<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written and affectionate, but not sycophantic
Review: A lively, argumentative, and engaging piece of critical writing about two of the major "celebrity" aesthetic figures of the past fifty years. Kael made her name writing acerbic, witty, urbane movie reviews; Sontag made hers writing cerebral, careful essays about culture and ideas. Kael and Sontag share some surface similarities, but Seligman's book is mostly about their differences: how beautiful Sontag's writing is, yet also how impenetrable, how aloof Sontag can be from anyone who is not "in the know," how contemptuous she is of what is not High Art, yet how crucial her voice is, even if that voice has trailed off in recent years in the pursuit of the fictional muse. (The only difficulty with Seligman's adulation of Sontag is that it is sometimes hard to understand what earns it, although he spends much of the book trying to make the case for her.) Kael, on the other hand, is more of a populist, almost to a fault sometimes, according to Seligman, who nonetheless has little bad to say about her, about her feistiness, about her professed inability to care what others thought of her judgments (although ultimately she did care a great deal, as Seligman points out in an extended section on the ludicrous assertion some of her enemies made that Kael was anti-gay, which, as Seligman demonstrates, is about the furthest thing from the truth imaginable). Seligman has a lot of interest to say not only about the two women but about the blurring of the division between high art and "pop culture," as well as the absurdity of the in-fighting that goes on in American intellectual circles. He comes to no real conclusions about which of the two writers is likely to be remembered most 100 years from now, although that's not really his purpose.
Rating:
Summary: A reader from Cambridge, Mass.
Review: If, like me and Craig Seligman, you are an admirer of Sontag and Kael, then this book--as suggested by its susbtitle--will be fascinating, illimuniating and revelatory for you. Yes, Seligman is tough on Sontag (softer on Kael), but just listen: "Sontag's style is a model of density without condescension, and her refusal to make things easier for the reader is enormously flattering.... If I'm eroticizing Sontag's writing (and I don't deny that I am), it's because I find it so deeply seductive; Garboesque, almost. There's a mystery in Sontag-in her unreachability, her refusal to curry favor, to charm-that is her charm."
Rating: 
Summary: Seligman Leaves the Reader Dangling
Review: While I found the book completely engaging from beginning to end, I couldn't help but think that there's something "off" about the author (at points, his interest in Sontag and Kael borders on sociopathic -- what's this about him having "many opportunities" to meet Sontag, and not wanting to? Is he afraid of her?). Craig Seligman is an excellent writer, but only a so-so critic. He draws the reader in with his enthusiasm for his subjects, but leaves the reader dangling... The book, it seems, he wrote for himself. You have to be in his head to get the full picture of his obsession. And I wonder what Sontag and Kael would think of him.
<< 1 >>
| 
