Conversations With Susan Sontag (Literary Conversations Series (Paper))

Rating:
Summary: The philosopher as virtuosa.
Review: Why do I regard the publisher's remarks about this text being unabridged (read: sanitized to corporate "standards") with such lingering skepticism? Is is a question of having no faith in corporate ethics, or one of needing, however subconsciusly, to deny Sontag's virtuosity of intellect? If the transcribed interviews are reliably authentic, here is a mind quite literally capable of extemporizing sophisticated philosophical discourse. No wonder Camille Paglia attempted to make a cottage industry of ridiculing, belittling, and otherwise attacking this author, who not only anticipated many of Paglia's themes by decades, but who has also shown herself capable of stating in a few laconic phrases what takes Paglia (for all her verbal music) hypomanically-digressive chapters. This is a refreshingly intimate encounter with what "Hurricane Camille" herself has dubbed "one of the great minds of the Twentieth Century", in addition to being far more engaging reading than I had anticipated. Read Paglia's more serious endeavors to exercize your right brain; but read Sontag (this compilation included) to exercise your left. My only regret is noting that certain of the interviews included here were translated back into English from other languages: The smoothness of translation, for good or for ill, gave no clue.