering why I even bothered giving this any stars at all? It's because it's a diary, and because there are a lot of moments where Sontag really exquisitely lays bear this deep pain and melancholy. I disagree wi...more
I love all the tortured parts—Sontag's relationship insecurities with other women and her feelings of not writing enough—which is the best thing about this book. I don't care for her son's terrible bracket edits (ugh), nor reading her fragments for pages and pages, though yeah I know this is a notebook. I kept thinking about Nin while reading Sontag, one so emotional and sensual in the prose, the other so intellectual and tense. This took me a long time to finish because I had so many parts to c...more
What I love about this book is that it is an accumulation of journals and, as such, has the sort of urgency and private feel to it that almost represents voyeurism. Between lists of Sontag's readings and cinema rankings, ideal short fiction collection ideas, glimpses at her analysis of how some of her work was experienced, and general thoughts about intellectualism/intellectuals of her acquaintances, there was also this extreme analysis of self and identity. In tiny parcels. I loved the parts ab...more
Apr 03, 2012
Hannah
marked it as to-read
"Being in love (l’amour fou) a pathological variant of loving. Being in love = addiction, obsession, exclusion of others, insatiable demand for presence, paralysis of other interests and activities. A disease of love, a fever (therefore exalting). One “falls” in love. But this is one disease which, if one must have it, is better to have often rather than infrequently. It’s less mad to fall in love often (less inaccurate for there are many wonderful people in the world) than only two or three tim...more
Susan Sontag was a thinker. To read her journals is to have the impression she was only that, lacking a side as woman, lover, mother, or friend. But she was all of those things, as she knew. Her journals seem to be attempts to weld the two sides of herself into one person, to harness her enormous intellect and interests to the flesh of the woman she was. She says she's not saying things in absolute terms. She claims to be allowing something to be said, something independent of herself. I'm not s...more
Perhaps a great mind is not made, but born and perhaps you can never change your character from adolescence to adulthood. Sontag's mind was defined before she was even in college and it continues through her maturation in this second journal. What is significant, however, is that her insecurities and depression manifested herself during her adulthood, and through her battle with cancer, she did not write much about it or her battles, but her thoughts clearly reflected her sense of the illness, b...more
The second volume of Sontag's notebooks is just as radically fascinating as the first. I love Sontag's brain, and her notebooks offer such a specific insight into that--her humanity, her internal struggles, developing ideas that eventually turn into her brilliant essays. So much greatness in the extra-textual work of so many artists.
Collection of sentences, paragraphs, and even just phrases from Sontag's notebooks. "A word that has the power to hurt, e.g., kitsch, is still alive." "Cerebral jogging." "dream > science fiction." Some very odd juxtapositions of wordplay make up the raw material of a writer's thoughts, and so it is thought-provoking.
"I'm not a genius...my mind isn't good enough, isn't really first rate...I'm not mad enough, not obsessed enough...."
The dark lady of American letters.
The dark lady of American letters.
Disjointed, gorgeous, well-arranged and includes fascinating journal entries on lovers, projects completed and abandoned, and thoughts on art and literature. Would absolutely recommend to those familiar with/interested in Sontag.
I didn't get all of this book read, but anything by Sontag is worth a reader's time and energy.
Brilliant,emocional,sometimes poignant.A Susan Sontag we knew only after her death.
Very personal writing. I wonder if Sontag's would've agree to publish it
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This is a great book to understand more thoughts beyond Susan Sontag's interviews and novels. I wanted to say more here, but probably I'd better go back to my proposal and nail that one first.
She categories writers with three teams. And the publishing of this book already made her in the third team, as she wanted, to be like Kafka, that her words "become reference points for successive generations in many languages."
She categories writers with three teams. And the publishing of this book already made her in the third team, as she wanted, to be like Kafka, that her words "become reference points for successive generations in many languages."
May 06, 2013
Jen Bruntlett
marked it as to-read
Found via Brain Pickings.
Mar 19, 2013
Elbrackeen
is currently reading it
returned to the library unskimmed, maybe next time
At first I was happy to hear these journals and notebooks were coming out but - we no longer have Susan Sontag and mining her journals for more fine work like On Photography is a poor sport (for me). Time to reread. Against Interpretation, maybe.
The more important question is, "What did Carlotta think?"
May 24, 2013
Jacquie
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Jewish American literary theorist, novelist, filmmaker, and feminist activist.
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