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In America
In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalewska, Poland's greatest actress, travel to California to found a "utopian" commune. Maryna, who has renounced her career, is accompanied by her small son and husband; in her entourage is a rising young writer who is in love with her. The novel portrays a West that is still largely empty, where white settlers confront native Californians and Asian coolies. The image of America, and of California-as fantasy, as escape, as radical simplification-constantly meets a more complex reality. The commune fails and most of the migrants go home, but Maryna stays and triumphs on the American stage.
In America is a big, juicy, surprising book-about a woman's search for self-transformation, about the fate of idealism, about the world of the theater-that will captivate its readers from the first page. It is Sontag's most delicious, most brilliant achievement.
In America is a big, juicy, surprising book-about a woman's search for self-transformation, about the fate of idealism, about the world of the theater-that will captivate its readers from the first page. It is Sontag's most delicious, most brilliant achievement.
398 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
186 people are currently reading
5895 people want to read
About the author
Susan Sontag
229 books5,431 followersSusan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 256 reviews
August 17, 2021
In America was an amazing historical fiction novel by Susan Sontag that was so original in its format that it was hard to put down. This book won the National Book Award in 2000. It embraced America in all of its promise and its rawness as it struggled towards modernity in the late nineteenth century in such an engaging way. In 1876 one of Poland's greatest actresses, Maryna Zalezowska led a group of fellow emigres from Poland to the United States bound for California to a vast farmland and vineyard south of Anaheim in a communal form of living. She was accompanied by her young son and husband who was fleeing his aristocratic family in Poland. Among the emigres were an artist and his wife as well as a young writer hopelessly in love with Maryna. In one way or another most of the party embraced the openness and freedom of this new country as they tried to adapt. And no one tried harder than Maryna but after five years she realized that she missed the stage and studied rigorously to learn perfect English and lose her Eastern European accent. Becoming known as Marina Zalenska, she was embraced by America as she played in theaters and opera houses across the country to packed houses.
This was a woman's search for self-transformation with a lot of emphasis on the theater and our great playwrights such as Shakespeare. Also evident in the unfolding pages was the theme of love and the many myriad forms it may take as we all struggle with our various relationships. This was a book that only Susan Sontag could write.
The writing was luscious with some of my favorite quotes:
"You have to float your ideals a little off the ground, to keep them from being profaned. And cut loose the misfortunes and insults, too, lest they take root and strangle your soul."
"In Poland she had represented the aspirations of a nation. Here she could only represent art, or culture, which many feared as something frivolous or snobbish or morally unhinging. Bogdan pointed out with a smile that Americans seemed to need perennial reassurance that art was not just art but served a higher moral or wholesomely civic purpose."
This was a woman's search for self-transformation with a lot of emphasis on the theater and our great playwrights such as Shakespeare. Also evident in the unfolding pages was the theme of love and the many myriad forms it may take as we all struggle with our various relationships. This was a book that only Susan Sontag could write.
The writing was luscious with some of my favorite quotes:
"You have to float your ideals a little off the ground, to keep them from being profaned. And cut loose the misfortunes and insults, too, lest they take root and strangle your soul."
"In Poland she had represented the aspirations of a nation. Here she could only represent art, or culture, which many feared as something frivolous or snobbish or morally unhinging. Bogdan pointed out with a smile that Americans seemed to need perennial reassurance that art was not just art but served a higher moral or wholesomely civic purpose."
December 28, 2023
Let me be perfectly clear—I am a huge fan of Susan Sontag's criticism. "Against Interpretation and Other Essays", "On Photography", and "Regarding the Pain of Others" are books I go back to repeatedly for their ahead-of-their-time provocative points of view. After finishing "In America," I feel it's the critical side of Sontag that makes her fiction suffer. The writing is accomplished and refined, and, formally, the constantly shifting points of view rendered through various writing forms such as correspondence letters and real-time theatrical performance proves to be a clever device to push the story along.
But how has this tireless champion of the avant-garde produced a novel that feels so old and musty, as if it was from the 19th century, but without the strong emotional and moral conflict that informed the best literature of the time by such authors as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, James, Balzac, etc.? Chapter Zero, with its unnamed mysterious observer/narrator that sneaks into a dinner party, showed promise and piqued my curiosity, but then the novel devolved by having the main characters—who are rather staid, clichéd and uninteresting—take over the storytelling reins. Maybe Sontag intended this to be more of a commentary on the social class issues and bohemian hypocrisies of the time, but I just had no emotional connection to any of these people. The book is well-constructed but has no soul—not surprising, I think, when its written by one of our most celebrated academic thinkers.
