Against interpretation and other essays by Susan Sontag

(1)

Against interpretation

In this essay, Sontag argues why interpretation of art is not a correct way to interact. She begins by
stating the Plato’s theory of art as an imitation of imitation, since he considered the ordinary
material objects themselves memetic objects, he sees no use of art nor in strict sense true. Aristotle
challenging Plato, said that art is an elaborate trompe l’oeil, it is a lie, but sees a value in art. The fact
that all western consciousness of and reflection upon art have remained within the confines of
Greek theory of art as mimeses or representation becomes problematic and in a need of defense
and it is this defense that gives birth to the consciousness of dividing the art into “form” and
“content” and interpreting and analyzing art, that makes “content essential and form accessory. In
modern times many artist and critics state that the content always comes first. It can be seen as a
statement of an artist or representation of reality. The case with the content today is that it has
become a hindrance, a nuisance, a subtle or not so subtle philistinism. The modern habit of
approaching works of art in order to interpret them is gone through by knowing the idea of content
behind that work. It has become a conscious act of mind which illustrates certain code, certain
“rules” of interpretation. Interpretation presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of
text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The interpreter,
without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it, making it more intelligible. The modern
style of interpretation is more aggressive, it excavates and digs the art work and in doing that,
destroys it. The interpretation poisons our sensibilities. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous
and reducing it to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. The rifest of
interpretation is seen in literature than any other art form. The literary critics have translated the
elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. The work of Kafka has been
subjected to a mass ravishment by three different types of interpretations. Interpretation is based
on highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of content, violates art. It makes art into an
article for use. To avoid interpretation art may become parody or abstract or it may become
decorative or non-art. Sontag explains the Avant-gardism, which has made art to focus mainly on the
form at the expense of content, is not the only defense against the interpretation. To elude the
interpreters, the works of art are made with unified and clean surface, whose address is so direct
that the work can be interpreted just what it is. The best example of this type of art is seen in
cinema, which is the most alive and exciting. In good film, there is always a directness. There is
always something other than content in the cinema to grab hold of, for those who want to analyze.
Cinema is composed of discussable technology of camera movements, cutting and composition.
Sontag than shows us a kind of criticism which is best suited to analyze the works of art, that would
not usurp its place but will serve it. She says what is needed the most is its attention to the form in
art, a descriptive vocabulary rather than a prescriptive vocabulary for forms, which will dissolve the
considerations of content of art work to its form to better analyze it. Equally valuable would be acts
of criticism which would supply a really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a
work of art. Sontag says that there should be Transparence in the works of art through which one
can experience the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are, i.e. films of
Bresson and Ozu. What is important is to recover our senses from interpreting things than to see
more, hear more, to feel more of an art by cutting back content so that we can see the things at all.

