Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Journals of Susan Sontag #1

by Susan Sontag, David Rieff (Editor)

"I intend to do everything...to have one way of evaluating experience—does it cause me pleasure or pain, and I shall be very cautious about rejecting the painful—I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!"

So wrote Susan Sontag in May 1949 at the age of sixteen. This, the first of three volumes of her journals and notebooks, presents a constantly and utterly surprising record of a great mind in incubation. It begins with journal entries and early attempts at fiction from her years as a university and graduate student, and ends in 1964, when she was becoming a participant in and observer of the artistic and intellectual life of New York City.

Reborn is a kaleidoscopic self-portrait of one of America's greatest writers and intellectuals, teeming with Sontag's voracious curiosity and appetite for life. We watch the young Sontag's complex self-awareness, share in her encounters with the writers who informed her thinking, and engage with the profound challenge of writing itself—all filtered through the inimitable detail of everyday circumstance.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Journal, Diary, Essays, Queer

318 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2008

About the author

Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.

Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.

Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.

Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.

A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.

Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.

Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.

Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.

Reviews

[sheena d! · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an important book to read when your life is a mess.

[Prerna]

Early in these notebooks, Susan Sontag confesses to having read her lover's journal secretly and feeling extremely agitated, hurt and anxious on discovering that her lover didn't really like her. She also confesses that she didn't feel guilty about reading the journal without her lover's consent because she thinks that one of the main social functions of a journal or a diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people. However, I don't think a journal is supposed to have any social function.

In Against Interpretation and Other Essays, Sontag writes that we read a writer's journal not because it illuminates their other books, but because we are drawn to the rawness of the journal form and because the first person writing constructs the most intimate portrait of a writer that their novels, however inspired by their own experiences, cannot divulge.

These notebooks do not simply recount events, nor are they just full of personal confessions, fetishes and ideas. They are a mesh composed of the many elements that Sontag encountered and chose arbitrarily to record. Sometimes there are just pages upon pages containing lists of the books she wanted to buy. Sometimes she jots down stray ideas and observations. There is no perceivable order to the writing except a chronological one.

Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts—like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.
The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather—in many cases—offers an alternative to it.

It is this assembly of Susan Sontag's selfhood that we have the pleasure of witnessing within these pages. The discontinuity that we encounter while reading a writer's novels one at a time is abolished here. These journals affirm the sequence, the wholeness and cohesion of a life lived. I'm not rating this because how do I quantify a lived experience? What gives me the power? I do not even want that sort of power. I just know that I'll return to this again and again.

Everything begins from now—I am reborn.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't imagine Susan Sontag as a young person because I've always encountered her as the staggering, cultured-to-the-umpteenth-degree uber-cosmopolitan critic that she is in her essays. It's hard to imagine someone like that ever being a kid. The journals in Reborn start when she's fourteen and she's already more complicated, moody, and painfully self-conscious than most people four times her age. You don't really see a development here as much as you get these brief, staccato flashes of intensity and yearning as she struggles to interrogate literature, film, her husband, her lesbian affairs, being a single parent, ad infinitum. She has the same voracious, uncompromising intellectual commitment to dissecting her personal life as she does to dissecting culture and art. And she never criticized anything as harshly as she went after herself.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan Sontag is one of the most relevant intellectual figures of the 20th century. "Reborn" is a compilation of her thoughts that span the entire existence of the American writer, essayist, photographer, filmmaker, philosopher, and teacher. Insightful, wise, and captivating since his younger years, "Reborn" also alludes to discoveries about his sexuality - a constant theme throughout the book. It is an essential work by a prominent name in American intellectuality.

[Salma · Rating 1 out of 5]

ما هي الفضيلة في فضح امرئ لقباحاته أمام الناس مبديا سوأته النفسية! في الاعتراف بحطته أمام الملأ؟
لم أستأ من كتاب منذ زمن كما استأت من اليوميات المبكرة لسوزان سونتاغ... تلك السيدة التي كنت أعجبت بحدة عقلها و تبصرها في كتابها الرائع ضد التأويل ومقالات أخرى... بتحليلاتها الذكية الواثقة... بترفعها و لغتها القوية و المستقلة... تلك التي أبهرتني قبل سنوات، تظهر في يومياتها هذه بأشد الصور ابتذالا و فجاجة و خنوعا... امرأة شاذة و ذليلة... ه
هذه يوميات كان يفترض بها أن تدفن مع صاحبتها... فهي لم تكن معدة للنشر، و إنما هي يوميات حافظت على تدوينها منذ كانت طالبة في المدرسة... و بعض منها تفاهات مراهقة، و كثير منها ابتذالات شخصية و معيبة... و كثير أيضا مجرد أفعال حياتيه يومية لا قيمة لها
ابن سونتاغ هو من نشر اليوميات بعد وفاتها، و قد آلمه نشره للكتاب كما ذكر، فأمه كانت امرأة متحفظة و رصينة، لا تظهر هذا على الملأ... و لم يكن متأكدا من أن شيئا كهذا يفترض أن يـُنشر، و لكنه فعل لأن أمه كانت باعت حقوقها قبل موتها_ أو هكذا قال لنا_ فقام بتحرير اليوميات، و اختار منها هذه الاختيارات... و تساءلتُ ما الذي قام بتحريره إذن؟ ثم أين تجربة حملها به و إنجابها له، رغم وجود تفاصيل تافهة و يومية قبل حمله و ولادته و بعده... و لكن لا يوجد أي كلمة عن تجربتها هذه أبدا... رغم أن هذا الأمر كان يهمني معرفته... على أية حال معه كل الحق في أن يحررها لو وجد ما يمسه و أسرته المتبقية، و ليته حرر أكثر... خطر لي لوهلة البحث عن عنوانه و إرسال استيائي من الكتاب و أنه جعلني أنفر من أمه، حتى يشعر بالسوء من نفسه أكثر مما يشعر... ثم عدلت عن الفكرة، لأنه ذكر أن لو كان القرار بيده لما كان نشرها و ربما كان أحرقها...ه
هناك فرق كبير بين المذكرات التي يكتبها المرء لجمهور مفترض في ذهنه، بعد أن حصلت له تجربة في الحياة، و فلسفة ما يريد إيصالها، أيا كانت تلك الفلسفة، و بين يوميات شخصية و خصوصية يدونها لذاته مذ كان مراهقا، قبل أن ينضج، ثم تظهر على الملأ بعد موته... ه
أكره ثقافة عرض الخصوصيات الحميمة على كل من هب و دب من دون عبرة مرادة، و ثقافة تلفزيون الواقع الرخيص لمجرد الاستمتاع بالتلصص على مخادع الناس، و ثقافة تفاصيل "أكلت و شربت و ذهبت" على صفحات التواصل التي تستعرض تفاهاتنا اليومية... ثقافة الجهر بسوء استتر لمجرد الجهر... و هذا الكتاب على نفس الشاكلة... و لذلك وجدته مزعجا...ه