I also can't help but think that this novel, constructed around supposed historical fact, is some sort of sublimated biographical exploration for Sontag. Every character embodies some facet of her life and personality. Maryna, the star artiste who flees her first marriage for fame and fortune on the stage; Ryzard, the aspiring writer; Bogdan, the dutiful husband wresting with his homosexual tendencies and secret affairs; even the portrait photographer that comes to their Anaheim commune to shoot the group conjures a very Sontag-like discussion of the photographic medium (not to mention could be tagged as Annie Leibovitz-like). But what could have been an interesting exploration of the emotions that drive these characters (and hence Sontag) is too remote, as if the scholar/critic side of Sontag cautioned her fiction writing doppelganger not to reveal too much. So while I appreciate the craft of this novel immensely, I am disappointed that it leaves me so unaffected in the end.
But how has this tireless champion of the avant-garde produced a novel that feels so old and musty, as if it was from the 19th century, but without the strong emotional and moral conflict that informed the best literature of the time by such authors as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, James, Balzac, etc.? Chapter Zero, with its unnamed mysterious observer/narrator that sneaks into a dinner party, showed promise and piqued my curiosity, but then the novel devolved by having the main characters—who are rather staid, clichéd and uninteresting—take over the storytelling reins. Maybe Sontag intended this to be more of a commentary on the social class issues and bohemian hypocrisies of the time, but I just had no emotional connection to any of these people. The book is well-constructed but has no soul—not surprising, I think, when its written by one of our most celebrated academic thinkers.
I also can't help but think that this novel, constructed around supposed historical fact, is some sort of sublimated biographical exploration for Sontag. Every character embodies some facet of her life and personality. Maryna, the star artiste who flees her first marriage for fame and fortune on the stage; Ryzard, the aspiring writer; Bogdan, the dutiful husband wresting with his homosexual tendencies and secret affairs; even the portrait photographer that comes to their Anaheim commune to shoot the group conjures a very Sontag-like discussion of the photographic medium (not to mention could be tagged as Annie Leibovitz-like). But what could have been an interesting exploration of the emotions that drive these characters (and hence Sontag) is too remote, as if the scholar/critic side of Sontag cautioned her fiction writing doppelganger not to reveal too much. So while I appreciate the craft of this novel immensely, I am disappointed that it leaves me so unaffected in the end.
March 30, 2019
I had never read Susan Sontag before but ‘In America’ is historical fiction, with the heavy emphasis on fiction, done right.
The drama in this book was underplayed so it’s not an “entertaining” read in the conventional sense. There are probably three unique points that I took from reading this book. First Sontag focuses on a Polish stage princess, Helena Modjeska known as Maryna in the book, who is of serious renown and wealth and who immigrates to California with her gang of industrious Bohemians to start a new life off the land. So she chooses someone to fictionalize who already has a rich story but is unknown to the vast majority of us.
Secondly her writing style is so enlightening. I learned a great deal about living in late 19th century California. It is evident that she did a great deal of local research.
The last point, which is probably obvious to those who have read the author’s other works, is that Sontag’s writing showcases a very strong voice but is not overwrought. The central character, Maryna, exhibits a great deal of strength and influence in an otherwise male dominated 19th century world. The scenes around the romances and affairs are beautifully done.
Five stars. This book is both subtle and muted in its emotional content so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2000.
The drama in this book was underplayed so it’s not an “entertaining” read in the conventional sense. There are probably three unique points that I took from reading this book. First Sontag focuses on a Polish stage princess, Helena Modjeska known as Maryna in the book, who is of serious renown and wealth and who immigrates to California with her gang of industrious Bohemians to start a new life off the land. So she chooses someone to fictionalize who already has a rich story but is unknown to the vast majority of us.
Secondly her writing style is so enlightening. I learned a great deal about living in late 19th century California. It is evident that she did a great deal of local research.