On style
In this essay Sontag talks about the style of an art work in relation to its content which has been in
argument since a long time. She says that today’s literary criticism knows the importance of style
and its connection with content and that style and content cannot be separated. Individual style of
each writer is an organic aspect of his work and never something merely “decorative”. But most of
the same critics still persist this notion of antithesis -between style and content- in their criticism.
This duality has become the nature of criticism. This duality is lived in two frequencies, one when the
work is admired well despite their crude and careless style and the other, when a very complex style
is regarded with a barely concealed ambivalence. Such complex style is sometimes seen insincere.
Walt Whitman expresses his disavowal of style, and praises those poets who has less a marked style
and is more the free channel of himself, like in Roland Barthes “the zero degree of writing”. To speak
of style is to rely on metaphors and metaphors often mislead. Sontag says that style is not something
added to the content, rather it is an inherent part of work itself. Practically all metaphors of style
amount to placing content inside and style outside, Sontag proposes a reversal of metaphors in
which style is inside and the matter is outside. Style being an essential part of work, shapes how the
work is perceived and presented. Sontag says every work of art has a style belonging to different
traditions and conventions. Style has a specific historical meaning. While Sontag says that all forms
of representations in art are incarnated in particular style, there are some movements and artist that
go beyond merely having a style emphasizing the manner of expression over content, like
Mannerists paintings and Art Nouveau. To deal with this type of art, Sontag illustrates the term
“stylization” to describe the instances when the other distinguishes between matter and manner,
theme and form and emphasizes a stylistic treatment of the subject matter and often involves
creative exaggerations (mistreatment) or transformation of subject matter. This stylization is seen in
the later films of Josef Von Sternberg in which he shows an ironic attitude toward the subject matter,
which is transformed and stylized. Stylization in art reflects an ambivalence, which includes affection
and contempt or obsession and irony toward the subject matter. Sontag says that stylized can lead
to either excessive narrowness and repetition or a disjoined and dissociated quality of work which
results in the lack of harmoniousness in the artwork. Contemporary discussions of style that often
revolve around form and content suggests that style undermines or overshadow content. Sontag
says that critics need to reevaluate the notion of content in art when transcending the style vs
content dichotomy. The work of art having a content is in itself a stylistic convention. The great task
remains for the critical theory to examine in detail the function of subject matter. Experiencing a
work of art should be understood as an experience, not as encountering a statement or a response
to a question. Although art can be used as a statement or a purpose of inquiring into the history of
ideas, diagnosing contemporary culture, or creating social solidarity. A work of art presents
information and evaluation. Art provides a unique form of knowledge, not conceptual or factual, but
an experience of knowing through style. The value of style often takes precedence over isolated
content, as the energy and vitality embodied in the style contribute to the work’s impact. Critics who
see works of art as statements often prioritize the rendering of “reality” through the lens of
imagination (a means of portraying reality). The ambivalence toward style is not rooted in simple
error, but in a passion an entire culture to defend and protect values, traditionally conceived of lying
outside art, such as truth and morality, but which remain in perpetual danger of being compromised
by art. The distinction between art and morality is a pseudo-problem, and can lead to the separation
of ethics and aesthetics. To experience the pleasure of aesthetics and ethical responsibility, art and
ethics must coexist harmoniously. Sontag says that we never really have a purely aesthetic response
to the works of art. Making moral judgements in a paly or novel is not be same as making moral
judgements in real life. Art serves as a means to connect with and understand human experiences,
but it does so with less ambivalence, relative disinterest, and free from real-life consequences. The
experiencing of suffering and pleasure vicariously through art can be more intense because people
can afford to be avid. The connection between morality and art is “moral pleasure” which is distinct
from traditional and moral judgement. Morality is a habitual or chronic type of behavior, a code of
actions, judgements, and sentiments that guide how individuals behave toward others. Sontag says
when art is reduced to statements which propose specific content and morality is linked to a
particular moral code, only then can a work of art be thought to undermine morality. There is a
strong connection between morality and our response to art, our engagement with art enhances our
sensibility and consciousness, contributing to our capacity for making moral choices. The qualities
inherent in the aesthetic experience and to the aesthetic objects align with those needed for moral
responses, emphasizing the connection between art and morality. In art, “content” serves as a
pretext or lure to engage the audience in formal processes of transformation. It is possible to
appreciate works of art that may be morally objectionable when considered in terms of their
content. The example given is Leni Riefenstahl’s films, which are associated with Nazi propaganda
but are also seen as masterpieces due to their formal qualities. Works of art cannot advocate
anything specific, regardless of the artist’s personal intentions. Jean Genet whose works may seem
to endorse cruelty and other negative traits, is not advocating anything when creating art, he is
recording, devouring and transfiguring his experiences. Sontag says that our moral judgements
about what a work of art “says” are extraneous to the aesthetic experience. Sontag distinguishes art
from pornography based on the concept of annihilation of subject. Pornography has a content
designed to elicit a specific emotional response, while art induces contemplation and a more
detached emotional state. Art imparts a unique gratification that is different from the information or
instruction it may contain. It offers an experience of the qualities or forms of human consciousness,
going beyond mere formalism. The hyper-development of artistic styles, like mannerist painting and
Art Nouveau, as a way to experience the world aesthetically. It mentions that this hyper-
development often emerges in reaction to strict realism. Art demands our complete attention and
possesses autonomy as a self-sufficient entity. While it exists within the world and can have
significant effects on people, its autonomy remains intact. The metaphor of art as nourishment is
used to describe how it enriches individual’s lives and connects them to the world in new ways.
Every work of art imposes a unique and individual rhythm or style on its viewers, affecting the flow
of their energy and consciousness. It emphasizes the importance of perceiving art from an aesthetic
point of view rather than categorizing it historically. Arts primary goal is to make something singular
explicit, transcending moral and conceptual judgements and allowing the viewer to comprehend
something unique and individual. While morality is justified by its utility in making life more humane,
art and contemplation are self-justifying activities. Perhaps the best way of understanding the nature
of our experience and relation between a work of art and the rest of human feeling, is to clarify the
notion of will behind it. Will is not just a particular state of consciousness but also an attitude of a
subject towards the world. In art, this complex form of willing simultaneously distances itself from
the world while engaging with it intensely. All works of art inherently involve a certain degree of
impersonality and distance from emotional involvement and sentimentality. This distancing is
essential for art to be recognized as such. The concept of “style” is introduced as the manipulation
and degree of this distance, constituting the essence of art. Style is, in fact, what defines art, and all
art involves various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation. However this perspective can
be misinterpreted as it might suggest that art, when approaching its own norm of distance, becomes
irrelevant or impotent. While some theorists, like Ortega y Gasset, emphasize the formal and
dehumanized nature of art, they may still be influenced by the concept of “content”, that art is not
merely content-less but serves as both an object and a function, a means of encountering and
transcending reality. Art involves the objectification of the will, both in the creation of the artwork
and in its impact on the spectator. From the artist’s perspective, art represents a volition or an act of
will, while for the spectator, it constructs an imaginary setting for the will. Art is seen as a means of
naming and giving form to longings, and aspirations. Style as the guiding principle of decision-making
in a work of art, represents the artist’s unique signature or expression of their will. Human will is
capable of taking countless stances or approaches, there is an infinite number of possible styles that
can be employed in works of art. In every individual work, every stylistic decision contains an
element of arbitrariness, even if it may seem justifiable. These decisions are influenced by the artist’s
choices. Sontag says that what is truly inevitable in a work of art is its style. When a work of feels
right and cannot be imagined otherwise without losing its essence, it is this quality of the style that
the audience is responding to. The distinction between “style” and “stylization,” suggests that style
represents a more genuine and authentic expression of the artists will, while stylization may invoke
forced, labored, or synthetic elements. The style is described as the specific language or idiom in
which they express their artistic forms. Style and form share common challenges and functions in
art. Style embodies epistemological decision about how and what we perceive. Different styles offer
unique insights into relationships between individuals and objects, emphasizing certain aspects of
experience while narrowing our attention to others. The concept of style can extend beyond art to
any experience where the form or qualities of that experience are discussed. Speech, movement,
behavior, or objects that deviate from the most direct, useful, or insensible modes of expression or
existence can also be considered to have a “style.”