كلنا نعرف أن وراء جلودنا التي تسترنا و تجملنا منظرا مفزعا و مثيرا للإقياء من دم و لحم و عروق، لكن هذا لا يعني أن أكشط جلدي أمام الناس حتى يروا الحقيقة، فهذه ليست حقيقة و إنما فضح للقبح بإيذاء جمال جلدي... فالتجمل بالجلد جزء من حقيقتي... و كلنا نستخدم الحمامات يوميا لكن هذا لا يعطيني الأريحية بأن أفتح الباب أمام الجميع لينظر! و هذه ليست جرأة و إنما فجاجة و ابتذال... و ليس كل ما فكر به المرء و شعر يستحق الذكر، فنحن مليؤون بكل شيء من الأقصى للأقصى... هناك أفكار لا يسرها المرء حتى لصديقه الحميم... لا يجهر بها كتابة حتى... لا يذكرها إلا للذي سواه عسى أن يشذبه منها...ه
لكنما هو عصر مبتذل بكل ما فيه! ه

الجمل المفيدة و المبدعة في الكتاب كانت قليلة جدا... لكن أهم ما لفت نظري و خططت تحته خطا هو التالي: (يا إلهي كم هو سخيف هذا كله! [...] حذلقة + فسق [...] لا أشعر بشيء سوى الازدراء لشخصه، إمكانياته + معتقداته!) 0
إذ لم أجد أفضل من جملها هذه للتعبير عن شعوري الذي خرجت به من الكتاب

قرأت مذكرات كثيرة بكل ضعف شخصياتها و نرجسيتها... لكن لم أستأ من أحدها كما استأت من هذه، ربما لأنه لم يكن مفترض نشرها أصلا... و ربما لأني معجبة بسوزان كما تبدت في ضد التأويل لدرجة حفظ بعض جملها من قراءة واحدة، و ليس لدي الكثير من الكاتبات المفضلات اللواتي يعجبنني لدرجة الاقتباس المستمر منهن... فذهنها متقد و لغتها قوية... مستقلة في رأيها و مترفعة عن من حولها... فكان مؤلما لي رؤيتها بشخصية المرأة التي أكرهها و أنفر منها، المرأة الذليلة في الحب الضعيفة المنبطحة المتوسلة، و الأسوأ أنها شاذة!! قد آذاني الاطلاع على أبشع صورة لديها...ه

كانت هذه يومياتها المبكرة في شبابها، لكني لا أحسبني سأتشجع لقراءة يومياتها الأخرى، حفاظا على ما بقي لها من احترام في نفسي، إن بقي شيء منه أصلا... فهي كانت كاتبة تهتم بصقل كتبها بعناية و حتى ترجمات كتبها، و تعتبر التهذيب مقدما على الإنصاف... كانت سيدة متحفظة كما يقول ابنها، و ما التحفظ برأيي إلا نوع فاخر من التجمل، احتراما للنفس و احتراما للآخر... و هو نوع بات نادرا في عصر الابتذال هذا... و لذلك لا أرغب بالاقتراب أكثر عبر يومياتها التي لم تمارس فيها كل هذا... يكفيني منها كتبها الأخرى التي جلست فيها و تجملت لاستقبال قارئ كإياي، و كانت تفكر فيني _كمتلقي_ حين كتبت، فأظهرت أجمل و أقوى ما فيها، و سترت ما سواه...ه



سلمى
28 أيلول
2015

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ruggine bir şey düşündüm – öyle ortada ki aslında, her zamanki gibi apaçık ortada! Birdenbire anlamanın saçmalığından başım döndü, sinirlerim boşaldı: İstediğim her şeyi yapmaktan beni alıkoyan hiçbir şey, hiçbir şey yok, benden başka... Kalkıp gitmemi engelleyecek ne var? Yalnızca çevremin öz dayatmalı baskıları, bana her zaman öyle güçlü geldiler ki onların kutsallığını bozmayı düşünmeye yeltenmedim bile... Oysa aslında, beni durduran nedir ki? Ailemle ilgili korkularım mı– özellikle annemle? Güvenceyi ve mülkiyeti bırakamamak mı? Evet, ikisi de, ama beni tutan gerçekler yalnızca bunlar... Üniversite nedir? Orada hiçbir şey öğrenemem, çünkü bilmek istediklerimi biriktirebilirim, şimdiye dek hep öyle yaptım, tek başıma, gerisi angarya.. Üniversite güvenlik demek, çünkü yapması kolay, güvenli olan şey... “

[Rosemary Atwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The twin poles of Sontag’s intellectual vigour and vulnerability make these early journals both deeply thought-provoking and compelling.This is an intimate portrait of precocious intellectualism and tireless soul-searching, in which Sontag reinforces the idea of self as one’s severest critic.

