A Susan Sontag Reader
- ISBN-10
- 1466880783
- ISBN-13
- 9781466880788
- Category
- Literary Criticism
- Pages
- 446
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-09-09
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Author
- Susan Sontag
Description
Susan Sontag occupies a special place in Modern American letters. She has become our most important critic, while her brilliant novels and short fiction are, at long last, getting the recognition they deserve. Sontag is above all a writer, which is only to say that, though the form may differ, there is an essential unity in all her work. The truth of this is perhaps more evident in A Susan Sontag Reader than in any of Sontag's individual books. The writer selected a sampling of her work, meaning the choice both to reflect accurately a career and also to guide the reader toward those qualities and concerns which she prizes in her own writing. A Susan Sontag Reader is arranged chronologically and draws on most of Sontag's books. There are selections from her two novels, The Benefactor and Death Kit, and from her collections of short stories, I, etcetera. The famous essays from the 1960s--"Against Interpretation," "Notes on Camp," and "On Style"--which established Sontag's reputation and can be fairly said to have shaped the cultural views of a generation are included, as are selctions from her two subsequent volumes of essays, Styles of Radical Will and Under the Sign of Satury. A part of Sontag's best-selling On Photography is also included. It is astonishing to read these works when they are detached from the books they appeared in and offered instead in the order in which Sontag wrote them. The connections between various literary forms, the progression of themes, are revealed in often startling ways. Moreover, Sontag has included a long interview in which she moves mroe informally over the whole range of her concerns and of her work. The volume ends with "Writing Itself," a previously uncollected essay on Roland Barthes which, in the eyes of many, is one of Sontag's finest achievements. This collection is, in a sense, both a self-potrait and a key for a reader to understand the work of one of the most imporant writers of our time.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
A Susan Sontag Reader
By Susan SontagContains extracts from novels The Benefactor and Death Kit, and from essays such as On Style, Under the sign of Saturn and On Photography.
-
I, Etcetera
By Susan Sontag"The eight short stories in I, Etcetera reflect a vital and restless imagination cooking away in several directions-There is an abundance of those startling ironies and wry, quirky jokes that make Susan Sontag so tempting to quote-The book ...
-
The Benefactor: A Novel
By Susan SontagThe Benefactor, Susan Sontag's first book and first novel, originally published in 1963, introduced a unique writer to the world.
-
A Barthes Reader
By Roland BarthesProvides a broad sampling of the late French literary critic's most essential writings, including such works as Writing Degree Zero, Image-Music-Text, and New Critical Essays
-
Where the Stress Falls: Essays
By Susan SontagAnd in the final section, "There and Here," Sontag explores some of her own commitments: to the work (and activism) of conscience, to the concreteness of historical understanding, and to the vocation of the writer.
-
Debriefing: Collected Stories
By Susan SontagThis is an invaluable record of the creative output of one of the most inquisitive and analytical thinkers of the twentieth century at the height of her power.
-
Death Kit: A Novel
By Susan SontagFirst published in 1967, Death Kit--Susan Sontag's second novel--is a classic of modern fiction. Blending realism and dream, it offers a passionate exploration of the recesses of the American conscience.
-
Regarding the Pain of Others
By Susan SontagWHAT TO DO with such knowledge as photographs bring of faraway suffering? People are often unable to take in the sufferings of those close to them. (A compelling document on this theme is Frederick Wiseman's film Hospital.) ...
-
Styles of Radical Will
By Susan SontagStyles of Radical Will, Susan Sontag's second collection of essays, extends the investigations she undertook in Against Interpretation with essays on film, literature, politics, and a groundbreaking study of pornography.
-
Alice in Bed: A Play
By Susan SontagAlice in Bed is a free dramatic fantasy which merges the life of Alice James, the brilliant sister of William and Henry James, with the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.