(2)

The artist as exemplary sufferer

In this essay Susan Sontag analyses and talks about the works of the novelist Cesare Pavese and
what made his journals and diary so interesting for his readers. From his novels it appears that his
main virtue as a novelist are delicacy, economy, and control. The style is flat, dry and unemotional.
The coolness of Pavese’s fiction lies in his subject matter but the cautious subjectivity of the narrator
makes it violent. His work is lucid but has lapsed communication in his novels. His novels are
unsensational and chaste. The main action always takes place off-stage, or in the past; and erotic
scenes are curiously avoided. The sense of place in his novels, and the desire to find and recover the
meaning of a place, was attributed to his characters to show a deep involvement with a place. A
relation that was transfixed by the impersonal forces of the place, which can also be seen in the films
of Alain Resnais and especially Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche (adapted from Pavese’s novel).
Like Antonioni’s films, Pavese’s novels are refined, elliptical, quite, anti-dramatic and self-contained.
What made Pavese an interesting writer are his journals and diaries written in the years 1935 to
1950, when he committed suicide at the age of forty two. These journals when translated in English
attracted many readers, because the rawness of the journal form, where we read the writer in the
first person and encounter the ego behind the masks of ego in his works, which a novels fails to
satisfy his modern audience that demands the author to be completely open. The journal gives us
the workshop of writer’s soul, which the audience is actually interested in because of insatiable
modern preoccupation of psychology. For the modern consciousness, the artist is the exemplary
sufferer and the writer, the man of words, is the person to whom we look to be able best to express
his suffering. As a man he suffers and as a writer he transforms his suffering into art. The unity of
Pavese’s diaries is to be found in his reflections of how to use, hot to act on, his suffering. Literature
is one use, isolation is another, and suicide is the third, ultimate use of suffering. Pavese, who used
the “I” so freely in his novels, usually speaks of himself as “you” in his diaries. He is the ironic,
exhortatory, reproachful spectator of himself. The diaries are in effect a long series of self-
assessments and self-interrogations. His diaries attest that he was at home of all European literature
and thought, and in American writing as well. There are two personae in the diary, Pavese the man
and Pavese as the critic or reader of his own finished works. There is self-reproachful and self-
exhortatory analysis of his feelings and projects. Apart from his writing analysis’s, there are two
prospects to which Pavese continually recurs. One is the prospect of suicide and the prospect of
romantic love and erotic failure. Pavese shows himself as tormented by a profound sense of sexual
inadequacy. What Pavese says about love is the familiar other side of romantic idealization and
rediscovers that love is an essential fiction; it’s not that love sometimes makes mistakes, but that it is
essentially, a mistake. In contrast to the Aristotelian tradition of art as imitation, of describing the
truth about something outside himself, the modern tradition of art as expression tells the truth
about the artist himself. Thus love like art, becomes a medium of self-expression. But because
making a women is not solitary an act as making a novel or a poem, it is doomed to failure. The
failure of love has become a serious theme in literature and cinema. Life is pain and the enjoyment
of love is anaesthetic. The modern belief in the unrealistic nature of erotic attachment towards the
unrequited love is the self-consciousness acquiescence. Sontag argues that the modern cult of love
expresses the central and peculiarly modern preoccupation of the loss of feeling. To tend to see
ourselves in the characters life from novels, which is what Pavese also did in his works, reflects his
hopefully speaking of self-alienation. Pavese in his diaries also gives voice to the reproach which the
body makes to the mind. Sontag says, we may be separate body from the ascetic traditions of
Judaism and Christianity but we will always be confined in the generalized sensibility which the
religion has bequeathed us. The desire of living a life secluded and in solitude is what we think will
make us strong and feel less. The modern cult of love is the way we test ourselves for strength of
feeling, and find ourselves deficient. The modern view of love is an extension of the spirit of
Christianity. Christianity is from its inception, a romantic religion. The cult of love in the west is an
aspect of suffering, which is considered a supreme token of seriousness, and this sensibility we have
inherited identifies spirituality and seriousness with turbulence, suffering and passion. It has been
fashionable to be in pain and it is the suffering that we look in a writer’s diary, which Pavese
provides in disquieting.

Simone Weil

In this essay, Susan Sontag reflects on the role of writers as culture-heroes of our liberal bourgeois
civilization, who are anti-liberal and anti-bourgeois. These are the writers who express their ideas
forcefully and by the sense of acute personal and intellectual extremity. Sontag says that ours is the
era in which we are too deafened by contradictory historical and intellectual experience that we
neglect sanity. Sanity becomes a compromise, evasion, a lie. Truth is measured in terms of the cost
to the writer in suffering rather than by the standard of an objective truth to which a writer’s words
correspond. Goethe who was repelled by the Kleist journals and founded his work to be morbid,
hysterical, with a sense of unhealthiness and the enormous indulgence in suffering, is just what we
value today. Writers like Kleist, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Baudelaire, Rimbaud,
Genet and Simone Weil hold authority in literature because of their “air of unhealthiness.” Sontag
says that truth is not always the primary goal of an era but rather a need of deepening of the sense
of reality and widening of the imagination. The sane view of the world is the true one. The need for
truth is not constant across all times and situations, it changes. An idea which is a distortion may
have a greater intellectual thrust than the truth and may serve better the needs of the spirit, which
vary. Sontag does not mean to decry a fashion, but to underscore the motive behind the
contemporary taste, and to recognize and admire writers like Simone Weil. Simone Weil who won
tens and thousands of readers of her posthumous publications of her works, shared ideas of
anguished and unconsummated love affair with catholic church, her gnostic theology of divine
absence, body denial, her hatred of roman civilization and Jews, Most of the admirers of these
writers do not embrace their ideas, but read for their personal authority, their seriousness and their
willingness to sacrifice themselves for the truths and views. Some writers are exemplary, and some
of those invite us to imitate them. No one who loves life would wish to imitate these writers like
Simone Weil, like her contempt for happiness and pleasure, self-denials, homeliness, her clumsiness,
her migraines. We are moved and nourished by these thoughts, we acknowledge the presence of
mystery in the world. Truth is superficial, and some distortions of truth, some insanity, some
unhealthiness and some denials of life are truth-giving, sanity-producing, health-creating and life-
enhancing.

