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A review by heliosphere
Against Interpretation: And Other Essays by Susan Sontag
5.0
"The world in which these essays were written no longer exists.
Instead of a utopian moment, we live in a time which is experienced as the end—more exactly, just past the end—of every ideal. (And therefore of culture: there is no possibility of true culture without altruism.) An illusion of the end, perhaps—and not more illusory than the conviction of thirty years ago that we were on the threshold of a great positive transformation of culture and society. No, not an illusion, I think."
— Susan Sontag, Against Interpretations and other Essays, Afterword: Thirty Years Later
"notes on camp" remains the best essay in this collection tbh! since summer started, watching movies and reviewing them (badly) on letterboxd has been one of the only things i do in my free time, so this book felt quite pertinent to me. after all, reviewing movies on letterboxd could be considered some form of amateur art criticism. i even watched a few movies for the sole purpose of reading these essays. "against interpretations and other essays" helped inform the way i view art. many of my letterboxd ratings were heavily dependent on the moral underpinnings of a film, and while i still hold that sentiment close to me, susan sontag's ideas offered an alternative way of examining art, one that urged me to appreciate form and style more than i did.
at times, the seemingly ultra-formalist position sontag takes on in the majority of the essays contained in this book seems like a complete dismissal of any critique of art from a moralist standpoint. i could see why sontag was compelled to draw our attention towards style as the centre of art, yet i constantly grappled with this question: if we do not judge a piece of art's moral utility in our criticism, than where do we do so? where do we find space for these conversations? although art is not a vessel of ideas in the way an article, a manifesto, or a speech is, it is perhaps the most widely consumed container of ideas and truth (in the time of post-truth). it was easy, for me at least, to feel defensive and skeptical of sontag's position. but contextualizing these thoughts in the mystic era of "the sixties" helps. sontag's ideas were not an attempt to catalyze the uncritical mass consumption of media without regards to morality that we now witness as part of late-stage capitalism, but an attempt to bring balance to an era that was already highly moralistic. perhaps that undermines its relevance to our current century, although it is no less important in understanding the grand scheme of aesthetics as a whole—if you are willing to engage with the ideas that oppose it, or its present implications.
Instead of a utopian moment, we live in a time which is experienced as the end—more exactly, just past the end—of every ideal. (And therefore of culture: there is no possibility of true culture without altruism.) An illusion of the end, perhaps—and not more illusory than the conviction of thirty years ago that we were on the threshold of a great positive transformation of culture and society. No, not an illusion, I think."
— Susan Sontag, Against Interpretations and other Essays, Afterword: Thirty Years Later
"notes on camp" remains the best essay in this collection tbh! since summer started, watching movies and reviewing them (badly) on letterboxd has been one of the only things i do in my free time, so this book felt quite pertinent to me. after all, reviewing movies on letterboxd could be considered some form of amateur art criticism. i even watched a few movies for the sole purpose of reading these essays. "against interpretations and other essays" helped inform the way i view art. many of my letterboxd ratings were heavily dependent on the moral underpinnings of a film, and while i still hold that sentiment close to me, susan sontag's ideas offered an alternative way of examining art, one that urged me to appreciate form and style more than i did.
at times, the seemingly ultra-formalist position sontag takes on in the majority of the essays contained in this book seems like a complete dismissal of any critique of art from a moralist standpoint. i could see why sontag was compelled to draw our attention towards style as the centre of art, yet i constantly grappled with this question: if we do not judge a piece of art's moral utility in our criticism, than where do we do so? where do we find space for these conversations? although art is not a vessel of ideas in the way an article, a manifesto, or a speech is, it is perhaps the most widely consumed container of ideas and truth (in the time of post-truth). it was easy, for me at least, to feel defensive and skeptical of sontag's position. but contextualizing these thoughts in the mystic era of "the sixties" helps. sontag's ideas were not an attempt to catalyze the uncritical mass consumption of media without regards to morality that we now witness as part of late-stage capitalism, but an attempt to bring balance to an era that was already highly moralistic. perhaps that undermines its relevance to our current century, although it is no less important in understanding the grand scheme of aesthetics as a whole—if you are willing to engage with the ideas that oppose it, or its present implications.