[Katya]

31/12/57
Sobre manter um diário.
É superficial encarar um diário apenas como um recetáculo dos pensamentos privados e secretos de cada um — como um confidente surdo, mudo e analfabeto. No diário não só me exprimo de uma forma mais aberta do que faria com qualquer pessoa, mas crio-me a mim própria. O diário é um veículo para o meu sentido de individualidade. Representa-me como emocional e espiritualmente independente. Em consequência (infelizmente) não é um registo simples da minha vida diária — em muitos casos — oferece uma alternativa a ela.

Admiro a disciplina de manter um diário — são muitos os autores que aprecio que conservam esse hábito —, e percebe-se perfeitamente não só a compulsão para o fazer, enquanto ferramenta de libertação, mas também a ideia do ato de escrita como exercício de criação. É também para aí que aponta não só esta entrada de Sontag — quando tinha ainda 24 anos —, mas também as reflexões de diaristas como Woolf, Nin (e muitos outros, certamente).
A ser assim, e na medida em que cada diário é um registo mais ou menos depurado consoante o seu autor, não é uma aproximação fiel de quem o escreve, mas é, arrisco, a mais fiel que temos ao dispor.
E enquanto a sua escrita pode ser, e é, uma atividade solitária, a leitura de um diário, na medida em que agride a intimidade do seu autor — normalmente quando ele já nada pode a esse respeito — torna-se uma experiência conjunta desconcertante. E das duas uma: ou nos coibimos e resguardamos no respeito pela privacidade dos seus donos e arriscamos perder toda a riqueza que estes escritos guardam, ou assumimos a violência do nosso ato e honramos a partilha de uma intimidade que pouco tem de natural — ainda que a maioria dos escritores saiba o que espera a sua coleção de diários.
De qualquer forma, percorrer estes diários tem o seu quê de especial. Susan Sontag, que nas palavras do filho, adorava diários e cartas — quanto mais íntimos, melhor, entendeu, desde cedo, a sua conceção como sendo de natureza dúplice, e assim se servia deles: por um lado como confidentes, e por outro lado como registos não estáticos que lhe permitiam dialogar consigo mesma — o que explica as anotações à margem que vai fazendo, ao reler, ao longo dos anos, as entradas antigas. Por isso, os inúmeros cadernos que escreveu funcionam como misto de diário e apontamento, entrecruzando confissões, fragmentos de conversas e fragmentos biográficos, listas de leituras e filmes, críticas, reflexões, analogias, memórias, descrições e retratos.
Escritos entre 1947 e 1963 (ou seja, entre os 14 e os 30 anos, sensivelmente) os textos que se publicam em Renascer não são obra de maturidade, nem obra da argúcia de uma escritora experimentada, são um fluxo de pensamento de cadência natural numa adolescente algo errante que começava a despertar para as condicionantes do amor, da filiação e do género...

19/08/48
Só consigo pensar na mãe, como ela é bonita, como a pele dela é macia, como ela me ama. Na maneira como ela estremeceu quando chorou na outra noite — não queria que o pai, na sala ao lado, a ouvisse, e o ruído de cada vaga de lágrimas sufocadas era como um enorme soluço — que cobardes são as pessoas que se envolvem, ou melhor, que se deixam envolver, por rotina, em relações estéreis — que vidas pútridas, sombrias e miseráveis elas vivem —
Como posso eu magoá-la mais, vergada como ela está, sem nunca resistir?
Como me posso ajudar, fazendo-me cruel?

... e para as limitações das instituições sociais e culturais: desde a educação superior, que encara como uma variedade de cultura popular, às universidades que vê como meios de comunicação de massas mal geridos, ou ao casamento, essa instituição devotada ao entorpecimento dos sentidos cujo objetivo absoluto (...) é a repetição.
Daqui se vê que os diários são também palco de conflitos íntimos. Casada aos 17 anos, Sontag não se acanhava de procurar entender uma sexualidade com a qual se vinha a debater (ainda que, por um tempo, apenas na privacidade do diário). Muito reservada ao longo da vida acerca das suas escolhas de parceiros sexuais — não da experiência sexual, em si mesma —, Sontag reflete nestes textos acerca do receio da experiência homossexual que, de início, parece encarar como um quase devaneio das frustrações de uma vida em comum demasiado intensa. As suas primeiras explorações soam-nos intimidantes e assustadoras até que a autora perceba nelas a sua liberdade.
Será já muito mais tarde (em 1959) que Sontag associará a sua identidade à sua homossexualidade, afirmando: Eu necessito da identidade como uma arma, para igualar a arma que a sociedade tem contra mim. Antes disso, as primeiras experiências, as primeiras relações extra-conjugais, o divórcio, tudo representa uma experiência sumativa que Sontag vai procurando racionalizar, escalpelizando cada evento da sua vida com uma frieza por vezes cortante:

(...) se tudo é valioso - mesmo a formiga — se a formiga não deve ser morta, porque tem tanto valor quanto eu, então, implicitamente, eu tenho tão pouco valor quanto uma formiga — as pessoas não são todas o mesmo, ou valem todas o mesmo — permitir que um mal aconteça é apoiá-lo — Há violência justa