Camus’ Notebooks

Susan Sontag in this essay talks about the works of Albert Camus, especially his Notebooks and
divides writers into two categories, of husbands and lovers. Husbands share solid virtues of
reliability, intelligibility, generosity, decency, whereas some writers who are like lovers share
moodiness, selfishness, unreliability, brutality. Same way as that of the women’s, readers put up
with unintelligibility, obsessiveness, painful truths, lies, bad grammar, writers allows them to savour
rare emotions and dangerous sensations. Both husbands and lovers are important in art but our
period of literature has more lovers than husbands. Perversity is the muse of modern literature.
Today the house of fiction is full of mad lovers, gleeful rapists, castrated sons, but very few
husbands. Albert Camus, who is considered an ideal husband of contemporary literature, had to
traffic madman’s themes: suicide, affectlessness, guilt and absolute terror with such an air of
reasonableness, measure, effortlessness, gracious impersonality, that placed him apart from others.
His tranquil voice and tone moves his readers from nihilism to humanitarian conclusions, which
evoked feeling of real affection and love from his readers that no other writers has aroused in their
readers. Whenever we discuss about Albert Camus, we include his morality and its relation with his
work. Even though his work is a literary accomplishment and his always thrusting of moral problems
upon his readers, is not able to satisfy his readers. Camus’s fiction is characterised as illustrative and
philosophical, focusing on themes like innocence, guilt, responsibility and nihilism, with his work
seen as more rooted in intellectual concerns than as acts of imagination. While talking about his
novels, Camus also wrote other literary works such as essays, political articles, addresses, literary
criticism and journalism. Sontag compares his work with Sartre, who is seen as more powerful and
original mind to philosophical, psychological, and literary analysis. Camus, however attractive his
political sympathies, does not. Camus’s celebrated philosophical essays are characterized as the
work of a talented and literate epigone. Camus is at his best when he distances himself from
existentialist culture and speaks in his own person. What is best seen in the works of Camus is his
moral beauty, which shows in the most beautiful way that no other 20 th century writers have
appeared or convincing in their moralistic approach. But the case with moral beauty is that its
perishable, it decays with time and it’s not durable as artistic or intellectual beauty. Especially, in the
case of Camus’s work, who appealed to a given exemplary situation, became outdated after his
death. Sontag explores the idea that inspiring gratitude in readers can be dangerous, as gratitude is a
powerful sentiment but it is short-lived. Albert Camus and James Baldwin are examples of writers
known for their moral earnestness but their moral imperatives, like live and moderation, can
sometimes come across as too general and too rhetorical. Camus, who is seen as a heroic figure of
entire literate generation, embodies a constant spiritual revolution. He is also the man who
advocated that paradox: a civilized nihilism, while recognizing certain limits and converted the
paradox into a recipe for good citizenship. In Camus’ writing, goodness is forced to search for its
appropriate act and a justifying reason. A remark from his Notebook “I am seeking reasons for my
revolt which nothing has so far justified” justifies his radical stance. Sontag acknowledges the
remarkable aspect of Camus’ character that is his ability to make significant historical choices despite
his refined temperament. The three pivotal decisions of his life, his involvement in the French
Resistance during the WWII, his disassociation from the communist party, and his refusal to take
sides in the Algerian revolt. He acquitted himself in two out of the three. Camus faced unique
challenge in his later years because of was constrained by his own virtue. As a writer who acts as a
public conscience, he needed extraordinary courage, instincts, and emotional toughness and Camus
lacked the emotional toughness required for such a role. Despite being both Algerian and French, he
was agonizingly unable to take a stand on the Algerian question was an unhappy testament of his
moral virtue. A review by Lionel Abel, who characterizes Camus as someone who embodies the
“noble feeling” as opposes to the “noble act.” This distinction does not imply any sort of hypocrisy in
Camus’s morality. It means that action is not Camus’ first concern but the ability or inability to feel
which his work encourages to feel deeply. His work reflects a temperament in search of situations
and noble feelings in search of noble acts. Which is precisely the subject of Camus’ fiction and
philosophical essays. Camus’ writing is described as a search for noble feelings amid challenging
events, and his ability to convey this pathos is seen as his modernity. His three published volumes of
Notebooks from 1935 until his death, is translated so badly, repeatedly inaccurate, to the point of
misconstruing Camus’ sense. The translation lacks Camus’ compressed, off-hand, and eloquent
writing style in English. The academic apparatus in this book can annoy some readers. Despite the
criticism on the translation, Camus’ Notebooks are worth reading. They are not on the same level as
the grate literary journals of writers like Kafka and Gide. They lack the intellectual brilliance of
Kafka’s diaries, the cultural sophistication, artistic diligence, and human depth found in Gide’s
journals. Instead, they are compared to the diaries if Cesare Pavese, though noted to lack the same
level of personal exposure and psychological intimacy. Camus’ Notebooks, are literary workbooks
where Camus recorded various elements, including phrases, overheard conversations, story ideas,
and even entire paragraphs that later found their way into his novels and essays. The Notebook also
contains a diverse range of reading notes. These Notebooks include maxims and reflections on
psychological and moral themes, which are praised for their boldness and finesse and are considered
worth reading. These reflections may challenge the image of Camus as a thinker deranged by
German philosophy and belatedly converting to Anglo-Saxon empiricism and common sense. The
Notebooks are seen as having an atmosphere of “domesticated Nietzscheism” with Camus writing in
a French Nietzschean style that differs from Nietzsche’s more personal and subjective approach. The
notebooks also include personal comments of an impersonal nature. The Notebooks had a strong
impersonal and anti-autobiographical nature. The notes contained minimal personal information.
The role of a writer’s journal, which is distinct from a diary. It highlights that a writer’s notebooks
serve to help the writer construct their identity, focusing on themes like the will to write, love and
existence. In these Notebooks, personal comments are notably impersonal, and events and people
are excluded. Camus’ Notebooks, though interesting to read, do not give a comprehensive view of
Camus as a person.

