Susan Sontag: Styles of Radical Will (collection of essays, 1968)

Susan Sontag: Styles of Radical Will (1968).
    Current edition: Series: Penguin Modern Classics

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Published: 02/07/2009

ISBN: 9780141190051

Length: 288 pages

Dimensions: 196mm x 24mm x 128mm

Weight: 220g

Price: £14.00

I.

"The Aesthetics of Silence" (1967)

"The Pornography of Imagination" (1967)

""Thinking Against Oneself": Reflections on Cioran" (1967)

II.

"Theatre and Film" (1966)

"Bergman's Persona" (1967)

"Godard" (1968)

III.

"What's Happening in America" (1966)

"Trip to Hanoi" (1968)

In March I happened on a wonderful book called Conversations with Susan Sontag which covers her whole life and all her activities, most importantly her inspiring presence as a great conversationalist and debater. The interview was elevated into an art form. Which leads us to the origins of Western philosophy in Socratic dialogues. I now begin to understand that Susan Sontag was first and foremost a philosopher with a ten year formation in Boston, Harvard, Oxford and Sorbonne.

I had read Susan Sontag here and there since 1968 when "The Imagination of Disaster" was translated into Finnish. I knew the notes on camp, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor and so on, but in a superficial way. Sontag never regretted her notes on camp, but in later years she regretted not having defended the great tradition of high culture more. Camp is still on the rise, high culture is an endangered species since a long time.

This year I have (re)read Against Interpretation, On Photography, its sequel Regarding the Pain of Others and now Styles of Radical Will. Sontag's essays on Bresson, Godard and Bergman still belong to the best on them. "Against Interpretation" and "The Aesthetics of Silence" are key contributions to aesthetics after WWII. 

I don't always agree with Sontag, but there is never an uninspiring sentence in her books.