Terry Castle on the late Ms. Sontag. I wrote some months ago that “after some time has passed (perhaps after all the Journals are published, fair or no), Sontag’s legacy (or lack of one) will be clarified.” Not quite yet:
Sontag asked B. if she had read The Volcano Lover and started in on a monologue (one I’d heard before) about her literary reputation. It had ‘fallen’ slightly over the past decade, she allowed – foolishly, people had yet to grasp the greatness of her fiction – but of course it would rise again dramatically, ‘as soon as I am dead’. The same thing had happened, after all, to Virginia Woolf, and didn’t we agree Woolf was a great genius? In a weak-minded attempt at levity, I said: ‘Do you really think Orlando is a work of genius?’ She then exploded. ‘Of course not!’ she shouted, hands flailing and face white with rage. ‘Of course not! You don’t judge a writer by her worst work! You judge her by her best work!’ I reeled backwards as if I’d been struck; Blakey looked embarrassed. The assistant peeked out from another room to see what was going on. Sontag went on muttering for a while, then grimly said she ‘had to go’…
…But I’ve had the feeling the real reckoning has yet to begin. The reaction, to my mind, has been a bit perfunctory and stilted. A good part of her characteristic ‘effect’ – what one might call her novelistic charm – has not yet been put into words. Among other things, Sontag was a great comic character: Dickens or Flaubert or James would have had a field day with her. The carefully cultivated moral seriousness – strenuousness might be a better word – co-existed with a fantastical, Mrs Jellyby-like absurdity. Sontag’s complicated and charismatic sexuality was part of this comic side of her life. The high-mindedness, the high-handedness, commingled with a love of gossip, drollery and seductive acting out – and, when she was in a benign and unthreatened mood, a fair amount of ironic self-knowledge…
…Yes: Susan Sontag was sibylline and hokey and often a great bore. She was a troubled and brilliant American and never as good a friend as I wanted her to be. But now the lady’s kicked it and I’m trying to keep one of the big lessons in view: judge her by her best work, not her worst…
Orlando’s a pretty tough book; I’ve taken a couple of stabs at it and not gone far. Besides the Tilda Swinton movie, I remember a mid-70′s PBS animated version that was phenomenal. Love to see that again.
I also tried one of VW’s non-fiction message books—Three Guineas. Also a chore. Kind of curious about her early journals, but not that curious. Or afraid.