No espaço relativamente neutro do diário — de cuja existência não fazia segredo, mas no qual trabalhava em reclusão — não há verdadeiro receio de se expor. Sontag não partilhava excertos dos seus apontamentos, não os dava a ler, não os publicitava. Sabia, quando vendeu a sua obra à biblioteca da Universidade da Califórnia,, em Los Angeles, que os seus diários passariam a domínio público uma vez que morresse, mas esses dias ainda vinham longe. Entre 1947 e 1963, as folhas brancas dos seus cadernos revelam a Sontag que viria a ser, em anos posteriores, capaz de se afirmar pela sua voz, capaz de recusar assuntos que não lhe interessavam, capaz de interromper conversas que não lhe agradavam ou de encaminhar assuntos para onde lhe fosse mais útil.
Ainda antes dos 20 anos, no entanto, já Sontag corria as cadeiras e palestras da faculdade com um crivo,— e ninguém — professor, palestrante, escritor —, independentemente do título, obra ou prémio, escapava à sua crítica feroz. Desde sempre, o seu foco era o de desmantelar os significados, as expressões, as metáforas — que lhe ocuparão grande parte da vida. Para Sontag não há facilidades, e escrever não é sinónimo de autoridade, é sinónimo de sacrifício. O preço da liberdade é a infelicidade. Tenho de contorcer a minha alma para escrever, para ser livre, escreveria em 1958.
Talvez por força da sua racionalidade, a Sontag destes diários parece uma jovem precocemente envelhecida, desiludida com o mister intelectual tanto como fascinada com o conhecimento. Numa entrada do mesmo ano da anterior, desabafava: Eu rego com livros a minha mente em branco.
Canónica nas suas escolhas, Sontag era uma feminista que não recusava a herança patriarcal, antes a absorvia para a trabalhar a seu belo prazer. Listas imensas de autores consagrados dão-nos a ideia do que já tinha lido e haveria de ler: Gide, Kafka, Joyce, Barthes, Camus, eram os modelos em que mais trabalhava, e trabalhava, e trabalhava. No meio das noites de bares, das experiências sensuais, da descoberta e desfrute da sua sexualidade, espraia-se o constante trabalho de uma autora que via na seriedade uma virtude maior.
Os diários são também, acredito, a chave para toda uma obra enraizada no prazer, no amor e na sexualidade — a que Sontag justapõe o pensamento, o conhecimento e a consciência. Sem formas polarizadas, sem categorias de género, sem estereótipos.
O escritor debate sempre a questão de a obra o representar ou não. É discussão que surge, inevitavelmente, ao longo da carreira de qualquer autor — e Sontag também não lhe escapa. Normalmente, as suas respostas são rápidas e duras: autor e personagens não são uma e a mesma coisa. Cerca de oito anos antes da sua estreia com a publicação de The Benefactor, no entanto, Sontag refletia sobre a máscara não como encobrimento, mas como projeção, ou aspiração. O escritor, através da máscara (podemos dizer, através do seu diário?), não se oculta, não se encobre. Ele não protege o seu eu genuíno — ele supera-o.

[diario_de_um_leitor_pjv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adoro tudo o que leio de Sontag. Este volume inicial de entradas do seu diário enriquece quem queira conhecer melhor a autora.

São particularmente interessantes as referência sexuais e amorosas que clarificam qualquer dúvida sobre a intimidade da autora.

Igualmente interessantes a referências sobre algumas leituras que fez, bem como o contacto com intelectuais destacados.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Il "bisogno" intellettuale simile al bisogno sessuale. -

Auto-sorveglianza, auto-inflizione e autocoscienza. Tutto questo è Susan Sontag fin dai suoi quattordici anni.

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of three planned volumes of Sontag's journals, edited by her son David Rieff. This volume covers the young and precocious Sontag from age 14 to 30. It's a period of learning for her though she already appears learned.

The early entries are about 2 primary awakenings. First is a blossoming intellectual strength through studies at Berkeley, Oxford and the Sorbonne followed by a return to the U. S. and a professorship at Columbia. The early 60s also saw her writing her first novel, The Benefactor. In addition, these journal years are filled with her sexual awakening. At Berkeley, at 16, she recognized herself as a lesbian. Later, at Chicago, she married sociology professor Philip Rieff and bore their son, David. In Europe, without Philip, she returned to an affair with Harriet, her lover at Berkeley and later, in New York, was in a long relationship with Irene, never returning to her marriage.

The entries are mostly notes, lists, and jogs to herself indicating directions she wanted to take. Few entries are developed into purposeful prose; it's sometimes difficult to determine what she was thinking, what her attitudes were, at least in depth. And it's difficult to follow details of her biographical narrative. What is clear is a strong sense of increasing self-awareness and expanding interests. If there's little about her writing, these notes carry hints at what she was reading and studying and how it all influenced her.

Many of these entries are intensely personal. Confessional. Difficult to completely understand her, it's also hard to like her. She whines, complains, bemoans every bump in her rocky love life. Or she writes as though her love life is filled with trouble. She loved hard, agonizing over every experience. Writing her feelings down helped her cope with them, just as noting her scholarly advances allowed her to keep track of the path she climbed. It's equally hard to relate to her learning. Part of it is her enormous intelligence. At 16, at Berkeley, she was filling her journal with challenging entries demonstrating this. Continuing to do so because they were intended for her rather than a reading public, they're not particularly helpful in helping us understand Sontag. Tailored for her own use, she doesn't have to explain how she got to the peak; she's already there and writes in the knowledge she used every day. The troule is, at the top of peaks like Sontag's mind, sometimes a cold wind blows across such a landscape filled with rock and wind. Stark, direct sunlight is wasted. One comes to understand the journal reflects the kind of woman she probably was.

So in this first volume of journals we're able to follow the two parallel courses--emotional and intellectual--of this clever California girl from New York to Europe and back, through lesbian affairs to marriage and motherhood to women lovers again, from young Berkeley undergrad to Columbia professor and novelist. It's quite a ride. By 1961, Sontag disliked herself. The reader may have reservations, too, but can't help finding her fascinating.

[Andrew]

As I read Susan Sontag's journals, I thought, as is I think kind of inevitable, where I was in my late teens and early 20s, when Sontag was off cavorting with geniuses in Paris and reading dense German romantic epic poems in the original. Let's face it, I was probably ripping a bong in an attic.