The last point, which is probably obvious to those who have read the author’s other works, is that Sontag’s writing showcases a very strong voice but is not overwrought. The central character, Maryna, exhibits a great deal of strength and influence in an otherwise male dominated 19th century world. The scenes around the romances and affairs are beautifully done.
Five stars. This book is both subtle and muted in its emotional content so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2000.
November 19, 2018
I want to re-read this novel. It’s gorgeous.
March 23, 2023
A legtöbb általam ismert történelmi regény írója diszkrét jelenség, elbújik a szöveg mögött, és átadja a színt a szereplőknek – feltételezem, ezzel is az illúziót akarja elősegíteni, hogy amit látunk, nem fikció, hanem a múlt egy darabja. Közben persze az olvasó tudja, hogy erről szó sincs, de azért hálás a gesztusért, amit hajlamos szerénységként és/vagy udvariasságként értékelni. No most Sontag ezzel szemben azzal nyit, hogy rögtön előtérbe tolja magát, bepofátlankodik szereplői világába, leül közéjük a kanapéra, azt se tartom kizártnak, hogy beleiszik a poharukba. Nyilván célja van ezzel. Ez a masszívra írt előhang egyfajta belépőkapu a regényhez, ami még azelőtt világossá teszi a szerző módszereit, indokait és stílusát, hogy túl sok időt eltöltenénk a szövegben – egyfajta előzékenység: „ilyen vagyok, erre számíts, ha nem tetszik, még most keress magadnak más olvasnivalót”.
Miután ezzel Sontag megvan, elereszti a gyeplőt, és a sűrű textúrájú bevezető után egy szellősebb (azaz cselekményes), klasszikusabb történelmi regényt kapunk, ahol a szerző üdvösen háttérben marad, és átengedi a szót főhősének, Marynának, aki a XIX. század harmadik harmadában otthagyja sokak szenvedett hazáját, Lengyelországot, hogy Amerikában próbáljon szerencsét. No most történelmi regényből is sokféle van – az egyik típus konkrét történelmi eseményeket vagy figurákat akar ábrázolni. De nem ez. Sontagot – bár felbukkannak a regényben valós személyek, illetve azok alteregói - inkább bizonyos történelmi jelenségek mibenléte érdekli, mégpedig konkrétan az „amerikai ígéret”, ami milliókat sarkallt arra, hogy otthagyván a biztosat, egy ismeretlen földön próbáljanak meg boldogulni. Ez tehát egy emigránsregény, amelyben a híres lengyel színésznő szakít addigi betonbiztos egzisztenciájával (a híres lengyel színésznőséggel), és megkísérli újra felépíteni magát az óceán túloldalán. Ami nyilván nem megy minden nehézség nélkül, de mivel Maryna erős személyiség, megoldja. Ez tehát egy siker kibrusztolásának krónikája, felületesen szemlélve himnusz az Amerikai Álomhoz – azonban sokkal inkább elmélkedés a lehetőségek természetéről. Arról, hogy a felfelé vezető ösvény gyakran szűk: meglehet, nem egyedül indulunk el rajta, de egy idő után nem fér el mellettünk más. Persze arra a „másik”-ra is vár a lehetőségek egy ösvénye – de az egy másik, távoli csúcsra vezet.
(A nagy Edwin Booth, Amerika tán legnagyobb Shakespeare-színésze, itt épp Hamlet jelmezében. És nem mellesleg: a regény egyik fontos mellékszereplője. Ironikus, hogy hiába volt zseniális művész, a Booth név főleg bátyja, John Wilkes révén ismert, aki képes volt lelőni Lincoln elnököt. Önreklámnak elég meredek.)
És persze ez egy színész (avagy művész-) regény is. Nem is tudom, nekem gyengéim a művészregények. Talán mert módot adnak a szerzőnek, hogy kettős álarc mögé bújjon: eljátsszon valakit, aki éppen eljátszik valakit. Sontag pedig eléggé intellektuális író ahhoz, hogy az ebből fakadó lehetőségekkel elszórakozzon. Nem fél a szabálytalanságtól, ha kell, elbeszélőt vált, de közben megőrzi a szöveg általános koherenciáját. Ügyes, elegáns regény ez, végeredményben. És amit külön a javára írok: jól is olvasható.