Michel Leiris’ Manhood

This essay talks about the autobiographical narrative Manhood and its writer Michel Leiris. Leiris is
an important poet and senior survivor of surrealist generation and an eminent anthropologist. The
book Manhood was written in 1930, is an autobiographical work that presents author’s limitations
rather than his accomplishments. Leiris suffered a mental crisis, which included becoming impotent.
Instead of an introduction of him, Leiris begins this book with describing his body, his baldness,
chronic inflammation of the eyelids, sexual difficulties, hypochondria and more. Leiris presents it as
“corroded” with morbid and aggressive fantasies concerning the flesh in general and women in
particular. The tradition of sincerity in French literature, where writers have candidly explored
intimate feelings, often focusing on sexuality and ambition, Leiris Manhood deviates from this
tradition. Manhood is odder, harsher than French tradition. While French autobiographical works
often touch on themes like incestuous feelings, sadism, homosexuality, masochism, and promiscuity,
Leiris Manhood admits to obscene and repulsive aspects of himself. Unlike other French confessional
works that proceed from self-love and self-justification, Leiris’ attitude lacks self-esteem, and the
book is characterized as an exercise in shamelessness, revealing a craven, morbid, and damaged
temperament. Manhood has a certain value as a clinical document for the professional student of
mental aberration. Despite its challenging content, “Manhood” is recognized as having literary
conventions. Leiris’ willingness to expose himself is what makes it interesting as literature. The
question that Leiris answers is psychological. Leiris writes to appal, and thereby to receive from his
readers the gift of a strong emotion needed to defend himself against the indignation and disgust he
expects to arouse in his readers. In this way literature become a mode of psychotechnics. Leiris
believes that it’s not enough and boring for a writer to write something that lacks danger. Leiris says
a writers must feel the danger and this feeling can only be achieved through self-exposure, through
laying himself on the line of fire. Sontag contrasts Leiris with Norman Mailer’s works, another writer,
who is similar to Leiris in using himself as a subject but in a different way. While Mailer was
consciously competing with others writers, Leiris is unaware of other writers. Leiris in not concerned
with the success through putting oneself in danger, as Mailer does. Leiris records the defeats of his
own virility, even his successes look to him like failures. Leiris is a much more subjective, less
ideological writer than Mailer. Leiris motive is not to be a heroic, but to convince himself that this
unsatisfactory body really exist. All emotions are mortal to Leiris, or they are nothing. What is real is
defined as that which involves the risk of death or life becomes real only when placed under the
threat of suicide. Sontag says that literature cannot change or enhance anything, it only reproduces
itself. Leiris mode of operating upon himself remains the same. His literary work since the war does
not show a resolution of the problems set forth in Manhood, only further types of complication. His
journal Vivantes Cendres Innomées, a cycle of poems that shows Leiris’ attempt of suicide in 1958,
and illustrated with line drawings by his friend Giacometti. His life, as depicted in his books is marked
by a contrast between his profound capacity for boredom, from which all other emotions seem to
stem, and a heavy burden of morbid fantasies, childhood traumas, fear of punishment, and a
constant sense of being out of place in his body. Leiris’ literary journey is a continuous exploration of
his inner struggles and an attempt to confront his own limitations. Leiris’ writing style is
characterized as a cool and formal tone. He is attracted to formalism and finds fascination in the
impersonal and cold aspects of life, including anthropology and rituals. Manhood is noted for its lack
of a clear narrative direction, climax, or consummation. It is considered a modern work that is part of
a larger life project, and its hermetic and opaque qualities are acknowledged as a feature of modern
literature. Modern literature sometimes employs boredom as a creative stylistic feature, challenging
conventional expectations of continuous interest in art.