Sontag's journals, fractured as they are, are a remarkably portrait of the inner thoughts of one of the 20th Century's big name intellectuals, as she went through book after book and a couple of what were apparently really fucking self-destructive relationships. I'm always afraid that reading the journals of an author will be rather like looking in their laundry basket-- more a project of nosiness than of intellectual curiosity-- but these were pretty interesting.

[Mohammed Yusuf · Rating 3 out of 5]

عند قراءتي لمذكرات أي كاتب ، تلوح في الأفق دوما لحظات قديمة في البال ، اشياء اشاركهم فيها سواءا بنفس الاتجاه او عكسه ، كأني بقراءة حياة الاخرين أقرأ حياتي ، أو كأني اضئ مصباحا لارى الشارع فارى غرفتي بالحين نفسه

[Ярослава · Rating 4 out of 5]

С'юзен Зонтаґ ціле життя вела щоденники. Після її смерті увесь її архів перейшов у власність університету і потрапив у відносно відкритий доступ, себто публікація щоденників стала справою часу. Видання врешті підготував її син, який сумнівався у доцільності публікації, але вирішив, що краще вже він, аніж хтось інший. Бозна, що пропущено редакційним відбором, та й відсутність коментарів не тішить, тож, в принципі, caveat lector.
Читво тим часом прецікаве. Перший том, умовно кажучи, документує життя, чи то пак інтелектуальну траєкторію Зонтаґ від 14 до 30 років - від зверхнього, надміру розумного підлітка (не кажіть мені, що в 15 нормально розмірковувати про те, що "Ідеї порушують рівновагу життя", виписувати довгі списки класичної музики на послухати, і почуватися відчуженою від оточення на підставі вищого інтелекту) до молодої жінки, що проблематизує свою орієнтацію ("Моє прагнення писати пов'язане із моєю гомосексуальністю. Ідентичність потрібна мені як зброя, що зрівнялася б зі зброєю, яку суспільство має проти мене"), до, врешті, невдалого шлюбу з професором.
Про те, чим для неї є щоденники: у щоденнику "я не просто висловлюю себе відвертіше, ніж могла б із кимось іншим; я створюю себе. Щоденник - рушій мого відчуття своєї самості."

Дуже дивно, про Зонтаґ у публічному просторі всі-всі-всі пишуть як категоричну й різку людину, яка did not suffer foolishness (і що є дурістю - визначала зі своєї довільної перспективи), а всі щоденники побудовані на дуже болісному намацуванні серединного шляху між ідентичністю як окремішністю й ідентичністю як включеністю ("емоційне життя: діалектика між жагою приватності і потребою розчинитися у пристрасних стосунках з іншим"), на постійному проговорюванні своїх недоліків, серед яких головні - "потреба схвалення іншими. страх іншого", на постійних резолюціях менше говорити, менше посміхатися, приймати душ щодня, мити голову що 10 днів, не намагатися нікого причарувати.

Крім того, там є: списки рідкісних слів і нових для Зонтаґ сленгових виразів, принагідні корінці культурологічних нарисів (про Нью-Йорк - sensuality submerged in sexuality, про моральний вимір хвороб ще задовго до відомого есею), списки подивлених фільмів та інші debris інтелектуального життя.

Просто прикольне: "Ті, хто не відчуває відповідальності за власні вчинки, природньо, ненавидять критику. Такі люди сприймають усі свої вчинки як примус, вони не йдуть від них самих. Отже, критика несправедлива".

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three years ago The Guardian ran some excerpts from an upcoming edition of Susan Sontag's journals, and despite being at that time little more to me than a massive literary reputation, I was dazzled by her penetrating, often brutal self-dissection of her own personality and intellect. I even dared think I recognized a sensibility shockingly similar to my own. Fast-forward through several years and the journals, a compilation of her earliest, are here, and yes, my suspicions have been borne out. Not that I'd at all equate our intellectual abilities, but I recognize (and in a sense, sympathize over) the slavish desire of creating and shaping an entire identity out of intellectual engagement and a systematic and largely self-imposed exposure to art and the humanities, a desire always at war with the cravings for intense personal experiences.

The "reborn" of the title hints at one of the main underlying themes of these journals: the self-creation Sontag undertakes from being the precocious teenager who graduated high school at 15 and had studied at both Berkeley and University of Chicago before she was 20, to the woman on the brink of superstardom as a public intellectual by her early 20's. These journals document a stunning amount of stuff and happenings--exploring and embracing her lesbianism, a whirlwind marriage and motherhood, divorce, escape to European bohemia, and, of course, the steady evolution of her intellectual abilities and persona. Inevitably, this leads to some uneveness in tone and content, with drastic oscillations between cool academic analysis and rather hysterically-pitched recounting of personal drama (she seems to have modeled her romantic yearnings on the European art films she adored or, as she records a friend of hers commenting, on the characters of Nightwood). But frankly, that's how my, and probably all our journals of those years read too, no?

And so that long wait for the next volume to be released...


"My reading is a hoarding, accumulating, storing up for the future, filling the hole of the present. Sex and eating are entirely different motions--pleasure for themselves, for the present--not serving the past + the future. I ask nothing, not even memory, of them."

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I am not myself with people [...] but am I myself when alone? That seems unlikely, too."

When reflecting on Kafka's diaries, Sontag rightly writes that "Kafka has that magic of actuality in even the most dislocated phrase that no other modern has, a kind of shiver and grinding blue ache in your teeth." Sontag also praises the "clarity and precision" of Gide's diaries, remarking that she feels herself rapidly 'growing' through reading them. The charm of Sontag's diaries lies elsewhere - I think, simply in that they offer us a look into Sontag's constantly whirring mind. When Sontag excerpts Barnes' description of a man whose face "was one of those which, for fear of misuse, has not been used at all", you get the sense that Sontag can't imagine a worse fate. Whatever you think of her as an essayist/novelist/'public intellectual', you can't help but respect Sontag's questioning spirit. (She writes in one entry: "Remember. My ignorance is not [underlined twice in the journal] charming.")