Miután ezzel Sontag megvan, elereszti a gyeplőt, és a sűrű textúrájú bevezető után egy szellősebb (azaz cselekményes), klasszikusabb történelmi regényt kapunk, ahol a szerző üdvösen háttérben marad, és átengedi a szót főhősének, Marynának, aki a XIX. század harmadik harmadában otthagyja sokak szenvedett hazáját, Lengyelországot, hogy Amerikában próbáljon szerencsét. No most történelmi regényből is sokféle van – az egyik típus konkrét történelmi eseményeket vagy figurákat akar ábrázolni. De nem ez. Sontagot – bár felbukkannak a regényben valós személyek, illetve azok alteregói - inkább bizonyos történelmi jelenségek mibenléte érdekli, mégpedig konkrétan az „amerikai ígéret”, ami milliókat sarkallt arra, hogy otthagyván a biztosat, egy ismeretlen földön próbáljanak meg boldogulni. Ez tehát egy emigránsregény, amelyben a híres lengyel színésznő szakít addigi betonbiztos egzisztenciájával (a híres lengyel színésznőséggel), és megkísérli újra felépíteni magát az óceán túloldalán. Ami nyilván nem megy minden nehézség nélkül, de mivel Maryna erős személyiség, megoldja. Ez tehát egy siker kibrusztolásának krónikája, felületesen szemlélve himnusz az Amerikai Álomhoz – azonban sokkal inkább elmélkedés a lehetőségek természetéről. Arról, hogy a felfelé vezető ösvény gyakran szűk: meglehet, nem egyedül indulunk el rajta, de egy idő után nem fér el mellettünk más. Persze arra a „másik”-ra is vár a lehetőségek egy ösvénye – de az egy másik, távoli csúcsra vezet.
(A nagy Edwin Booth, Amerika tán legnagyobb Shakespeare-színésze, itt épp Hamlet jelmezében. És nem mellesleg: a regény egyik fontos mellékszereplője. Ironikus, hogy hiába volt zseniális művész, a Booth név főleg bátyja, John Wilkes révén ismert, aki képes volt lelőni Lincoln elnököt. Önreklámnak elég meredek.)
És persze ez egy színész (avagy művész-) regény is. Nem is tudom, nekem gyengéim a művészregények. Talán mert módot adnak a szerzőnek, hogy kettős álarc mögé bújjon: eljátsszon valakit, aki éppen eljátszik valakit. Sontag pedig eléggé intellektuális író ahhoz, hogy az ebből fakadó lehetőségekkel elszórakozzon. Nem fél a szabálytalanságtól, ha kell, elbeszélőt vált, de közben megőrzi a szöveg általános koherenciáját. Ügyes, elegáns regény ez, végeredményben. És amit külön a javára írok: jól is olvasható.
March 29, 2023
I have known of Susan Sontag for a long time, but it was really just name recognition. In America was my first experience of her writing and for some reason I didn't have high expectations. The novel is based on the life of Helena Modrzejewska, Poland’s most famous actress, who at the height of her stardom travels to America with her husband, her son and close friends with the intention of establishing a farming commune; she has no plans for continuing her acting career. In the novel Susan Sontag gives Helena the name of Maryna Zalewska. Maryna eventually decides to continue her acting career, but in America, which means she must perform Shakespeare and other highly regarded plays in English.
Events take place in the last quarter of the 19th century. Sontag’s prose is wonderful; it is elegant, which fits the time period, but not in a way that makes it feel old or dry or dated. Her writing flows, her characters are complex, and her settings are rich in detail. Her description of California and the American West was very visual, and I enjoyed learning about the world of acting and theaters. Structurally, Sontag used a mix of methods, including some stream of consciousness sections and diary elements. The method used seemed to fit the content of the story at that point, making me feel that the author had made the right choice while also putting a lot of effort into varying the style so significantly.
With all these positives I wanted to rate this novel higher, but the plot was rather slow, and it took me quite a while to finish. Also, the writing style could get tedious when the author used lists of elements to provide details. The plot did pick up in the last third. This novel won the National Book Award in 2000.
Events take place in the last quarter of the 19th century. Sontag’s prose is wonderful; it is elegant, which fits the time period, but not in a way that makes it feel old or dry or dated. Her writing flows, her characters are complex, and her settings are rich in detail. Her description of California and the American West was very visual, and I enjoyed learning about the world of acting and theaters. Structurally, Sontag used a mix of methods, including some stream of consciousness sections and diary elements. The method used seemed to fit the content of the story at that point, making me feel that the author had made the right choice while also putting a lot of effort into varying the style so significantly.