The anthropologist as hero

This essay talks about anthropology and its important writer Claude Levi Strauss and his views on
anthropology, structuralism, and his critique of existentialism. Sontag begins by highlighting the
feeling of intellectual homeliness in modern times due to rapid historical change. The nausea of this
homeliness can only be cured by making it worse, which in modern thought can be justified as a kind
of applied Hegelianism: seeking itself in others, as consciousness seeks itself in unconsciousness.
Modern sensibility thus surrenders to the strange or exotic and domesticates this exotic, through
science. This intellectual homeliness is best understood by the works of anthropology, in which one
involves a spiritual commitment towards the exotic, like that of a creative artist or the
psychoanalyst. Claude Levi-Strauss, who is an influential figure in French intellectual life, has a
scholarly writing. Trites Tropiques, a masterpiece of Levi Strauss is a book that became best seller in
France, it is considered one of the best book of 20 th century. It is rigours, subtle, bold in thought and
beautifully written with a personal touch of Levi-Strauss. Tristes Tropiques is a memoir recounting
Levi-Strauss’ anthropological fieldwork experience in Brazil, particularly among various indigenous
tribes, during the pre-world war II era. The greatness of this book is not just the report but the way
Levi-Strauss uses his experience to reflect on the nature of the landscape and other themes and the
insight into the unique spiritual challenges and hazards faced by anthropologists that is well defined
in the chapter six “how I became an anthropologist.” it is an intellectual autobiography, an
exemplary personal history in which a whole view of the human situation, an entire sensibility, is
elaborated. Levi-Strauss exhibits profound and intelligent sympathy for the pre-literate peoples with
an approach marked by a detached, impassive tone. However, this sympathy is tempered by a
deliberate impassivity. Levi-Strauss avoids emotional attachment and irrationality and values a
measured, rational, and scientific approach to understand the world. Levi-Strauss’ aim is similar to
Lucretius’ mode of using scientific knowledge as a mode of psychological gracefulness. For Levi-
Strauss, history is the real demon. The past, with its mysteriously harmonious structures, is broken
and crumbling before our eyes and the anthropology brings a reduction of historical anxiety.
“Anthropology is necrology” suggests that anthropology involves studying and preserving the
memory of past cultures and societies that are about to distinct. Ex-Marxists, who were
philosophical optimists at first were turned towards anthropology that has led them to confront the
melancholic reality of the crumbling prehistoric past. They have moved not only from optimism to
pessimism, but from certainty to systematic doubt. Levi-Strauss’ concept of “anthropological doubt”
is introduced, emphasizing the process of exposing one’s own knowledge to challenges and
contradictions from contrasting ideas. Anthropologists emphasize the intellectual and philosophical
stance they adopt in the face of doubt and uncertainty. Anthropology is portrayed as a means to
address the alienation often experienced by intellectuals and navigates between home and exotic,
maintaining a critical and detached perspective. Early visitors to pre-literate societies had an
intention to convert the indigenous to Christianity, imposing on them European customs, clothing,
and religion practices, which was an attempt to civilize them. Another group of early ethnologists
were secular humanists who aimed to promote ideas like reason, tolerance and cultural pluralism
among urban literates. Anthropologists engage in intellectual catharsis, attempting to understand
and reconcile his own intellectual and emotional responses to the exotic and unfamiliar. The
difference between anthropology and sociology lies in the role of the anthropologist as an
eyewitness. Anthropology cannot be taught theoretically, unlike sociology. Anthropology is a
personal intellectual discipline that involves a psychological and transformative process, similar to
psychoanalysis. Anthropology is depicted as a blend of literary and scientific approaches. Rather
than a purely humanistic study that adopts scientific methodologies for a more rigorous
understanding of human societies. Levi-Strauss’ important essay on myth in Structural Anthropology
outlines a technique for analysing and recording the elements of myths so that these can be
processed by a computer. He draws influence from avant-garde methodologies in economics,
neurology, linguistics, and game theory. The influence of linguistics like Roman Jakobson and his
school, have redefined problems in a way that allows for experiments similar to those in natural
sciences. The anthropologists engages himself with the exotic or primitive as a means to explore
their own alienation and in doing that vanquishes his subject by translating it into a purely formal
code, giving a more complex statement to its ambivalence. Levi-Strauss describes his thought as it
has both narrative and geometrical (formal and structured) aspects. He applies a rigorous formalism
to traditional anthropological themes such as kinship systems, totemism, puberty rites, and the
relation between myth and ritual. The notion of structure is a central concept in his work that
sweeps away unnecessary details. Levi-Strauss uses language as a metaphor for analysing the
primitive societies. He sees all behaviour as a form of language. Levi-Strauss says that human needs
for an order is more than a universal truth. Levi-Strauss views myth as an essential part of a society
as it creates an order or a structure of thought that serve specific functions within societies. These
logical designs as myths are similar to modern science that is applied to problems different than
myths. A different tradition of French thought and sensibility of writers than those of Sartre and
Genet are Levi-Strauss’ tradition of “aloofness” and “I’espirt geometrique,” which can be understood
as a rational, detached, and geometric mind set. The characteristics of the aloof tradition is the
combination of pathos with coldness. His book “Tristes Tropiques” exemplifies this combination,
where a profound emotional theme underlies his analytical approach, allowing readers to engage
with the emotions more freely. Levi-Strauss applies structural analysis to elements like customs, rites
and taboos, arguing that their individual components are meaningless in isolation. He insists that
their significance only emerges within the complete context, similar to words in language. Radically
anti-historicist, he refuses to differentiate between “primitive” and “historical” societies. Primitives
have a history; but it is unknown to us. Utopia for Levi-Strauss is a society where there is no
consciousness of historical progress like that of urban societies but a more static, crystalline and
harmonious, similar to primitive ones. Levi-Strauss sees himself as the custodian of this ancient and
timeless possibility of human existence, which social anthropology should safeguard.