I don't know if these diaries are really 'worth reading' as lbr, they're mostly half-formulated thoughts and lists, but I know that the buzzings of Sontag's mind kept me out of my own head for awhile and I'm grateful for that.

[eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

susan how DARE you read my mind like this

— the diary of a growing woman, exploring both her Judaism and lesbianism while documenting her numerous cultural discoveries, from movies to books to pieces of classical music. composed of both intimate thoughts about repressed feelings and destructive relationships and more general ones about literature, philosophy, art or even love, this book is as rich as Sontag’s mind and lively life in NYC, Paris, and other places where she meets other great figures of the 20th century.

“My desire to write is connected with my homosexuality. I need the identity as a weapon, to match the weapon that society has against me. It doesn’t justify my homosexuality. But it would give me — I feel — a license. I am just becoming aware of how guilty I feel being queer. […] Being queer makes me feel more vulnerable. It increases my wish to hide, to be invisible — which I’ve always felt anyway.”

[belljareads · Rating 4 out of 5]

had never underlined that many sentences in a book before

[Come Musica · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Sul Tenere un Diario.

Superficiale intendere il diario solo come il ricettacolo dei propri pensieri privati, segreti – come se fosse un confidente sordo, muto e analfabeta. Nel diario non mi limito a esprimere me stessa piú apertamente di quanto potrei fare con un’altra persona; creo me stessa. Il diario è un mezzo per darmi un senso d’identità. Mi rappresenta come emotivamente e spiritualmente indipendente. Perciò (ahimè) non registra semplicemente la mia vita concreta, quotidiana ma piuttosto – in molti casi – offre un’alternativa a essa.”


Questi diari e taccuini sono un viaggio all’interno dei pensieri intimi di Susan Sontag. Nessuno sconto al lettore. Nessuna edulcorazione. Si incontra così la donna, la scrittrice, la lettrice esigente (leggeva tantissimo e che emozione vedere tra i suoi autori scelti da leggere Mann, Joyce, Malamud, Roth, London e tanti tanti altri).
Senza veli si mostra nella sua ricerca di affermare la sua identità, la sua diversità. Non ha paura di raccontare e raccontarsi la sua fatica di amare, di vivere la maternità, di vivere nel matrimonio.

“C’è spesso una contraddizione tra il senso del nostro comportamento con una persona e ciò che in un diario diciamo di provare per quella persona. Ma ciò non significa che quello che facciamo è superficiale, e che solo quello che confessiamo a noi stessi è profondo. Le confessioni, e naturalmente intendo le confessioni sincere, possono essere piú superficiali delle azioni.”

Nel leggere questi diari/taccuini, ci si sente un po’ così, quasi in colpa nel fare questa lettura: “Raramente sappiamo ciò che gli altri pensano di noi (o, meglio, ciò che pensano di pensare di noi)… Mi sento in colpa per aver letto quello che non era destinato ai miei occhi? No. Una delle principali funzioni (sociali) di un giornale intimo o di un diario è proprio quella di essere letto furtivamente da altre persone, quelle persone (come i genitori + gli amanti) sui quali si è stati crudelmente sinceri solo nel diario.”

E lei non risparmia niente né a se stessa né a chi la legge:
“Il problema delle emozioni è essenzialmente un problema di spurgo.

La vita emotiva è un complesso sistema fognario.

Bisogna cacare ogni giorno, altrimenti si intasa.
Mi servono 28 anni di defecazione per superare 28 anni di costipazione.

La costipazione emotiva, l’origine dell’“armatura caratteriale” di Reich.

Da dove cominciare? La psicoanalisi dice: dall’inventario della merda. Si dissolve, se sottoposta a uno sguardo continuo – e, tutto sommato, umoristico.”



È stata una lettura forte, che in ogni caso arricchisce.
La tentazione maggiore nel leggerla? Analizzarla, come uno psicoanalista. E nel farlo, a mia volta analizzarmi.
Ogni diario intimo, in fondo, è una finestra sul nostro inconscio, un invito a sedersi, per ascoltare la voce più profonda di se stessi, imparando a decifrarla.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

رائع!

[Atri · Rating 5 out of 5]

*11/23/47

I believe:
...
(b) That the most desirable thing in the world is freedom to be true to oneself, i.e., Honesty
(c) That the only difference between human beings is intelligence
(d) That the only criterion of an action is its ultimate effect on making the individual happy or unhappy

*4/13/48

Ideas disturb the levelness of life.

*12/19/48

...Poetry must be: exact, intense, concrete, significant, rhythmical, formal, complex

...Art, then, is thus always striving to be independent of the mere intelligence...

...Language is not only an instrument but an end in itself...

*12/25/48

Music is at once the most wonderful, the most alive of all the arts - it is the most abstract, the most perfect, the most pure - and the most sensual. I listen with my body and it is my body that aches in response to the passion and pathos embodied in this music.

*2/19/49

...I want to write - I want to live in an intellectual atmosphere - I want to live in a cultural center where I can hear a great deal of music - all this and much more, but...the important thing is that there seems to be no profession better suited to my needs than university teaching...

*April 1949

...in undisguised aloneness, I have figured some pleasures and compensations - in music and books and reading poetry aloud. I need pretend to no one; I dispose of my time as I wish...

*5/31/49

I know the truth now - I know how good and right it is to love - I have, in some part, been given permission to live -

Everything begins from now - I am reborn

*6/13/49

I am infinite - I must never forget it.

*12/29/49

Oh, the ecstasy of aloneness! -...

*2/13/50

One can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong + fruitful.

*9/3/56

All aesthetic judgement is really cultural evaluation

*10/24/56

Thought has no natural boundaries.

Philosophy is topology of thought...

What is thinking without words?

*12/26/56

Interpretation:

Always the presumption of meaning.