With all these positives I wanted to rate this novel higher, but the plot was rather slow, and it took me quite a while to finish. Also, the writing style could get tedious when the author used lists of elements to provide details. The plot did pick up in the last third. This novel won the National Book Award in 2000.
December 7, 2011
Like Walking in Mud
I have always wanted to read this book so when I saw it at a school fair I was happy to buy it. On the cover it says it won the National Book Award of 2000 and awards mean a good read. The plot is great - a famous Polish actress decides to emigrate to America with her family and friends and start a community in southern California. The story follows their decision to move to America and the eventual failure of their community and the reinvention of self - a homage to the American dream where you can be anything in America.
I wanted to like this book, its full of great detail, moments of brilliance but I couldn't. I hated the writing style. It was like walking across mudflats at low tide, you sink to your thighs in the mud and each footstep is an effort but you press on thinking all the time how great it will feel to get to the other side and surely it will get easier at some point. When you finally get to the other side you are covered in mud and too exhausted to be excited about having conquered the mud flats. You just look back thinking why did I bother
www.meredithbrocklebank.com
I have always wanted to read this book so when I saw it at a school fair I was happy to buy it. On the cover it says it won the National Book Award of 2000 and awards mean a good read. The plot is great - a famous Polish actress decides to emigrate to America with her family and friends and start a community in southern California. The story follows their decision to move to America and the eventual failure of their community and the reinvention of self - a homage to the American dream where you can be anything in America.
I wanted to like this book, its full of great detail, moments of brilliance but I couldn't. I hated the writing style. It was like walking across mudflats at low tide, you sink to your thighs in the mud and each footstep is an effort but you press on thinking all the time how great it will feel to get to the other side and surely it will get easier at some point. When you finally get to the other side you are covered in mud and too exhausted to be excited about having conquered the mud flats. You just look back thinking why did I bother
www.meredithbrocklebank.com
December 13, 2013
Forget the old boys club: The most engaging historical fiction is being written by women. What's worse, they have the audacity to make it fun.
In Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund dared to revise Melville's classic "Moby Dick." Anita Shreve re-created a tense custody battle at the turn of the 20th century in Fortune's Rocks. And Tracy Chevalier painted a stirring portrait of a maid in Johannes Vermeer's house.
These recent books share the same strengths: All of them are carefully researched, lavishly detailed, and expertly plotted. But they also share the same weakness: Despite their historical accuracy, they can't resist the temptation to project modern sensibilities backward onto their feminist heroines. Ironically, the result is to render 200 years of feminist activism essentially irrelevant. Who needs equal access to education? Chevalier's maid helps Vermeer improve his compositions. Equality before the law? Please. Shreve's young mother gets what's hers despite the legal bias against her. Una, Nasland's pre-Civil War berwoman, could edit Ms. Magazine.
Sontag doesn't make this mistake in her rich new novel, inspired by the life of Polish actress Helena Modrzejewska. When Sontag's Maryna reacts against the constraints of her time, she does so in ways that seem historically accurate. This is no NOW posterwoman; Maryna is a character riddled with contradictions, carving out the kind of power available to her, making the necessary compromises and hating them at the same time.
The novel opens with a daring, almost mystical chapter in which Sontag imagines herself conceiving of her characters at a lavish dinner in Russian-occupied Poland in 1875. It's like watching a projectionist trying to bring the film into focus. This kind of self-referential, post-modern trick could be annoying, but Sontag is a brilliant writer who doesn't gauge her intelligence by how confused she can make her audience.
As the sun of her circle of admirers, Maryna is at the zenith of her power in Polish theater, but she yearns for a kind of simple authenticity. "She had loved being an actress because the theater seemed to her nothing less than the truth," Sontag writes. "Acting in a play, one of the great plays, you became better than you really were."
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Maryna is drawn to an even more elaborate stage of self-improvement: She convinces her husband and their friends to take a luxurious trip half- way around the world to begin a utopian community in California.