The literary criticism of Georg Lukács

This essay talks about the life journey of Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and
aesthetician, Georg Lukacs and his work that she critiques. Sontag begins this essay by providing a
brief overview of Lukacs’ background, including his upbringing in a wealthy Jewish family, his early
intellectual pursuits, and his studies in Germany. She also talks about his significance within the
communist world and his unique approach to Marxism that is accessible to non-Marxists. His
intellectual journey begins with the study neo-Kantianism to Hegelian philosophy and then to
Marxism. His early writings on the ideas of Karl Mannheim has impacted the modern sociology and
his influence on Sartre has an impact on French Existentialism. His difficulties in his free intellectual
commitment started with his joining of communist party in 1918, since then he has spent many
years in exile and faced opposition within and outside communist party, but only Lukacs’ age and his
immense international prestige, saved him from trials. Lukacs has a great talent for personal and
political survival. His book “history and class consciousness” is the most important of all his works,
that delves into philosophical discussions on Marxist theory and for which he came under a strong
attack from within the communist movement. Even after his numerous attempts to bring his work
more into line with the communist orthodoxy, he remained in disfavour. He repudiated his early
works, it is his later work which is the touchstone for the cautious but inexorable overthrow of the
ideas and practices of Stalinism. The writers Lukács is most devoted to are Goethe, Balzac, Scott, and
Tolstoy. Lukacs’ sensibility is rooted in the past and shows a strong affinity for the 19 th-century
literature and his belief in the moral and aesthetic values of that era. His choice of the German
language over Hungarian in his writing is decidedly a polemical act. At the time this essay was
written, Sontag says that the only works translated for American audience were his works of literary
criticism that made lukacs a literary critic among Americans. Lukacs’ “Studies in European Realism,”
written during a turbulent period in Russia, contains passages of a crude political nature. This
suggests that lukacs’ Marxist ideology may have influenced his literary analysis in a way that
compromised the quality and objectivity of his criticism. Sontag says that his recent books are less
critical and is motivated more by cultural good will. While Lukacs’ writings are accessible, it’s
essential to evaluate them seriously rather than merely on stylistic or moral grounds. The rejection
of prominent modern authors like Dostoevsky, Proust, Kafka, and Beckett by Lukacs is the central
issue with his late works and it’s problematic and indicative of Lukacs’ overly rigid and narrow
literary criteria. Sontag criticizes the interpretations of Lukacs that reduce his ideas to conventional
morality or prudishness. Lukacs is also criticized for adhering to a crude version of the mimetic
theory of art, where he views literature as a straightforward portrayal or depiction of reality. This
perspective of Lukacs is too simplistic and does not do justice to the complexities of literary art.
Sontag suggests that lukacs should be compared to other Marxist critics like Sartre, Adorno, and
Marcuse, who have developed more nuanced and insightful approaches to understanding modern
literature. Sontag criticizes Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches to art, arguing that they tend to
limit their understanding of art by viewing it primarily through the lens of history, ideology, and
morality, these critics often fail to appreciate the autonomy of art as a form of expression and tend
to judge it based on its alignment with specific moral or historical narratives. Even though these
critiques attempt to analyse art from a higher point of view, they often fail to fully comprehend the
texture and qualities of contemporary society. They lack interest in avant-garde art and are
insensitive to the creative features of contemporary culture. Sontag says that both the neo-Marxist
and 19th century conservative critics lack this appreciation for modernity and its complexities.
Apolitical critics like Marshall McLuhan seem to have a better grasp of contemporary reality then
these critics. The historicist critics neglect the formal properties of art and view form as a kind of
content, which is seen as a hindrance to engaging with modern works of art.

Sartre’s Saint Genet

This essay is a critical analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’ book “Saint Genet,” which is a study of French
writer Jean Genet. Sontag describes Saint Genet as a cancer of a book, as verbose, repetitive, and
challenging to read due to its unconventional style and lack of clear organization. Sartre began by
writing an introductory essay on Genet’s works in 50 pages and grew to its full length of some 625
pages that was published in 1952. To read it, one must be familiar to Genet’s works and Sartre’ way
of explicating a text. Sartre breaks every rule of decorum established for the critic, by immersion and
without guidelines. Sartre immerses himself deeply into genet’s life and work. Sartre’s ambition in
writing the book was not merely to analyse genet’s work but also to showcase his own philosophical
style, which combines elements of phenomenology, Freudian psychology, and Marxism. Throughout
the essay, saint genet is compared to Sartre’s another essay on Baudelaire in which he was more
concerned with specifically psychological issues while saint genet is more philosophical. Sartre’s
struggle in writing “Saint Genet” arises from his commitment to impose philosophical meaning upon
genet’s actions. Sartre believes that all actions must have meaning, but he finds it difficult to fully
capture the complexity of Genet’s life, constantly slipping into categorizations like foundling, thief,
and homosexual. Sartre occasionally refers to things which he knows through his own friendship
with Genet. Genet is depicted as a writer who engages in a deliberate process of self-transformation
through his exploration of crime, degradation, and murder, finding glory in these dark themes. Sartre
identifies genet’s writings as an extended exploration of abjection, which he views as a spiritual
method. Sartre draws a parallel between Genet’s approach and ideas of philosophers like Descartes,
Hegel, and Husserl. He characterizes Genet’s method of abjection as a systematic conversion, akin to
Cartesian Doubt and Husserlian epoche, in which the world is viewed as a closed system observed
from an external perspective. Unlike the philosophical approaches of Husserl and Descartes, Genet’s
method is described as being experienced with pain and pride, leading to heightened individual
existence and clarity. Sontag, by comparing Sartre’s analyses of Genet and Baudelaire highlights how
Baudelaire is seen as living in “bad faith” and not finding his own values, whereas Genet is portrayed
as a true revolutionary who seeks freedom for its own sake. Sartre’s analysis of Genet’s pursuit of
freedom is likened to a dark parody of Hegelian philosophy, with Genet’s transformations seen as
steps toward self-understanding and freedom. Sartre finds in Genet an ideal subject for his
philosophical exploration of freedom and the self. Sartre’ assessments and interpretations of Genets
works are insightful and thought provoking. Saint Genet is crucial for understanding Sartre’s
development as a philosopher. Sontag considers Sartre the only man who has understood dialectics
between the self and the other in Hegel’s phenomenology in the most interesting and useable
fashion but considers Sartre as a French disciple of Heidegger. Sartre’s approach differs from Hegel’s
and is marked by a psychological urgency that aims to grapple with the assimilation of a world that is
often perceived as repulsive, vacuous, and morally complex. The sense of disgust and struggle to
understand the world are central themes in Sartre’s philosophical writings as seen in “Nausea” and
“being and nothingness.” Sartre’ philosophical solutions are impertinent, that is, his approach is
unconventional, bold, and even audacious in addressing philosophical and existential questions. The
concept of cosmophaghy (the eating of the world), is a metaphorical idea representing the
devouring of the world by consciousness. Sartre uses this idea to describe how consciousness
engages with and assimilates the external world, especially in the context of existential disgust.
Sartre’s exploration of Genet goes further than his analysis of Baudelaire. Through Genet, Sartre
begins to understand the autonomy of the aesthetic dimension, emphasizing the connection
between aesthetics and freedom. Genets works are interpreted as “saving a ritual” a ceremony of
consciousness that is considered equivalent to the as a form of world-procreating. Genet’s book is
described as a profound endeavour of “transubstantiation,” where he metaphorically transforms
with his audacious imagination the entire world into the corpse of his deceased lover and then
further into his own sexual organ. Genet’s “arrogant madness” goes even further with the act of
“jerking off the universe,” that reflects the intense, solitary pleasure of philosophical inquiry and
consciousness’s constant engagement with the world.

