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A review by toutesleschosesmarguerite
Against Interpretation: And Other Essays by Susan Sontag
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
I think what might best sum up Sontag's collection of essays is that one of primary goals in life now is to be as conscious, as educated and as intelligent as her.
For on those four hundred pages she managed to speak so eloquently about pretty much anything that is related to widely conceived notion of art: about our cultural sensitivity, about tragedy, about form and style, about interpretation, our intellectual paradigmes, happenings, the modern approach to works of art, most influential creators - in one word, she spoke of nearly everything. Yet every conversation she started - whether it be on Camus, the intellectualisation of arts or the nature of tragedy as a genre - was nothing but a start of a much broader, even more ambitious debate she didn't hesitate to begin. A debate on much more intricate qualities of these works and of our world as a whole, that few would be capable of noticing - let alone coherently describing and judging.
As someone who is very much immersed in the world of social sciences, of literature etc, it is quite rare for me to find a book that is genuinely influential, that, due to its complexity, thoughtfulness and the unquestionable talent of the author, manages to teach me so much, to deconstruct the world and put it together again in a way that offers a fresh perspective on everything that surrounds me. She not only manages to describe the new things happening in the world, or to offer the reader some sort of superfluous, unsatisfactory commentary, but she uses her cultural capital and her vast knowledge to put those phenomenons into context, to truly dive deeply into the subjects that she looks into, to analyse them in a wider, socio-historical context, providing truly interesting insight. She picks subjects that others wouldn't even consider worthy of an eloquent, public discussion, and presents them to the reader in a strikingly honest, clever and piercing manner that is bound to influence the very process of reading from now on.
Reading Sontag really is a way to have the whole picture, to see the depth of all the matters we discuss. She teaches the reader how to perceive everything in a more holistic, profound manner, to truly appreciate their complexity. She entices her audience to think more, to be more critical, more aware, more conscious. And while this should be the goal of every essayist, every scholar, every author, very few of them actually manage to do so. Sontag is, indubitably, one of them. Her originality, her firmness and her intelligence are what ensures that it will stay this way forever.
For on those four hundred pages she managed to speak so eloquently about pretty much anything that is related to widely conceived notion of art: about our cultural sensitivity, about tragedy, about form and style, about interpretation, our intellectual paradigmes, happenings, the modern approach to works of art, most influential creators - in one word, she spoke of nearly everything. Yet every conversation she started - whether it be on Camus, the intellectualisation of arts or the nature of tragedy as a genre - was nothing but a start of a much broader, even more ambitious debate she didn't hesitate to begin. A debate on much more intricate qualities of these works and of our world as a whole, that few would be capable of noticing - let alone coherently describing and judging.
As someone who is very much immersed in the world of social sciences, of literature etc, it is quite rare for me to find a book that is genuinely influential, that, due to its complexity, thoughtfulness and the unquestionable talent of the author, manages to teach me so much, to deconstruct the world and put it together again in a way that offers a fresh perspective on everything that surrounds me. She not only manages to describe the new things happening in the world, or to offer the reader some sort of superfluous, unsatisfactory commentary, but she uses her cultural capital and her vast knowledge to put those phenomenons into context, to truly dive deeply into the subjects that she looks into, to analyse them in a wider, socio-historical context, providing truly interesting insight. She picks subjects that others wouldn't even consider worthy of an eloquent, public discussion, and presents them to the reader in a strikingly honest, clever and piercing manner that is bound to influence the very process of reading from now on.
Reading Sontag really is a way to have the whole picture, to see the depth of all the matters we discuss. She teaches the reader how to perceive everything in a more holistic, profound manner, to truly appreciate their complexity. She entices her audience to think more, to be more critical, more aware, more conscious. And while this should be the goal of every essayist, every scholar, every author, very few of them actually manage to do so. Sontag is, indubitably, one of them. Her originality, her firmness and her intelligence are what ensures that it will stay this way forever.