*12/31/56

1. Nothing is uninterpreted.
2. To interpret is to determine, restrict; or to exfoliate, read meaning into.
3. Interpretation is the medium by which we justify context.

*1/3/57

Goethe declared that only insufficient knowledge is creative.

*1/6/57

A kind of foolish pride which comes from dieting on high culture for too long.

The only way to write is to write.

A couple in a waiting room. The curious intersection of private + public behavior.

*11/28/57

Morality informs experience, not experience informs morality

*late 1957

Voyeuristic intimacy of the camera.

The camera, by moving around, subtly invites us to embrace one character + exclude another...

*12/31/57

In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.

*1/4/58

The limits of urban sociability. Privacy (vs. solitude) as a distinctively urban creation.

I water my white mind with books.

Impenetrable disorder of human relations.

Sense of reality = sense that things must be as they are.

*2/23/58

...My ambition - or my consolation - has been to understand life. (Mistaken idea of the spirituality of a writer?) Now I want to simply learn to live with it.

*4/20/58

Being in love - this subtle keen unforgettable sense of the other's uniqueness.

*7/4/58

Madness and sanity the same, in isolation.

*7/14/58

Better to be knowing than innocent.

*11/20/59

I have never been as demanding of anyone as I am of I.

Kant: morality = law

"transpire" does not mean "occur"

"To write is to exist, to be one's self." (De Gourmont)

*1/21/60

Inspiration presents itself to me in the form of anxiety.

*mid February 1960

The churning inside the head - day-long conversations with the absent lover, impulses, fantasies

*2/29/60

My lies are what I think the other person wants to hear.

*3/20/60

The idea of will has often come in to close the gap between what I say (I say what I don't mean - or w/o thinking my feelings through) and what I feel.

*6/12/61

Being lucid = being active, not wanting to be "good," i.e., not wanting to be liked by each in turn

To be able to write, I have to be lucid, alone...

*8/13/61

To write you have to allow yourself to be the person you don't want to be (of all the people you are)

Writing is a beautiful act. It is making something that will give pleasure to others later

*1/7/62

Spirit = lucidity / tranquility

*9/3/62

- I want to be able to be alone, to find it nourishing - not just a waiting.

Blessed is the mind with something to occupy it other than its own dissatisfactions.

I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it.

*9/20/62

Memory is the test. What one wants to remember - while still in the act or experience...

*3/26/63

Work = being in the world

Loving, being loved = appreciating the world (but not being in it)

Loving is the highest mode of valuing, preferring. But it's not a state of being

*late 1963

The intellectual ecstasy I have had access to since early childhood. But ecstasy is ecstasy.

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first thing I've read by Sontag, and perhaps a strange place to start. As reading enjoyment the beginning was the most compelling as Sontag undergoes swift changes in her intellectual landscape and social life. Her endless list of books to read are all inspiring and act as doorways to other people to check out (Kafka's diaries, Gide). The latter part is a little more scattered, but still filled with interesting and often pretty dark views into her psyche while leaving her family behind and having a seemingly unhealthy affair in Paris. The journal format is very appealing to me right now, maybe because of the honest and unfiltered thoughts that are put down. It's interesting to see the various forms her thoughts take and observations on art, society, emotion and intellect.

[أحمد شاكر · Rating 3 out of 5]

أعرف طبعاً أني فضولي. أو شديد الفضول. انكشف لي ذلك من حبي وشغفي لقراءة يوميات الآخرين. قديما كانت دفاتر أبي. وبعد ذلك كانت اليوميات المنشورة.

 في يوميات سوزان سونتاغ المبكرة  (1947- 1963) - ولادة ثانية، سيتكشف للقارئ جمال التدوين أو التسجيل اليومي. فالكاتبة طوال الوقت كانت منهمكة في حوار ذاتي داخلي؛ عتاب وحساب. كانت تكتب وتعلق على الأفكار التي تراودها. والكتب التي تقرأها. والأشخاص الذين تقابلهم. وأصدقاؤها الذين ارتبطت بهم. وقوائمها التي لا تنتهي. ورحلاتها التي قامت بها. ومشاكلها النفسية وأوجاعها.

[Duru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Sontag'ın 14-30 yaşları arasında tuttuğu günlükler.
karışık ruh halleri, hisler yazılardan fışkıran bir tedirginlik telaş, belki?
kendini anlamaya çalışmalar, yapılacaklar, yapılmayacaklar, oradan oraya atlamalar, okuduğumu anlayamadığım anlar, tekrar tekrar okumalar, anlamaya çalışmak için, şaşırmalar, sürprizler, müthiş bir zihin, onu izlemeye anlamaya ya da anlamamaya çalışmak.
Harikaydı. Bayılıyorum ona.

[Eibi82 · Rating 3 out of 5]

En octubre leí un ensayo de la autora que me dejó completamente maravillada, así que en cuanto vi en la biblioteca la primera parte de sus Diarios, no me lo pensé.
Decir que Susan Sontag está a otro nivel, es quedarse corta, en serio esta mujer con 14 años escribía cosas como esta:

23/11/47
Creo: que no hay un dios personal o vida después de la muerte. que lo más deseable en el mundo es la libertad de ser fiel a uno mismo, es decir la Honradez. Que la única diferencia entre los seres humanos es la inteligencia. Que el único criterio de una acción es su efecto último en la felicidad o infelicidad de una persona. Que está mal privar a cualquier de la vida...

Con esta carta de presentación, ya te puedes imaginar el grado de inteligencia y lucidez que vas a encontrarte entre sus páginas. Sin embargo, los diarios no están editados, es decir, van tal cual, la fecha con la entrada de ese día, salvo alguna explicación en cursiva a modo de aclaración, no hay más.
Además hay reflexiones tan personales e íntimas que en ocasiones, he tenido la sensación de estar invadiendo la intimidad de la autora. Hay que tener en cuenta que ella no dejó dicho nada acerca de su publicación, y fue su hijo quien, a título póstumo, lo hizo.
De todas formas, no es una lectura tediosa, ni lenta; está llena de recomendaciones literarias, de pensamientos, ideas, hay momentos duros, otros más graciosos...En definitiva, la vida de Susan sin ningún filtro.