Nathalie Sarraute and the novel

In this essay Sontag talks about the changing nature of art form especially novels and the influence
of modernism on it. Sontag explains this modern didacticism in art with context to the works of
Nathalie Sarraute and her techniques in the evolution of novel genre. The modern element in every
art form is to evolve itself with an intention to advance its history of genre. The avant-garde nature
of artists leads human sensibility into the future with their innovative thinking and challenging the
traditional notion of art. This rapid growth causes the obsolescence of artistic techniques and
materials that keeps evolving their aesthetic taste. Sontag views this development in arts as a
battlefield with the avant-garde artists refusing the traditional notion of art and arrière-garde on the
backguard protecting work traditionally. The victory of the modern didacticism has been seen in
music and painting. In these art forms, the most respected works are often not immediately
pleasurable to a broad audience but are highly regarded for their technical innovations. In contrast,
the novel and cinema lag behind in adopting this modern didactic approach and has been less
successful in this regard. There has been rare attempts in the modernization of novels and those
who do, find themselves isolated. Some of these idiosyncratic and challenging novels are recognized
and praised by critiques. The ease of access and lack of rigor that causes embarrassment in music
and painting are no embarrassment in the novel, which remains intransigently arrière-garde. Novel,
the archetypal art form of the 19th century, perfectly expresses the mundane, secular, and
materialistic aspects of that era. The distinctive feature, unlike earlier narrative forms like the epic
and picturesque tales, the novels delves into the psychology of the inner thoughts, motivations, and
experiences of its characters. The novel’s open and accommodating nature ultimately contributed to
its decline as a serious art form. Novel had become deeply compromised by philistinism, or a
narrow, conventional, and materialistic outlook. The great writers like Kafka, Proust, and others,
rather than opening up new possibilities in literature, have closed off certain avenues by their
mastery, writers who are imitated than learned from. Imitating them can lead to the danger of
merely replicating what they have already done. Sontag emphasizes on the need for a sustained
revaluation and renovation of the novel as an art form. It suggests that the novel should distance
itself from its 19th century premises to remain a serious and relevant art form. A wave of challenging
novels and critical essays emerging from France in the mid-20 th century rejected traditional novel
conventions and focused on innovative approaches to storytelling and character development and
drawing influences from Heidegger’s phenomenology or employing behaviouristic, external
techniques. The criticism inspired by these novelists, is valuable for its systematic thinking about the
genre. One of the most valuable contributions from French novelists are critical essays, an attempt
to systematically rethink the genre of the novel. They propose standards and ideals that are more
extensive and ambitious than anything previously achieved by novelists. Critics like Roland Barthes
and Alain Robbe-Grillet propose ambitious standards for the novel. The importance of the English
translation of Nathalie Sarraute’s collection of essays, “The Age of Suspicion,” which presents the
theoretical foundations behind her novels. Regardless of whether readers enjoy or admire Sarraute’s
novels, the essays provides a starting point for a long-overdue reconsideration of the traditional
novel on the English speaking side and offers a new perspective and standards. Sarraute criticizes
traditional novels that adhere to naturalism and objective realism. In these novels, the portrayal of
life is often too simplistic and overly realistic, which she finds problematic. She believes that such
novels encourage readers to engage in cozy and immediate recognition of the depicted world.
However, she thinks that this immediate recognition is suspect and may not reflect the complexity
and ambiguity of real life. Sarraute also takes issue with the use of psychology in novels, particularly
as seen in the works of authors like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust. These writes
delve into the inner thoughts and feelings of characters beneath their outward actions. Sarraute
believes that this approach results in an uninterrupted flow of words without necessarily adding
depth to the characters or the narrative. Sarraute proposes a novelistic approach that departs from
traditional storytelling. In her view, characters in novels should not act in the conventional sense.
Instead, they should engage in inner musings and subtle emotional struggles. She places emphasis
on the small and seemingly insignificant details of daily life, which she considers the real subject of
her novels. Sarraute suggests that novels should be written as continuous monologues. In this style,
the dialogue between characters is an extension of the inner thoughts and reflections of each
characters. She calls this type of dialogue “sub-conversation.” Importantly, the author should not
intervene or interpret; instead, the characters’ inner thoughts and spoken words should blend
seamlessly. Sarraute advocates for a style of writing that immerses the reader in the sensory
interactions with their surroundings and other people. Furthermore, she argues that novels should
avoid offering clear interpretations and should maintain an element of mystery and ambiguity.
Sarraute introduces the idea of multiple realities. She suggests that each writer should bring to light
their unique fragment of reality, challenging the notion of a singular, shared reality. This implies that
each writer has their own perspective and interpretation of the world, which they should express in
their writing. Sarraute argues that writers should renounce the desire to write “beautifully” for the
sake of aesthetic enjoyment, both for themselves and their readers. Instead, the primary purpose of
writing should be to record the writer’s unique perception of an unknown reality. She views style as
a toll that serves a functional purpose, like an athlete’s gesture, rather than a means of creating
conventional beauty. Alain Robbe-Grillet, another French writer who shares some similarities with
Sarraute’s ideas, offers a more rigorous and detailed critique of traditional notions of tragedy and
humanism in literature, challenging conventional idea about the form and content of novels.

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Ionesco

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