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A review by chon
At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches by Anne Jump, David Rieff, Paolo Dilonardo, Susan Sontag
I'm always struck by Sontag and her brilliance.
The essays and speeches on their own are obviously incredible but they feel a little jarring to be pushed together into one book. Though this is barely noticeable since I get deeply involved with each idea she puts on the table. To be honest, I'm a little shy almost to add more words to describe her and her words, which are perfectly expressive standing on their own. Needing no further descriptions. On that note, from the sea of wonderful passages, here's one:
Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at
once ... and space exists so that it all doesn’t happen to you.
"By this standard, the novel is an ideal vehicle both of space and of time. The novel shows us time: that is, everything doesn’t happen at once. (It is a sequence, it is a line.) It shows us space: that is, what happens doesn’t happen to one person only. In other words, a novel is the creation not simply of a voice, but of a world. It mimics the essential structures by which we experience ourselves living in time, and inhabiting a world, and attempting to make sense of our experience. But it does what lives (the lives that are lived) cannot offer, except after they are over. It confers-and withdraws-meaning or sense upon a life. This is possible because narration is possible, because there are norms of narration which are as constitutive of thinking and feeling and experience."
The essays and speeches on their own are obviously incredible but they feel a little jarring to be pushed together into one book. Though this is barely noticeable since I get deeply involved with each idea she puts on the table. To be honest, I'm a little shy almost to add more words to describe her and her words, which are perfectly expressive standing on their own. Needing no further descriptions. On that note, from the sea of wonderful passages, here's one:
Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at
once ... and space exists so that it all doesn’t happen to you.
"By this standard, the novel is an ideal vehicle both of space and of time. The novel shows us time: that is, everything doesn’t happen at once. (It is a sequence, it is a line.) It shows us space: that is, what happens doesn’t happen to one person only. In other words, a novel is the creation not simply of a voice, but of a world. It mimics the essential structures by which we experience ourselves living in time, and inhabiting a world, and attempting to make sense of our experience. But it does what lives (the lives that are lived) cannot offer, except after they are over. It confers-and withdraws-meaning or sense upon a life. This is possible because narration is possible, because there are norms of narration which are as constitutive of thinking and feeling and experience."