[*nawaf · Rating 2 out of 5]

في البداية أعترف أن محرر هذه اليوميات ديفيد ريف ـ ابن سوزان سونتاغ ـ لم يكن بارًا بأمه عندما نشر هذه اليوميات إذ لم تكن يوميات بالمعنى المتعارف عليه ولكنها ملاحظات مبعثرة لم تكتب بانتظام.
ولدت سوزان في يناير ١٩٣٣ فهذه اليوميات تعتبر الجزء الأول من ثلاثة أجزاء شكل الجزء الاول الفترة الزمنية ١٩٤٧ - ١٩٦٣ (٢٤-٣٠) سنة، وصدر الجزء الثاني تحت عنوان "كما يُسَخَّر الجسد للوعي" ١٩٦٤ - ١٩٨٠ (٣١-٤٧) سنة.
وهذه اليوميات كما قلت يوميات مبعثرة كتب بدون انتظام ولا تفصيل، أفضل ما في هذه اليوميات شغف الكاتبة بالكتب وخصوصًا في فترة المراهقة، فقد كانت تقرأ وتعيد قراءة بعض الكتب المهمة وتعقد مقارنة ببن الكتاب والكتب واهتمت في وقت لاحق بالمسرحيات التي تعرض في باريس والأفلام السينمائية.
غير هذه الأشياء لن تحد نفعًا بمعرفة أنها كانت مثلية شاذة، ولعلنا نحتاج للاطلاع على بقية اليوميات لكي نحسن صورة الكاتبة بعيدًا عن مثليتها الجنسية.

[zan · Rating 3 out of 5]

No one can deny that Susan Sontag was brilliant. Her way with words, even in journals, completely astounds me. But reading this without any serious biographical notation or experience with her other writings from this time left me feeling unhinged and unconnected to her notes. I feel guilty giving a star rating to anyone's journals, but as an edited and published book, I think I can make an exception.

Still, my three stars should not discourage anyone from reading this who is already a fan of Susan Sontag's writing, or anyone who is fascinated with the process of how one discovers oneself as a human and as a writer. I only wish I'd read more Sontag (the published entity) before delving into her deepest darkest secrets.

[Marijana☕✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kad pomislite da ste krindž u svom pisanju i "prekomernom" otkrivanju o sebi, samo pročitajte nečiji dnevnik i biće vam lakše kad shvatite da su mnogi haotične, samosažaljive loptice željne ljubavi i smisla.

"In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself."

Ovde su me prevashodno doveli citati i fragmeni na koje sam nailazila tokom godina. Mada mi forma dnevnika nikad nije bila naročito draga, kao ni epistolarni stil, čitanje je ipak bilo zanimljivo. Dobijamo uvid u formiranje mladog, briljantnog uma od tinejdžerskih godina do zrelih dvadesetih. Sontag u ovom delu pokazuje ranjivost i samokritičnost, što je nekako i očekivano od dnevnika – da u njega stanu sve unutrašnje borbe, strasti i nesigurnosti. Sontag dosta piše o umetnosti, književnosti i filmu, tako da možemo da vidimo kako ona sebe pozicionira i kako, pored emotivnog i seksualnog, gradi i svoj intelektualni identitet.

Izdvajam delove koji su mi ostavili najjači utisak:

"what cowards people are to involve themselves, rather, to passively let themselves be involved, by convention, in sterile relationships what rotten, dreary, miserable lives they lead—

"All I feel, most immediately, is the most anguished need for physical love and mental companionship—"

"Emotionally, I wanted to stay. Intellectually, I wanted to leave. As always, I seemed to enjoy punishing myself."

"I did feel comfortable with him—though not affirmative and alive."

"I am alive... I am beautiful... what else is there?"

"The love of possessions—books and records—those are two oppressions which have been very powerful in me."

"I am infinite—I must never forget it."

"I want sensuality and sensitivity, both."

"What do I believe? In the private life
In holding up culture
In music, Shakespeare, old buildings"

"Tasting a new city is like tasting a new wine."

"Writing is a beautiful act. It is making something that will give pleasure to others later."

"The reason most things look better once bought and out of the store—even on the bus ride home—is that they have already begun to be loved."

"The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes."

"I write to define myself—an act of self-creation—part of [the] process of becoming—"

I fear the impersonalness of sex: I want to be talked to, held, etc."

"I must change my life so that can live it, not wait for it."

[nature · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been keeping a journal since I was young, and I deeply admire anyone who does the same. I'm always fascinated by the lives of writers , how they spent their days, processed their thoughts, and navigated the world without the internet or modern technology, especially in the 90s. So when I stumbled upon Reborn by Susan Sontag, I instantly thanked the universe for my luck. I just knew I would love it and draw endless inspiration from its pages.

While I was initially expecting a broader range of topics, I found that the book primarily explores her sexual desires, her experience as a queer woman, and her love for another woman during that era. Though that focus surprised me, I still enjoyed most of the entries. Some passages were challenging to understand due to their deeply philosophical and psychological nature, but they offered a raw and intimate glimpse into her inner world.

Overall, I’m incredibly grateful to have discovered this book. It reaffirmed my love for journaling and reminded me of the power of writing as a way to explore identity, longing, and self-awareness.

[Anastasiia Mozghova · Rating 4 out of 5]

ошеломляющее сочетание личного и академического, эмоционального и интеллектуального, сильного и слабого. ощущаю свежий прилив восхищения Сонтаг, связанный с тем, какой путь терзаний и сомнений она прох��дит в этих записях.

а списки всего на свете должны быть отдельном жанром в литературе.