Susan Sontag - Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

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Table of Contents

FICTION

The Benefactor Death Kit I, etcetera
The Way We Live Now The Volcano Lover In America

ESSAYS

Against Interpretation Styles of Radical Will
On Photography Illness As Metaphor Under the Sign of Saturn
AIDS and Its Metaphors Where the Stress Falls
Regarding the Pain of Others At the Same Time

FILM SCRIPTS

Duet for Cannibals Brother Carl

PLAY

Alice in Bed

A Susan Sontag Reader

11/23/47

I believe:

(a)That there is no personal god or life after death

(b)That the most desirable thing in the world is freedom to be true to oneself, i.e., Honesty

(c)That the only difference between human beings is intelligence

(d)That the only criterion of an action is its ultimate effect on making the individual happy or unhappy

(e)That it is wrong to deprive any man of life [ Entries f and g are missing. ]

(h)I believe, furthermore, that an ideal state (besides g) should be a strong centralized one with government control of public utilities, banks, mines, + transportation and subsidy of the arts, a comfortable minimum wage, support of disabled and age[d]. State care of pregnant women with no distinction such as legitimate + illegitimate children.

4/13/48

Ideas disturb the levelness of life

7/29/48

And what is it to be young in years and suddenly wakened to the anguish, the urgency of life?

It is to be reached one day by the reverberations of those who do not follow, to stumble out of the jungle and fall into an abyss:

It is then to be blind to the faults of the rebellious, to yearn painfully, wholly, after all opposites of childhoods existence. It is impetuousness, wild enthusiasm, immediately submerged in a flood of self-deprecation. It is the cruel awareness of ones own presumption

It is humiliation with every slip-of-the-tongue, sleepless nights spent rehearsing tomorrows conversation, and torturing oneself for yesterdays a bowed head held betweenones hands it is my god, my god (in lower case, of course, because there is no god).

It is withdrawal of feeling toward ones family and all childhood idols It is lying and resentment, and then hate

It is the emergence of cynicism, a probing of every thought and word and action. (Ah, to be perfectly, utterly sincere!) It is a bitter and relentless questioning of motives

It is to discover that the catalyst, the [ Entry trails off at this point. ]

8/19/48

What seemed once to be a crushing weight has sharply shifted position, in a surprising tactic, swung beneath my fleeing feet, become a sucking force that drags and tires me. How I long to surrender! How easy it would be to convince myself of the plausibility of my parents life! If I saw only them and their friends for a year, would resign myselfsurrender? Does my intelligence need frequent rejuvenation at the springs of others dissatisfaction and die without it? If I can hold myself to these vows! For I can feel myself slipping, waveringat certain times, even accepting the idea of staying home for college.

All I can think of is Mother, how pretty she is, what smooth skin she has, how she loves me. How she shook when she cried the other nightshe didnt want Dad, in the other room, to hear her, and the noise of each choked wave of tears was like a giant hiccupwhat cowards people are to involvethemselves, rather, to passively let themselves be involved, by convention, in sterile relationshipswhat rotten, dreary, miserable lives they lead

How can I hurt her more, beaten as she is, never resisting?

How can I help me, make me cruel?

9/1/48

What does the expression in his cups mean?

Stone-slung mountain.

Read the [Stephen] Spender translation of [Rilkes] The Duino Elegies as soon as possible.

Immersing myself in Gide againwhat clarity and precision! Truly it is the man himself who is incomparableall his fiction seems insignificant, while [Manns] The Magic Mountain is a book for all of ones life.

I know that! The Magic Mountain is the finest novel Ive ever read. The sweetness of renewed and undiminishing acquaintance with this work, the peaceful and meditative pleasure I feel are unparalleled. Yet for sheer emotional impact, for a sense of physical pleasure, an awareness of quick breath and quickly wasted liveshurrying, hurryingfor the knowledge of lifeno, not thatfor a knowledge of alivenessI would choose [Romain Rollands] Jean-Christophe But it should only be read once.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

Hilaire Belloc

Immersed myself in Gide all afternoon and listened to the [conductor Fritz] Busch (Glyndebourne festival) recording of [Mozarts] Don Giovanni. Several arias (such soul-stretching sweetness!) I played over and over again (Mi tradi quell alma ingrata and Fuggi, crudele, fuggi). If I could always hear them, how resolute and serene I would be!

Wasted the evening with Nat [ Nathan Sontag, SSs stepfather ]. He gave me a driving lesson and then I accompanied him and pretended to enjoy a Technicolor blood-and-thunder movie.

After writing this last sentence, I read it again and consider[ed] erasing it. I should let it stand, though.It is useless for me to record only the satisfying parts of my existence(There are too few of them anyway!) Let me note all the sickening waste of today, that I shall not be easy with myself and compromise my tomorrows.

9/2/48

A tearful discussion with Mildred [ Mildred Sontag, ne Jacobson, SSs mother ] (damn it!). She said, You should be very happy I married Nat. You would never be going toChicago, rest assured of that! I cant tell you how unhappy I am about it, but I feel that I have to make up to you for this.

Maybe I should be glad!!!

9/10/48

[Written and dated on the inside cover of SSs copy of the second volume of Andre Gides Journals ]

I finished reading this at 2:30 a.m. of the same day I acquired it

I should have read it much more slowly and I must re-read it many timesGide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to! Thus I do not think: How marvelously lucid this is!but: Stop! I cannot think this fast! Or rather I cannot grow this fast!

For, I am not only reading this book, but creating it myself, and this unique and enormous experience has purged my mind of much of the confusion and sterility that has clogged it all these horrible months

12/19/48

There are so many books and plays and stories I have to readHere are just a few:

The Counterfeiters Gide

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