Of course, Maryna is doomed to discover that simplicity is a complex quality to acquire. Communal living works fine unless people are involved. The faux community they buy in Anaheim promises "the purifying simplicities of rustic life as lived by the privileged," but the laws of economics play havoc with their vineyard's success.
Clinging to the people she pushes away, Maryna and her friends can't escape the multiple ironies of their situation. "A queen who has abdicated will always be a queen to those who knew her on the throne," Sontag notes. Her devoted husband is tormented by his desire for others. Ryszard, a brilliant writer, is so desperately in love with her that he can't compose anything worthwhile. Their friends Julian and Wanda find their marriage growing more hateful in this bucolic paradise. "Doesn't it seem very American," Ryszard sighs, "that America has its America, its better destination where everyone dreams of going?"
When the community falters, as they all suspected it would, Maryna hopes to reincarnate her former theatrical glory. But she discovers painfully that the costs and rewards of being a great European actress are not the same as being an American celebrity. The result is a fascinating exploration of what's real in a culture that preaches authenticity but worships artificiality.
Sontag is so comfortable spinning these big ideas through the details of her novel that they never seem heavy or intrusive. "In America" we discover the country as the curtain rises on the modern age. After so many moving stories from Irish immigrants, the perspective of aristocratic Poles is unusual, but the plot they encounter belongs to us all.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0309/p1...
In Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund dared to revise Melville's classic "Moby Dick." Anita Shreve re-created a tense custody battle at the turn of the 20th century in Fortune's Rocks. And Tracy Chevalier painted a stirring portrait of a maid in Johannes Vermeer's house.
These recent books share the same strengths: All of them are carefully researched, lavishly detailed, and expertly plotted. But they also share the same weakness: Despite their historical accuracy, they can't resist the temptation to project modern sensibilities backward onto their feminist heroines. Ironically, the result is to render 200 years of feminist activism essentially irrelevant. Who needs equal access to education? Chevalier's maid helps Vermeer improve his compositions. Equality before the law? Please. Shreve's young mother gets what's hers despite the legal bias against her. Una, Nasland's pre-Civil War berwoman, could edit Ms. Magazine.
Sontag doesn't make this mistake in her rich new novel, inspired by the life of Polish actress Helena Modrzejewska. When Sontag's Maryna reacts against the constraints of her time, she does so in ways that seem historically accurate. This is no NOW posterwoman; Maryna is a character riddled with contradictions, carving out the kind of power available to her, making the necessary compromises and hating them at the same time.
The novel opens with a daring, almost mystical chapter in which Sontag imagines herself conceiving of her characters at a lavish dinner in Russian-occupied Poland in 1875. It's like watching a projectionist trying to bring the film into focus. This kind of self-referential, post-modern trick could be annoying, but Sontag is a brilliant writer who doesn't gauge her intelligence by how confused she can make her audience.
As the sun of her circle of admirers, Maryna is at the zenith of her power in Polish theater, but she yearns for a kind of simple authenticity. "She had loved being an actress because the theater seemed to her nothing less than the truth," Sontag writes. "Acting in a play, one of the great plays, you became better than you really were."
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Maryna is drawn to an even more elaborate stage of self-improvement: She convinces her husband and their friends to take a luxurious trip half- way around the world to begin a utopian community in California.
Of course, Maryna is doomed to discover that simplicity is a complex quality to acquire. Communal living works fine unless people are involved. The faux community they buy in Anaheim promises "the purifying simplicities of rustic life as lived by the privileged," but the laws of economics play havoc with their vineyard's success.
Clinging to the people she pushes away, Maryna and her friends can't escape the multiple ironies of their situation. "A queen who has abdicated will always be a queen to those who knew her on the throne," Sontag notes. Her devoted husband is tormented by his desire for others. Ryszard, a brilliant writer, is so desperately in love with her that he can't compose anything worthwhile. Their friends Julian and Wanda find their marriage growing more hateful in this bucolic paradise. "Doesn't it seem very American," Ryszard sighs, "that America has its America, its better destination where everyone dreams of going?"
When the community falters, as they all suspected it would, Maryna hopes to reincarnate her former theatrical glory. But she discovers painfully that the costs and rewards of being a great European actress are not the same as being an American celebrity. The result is a fascinating exploration of what's real in a culture that preaches authenticity but worships artificiality.
Sontag is so comfortable spinning these big ideas through the details of her novel that they never seem heavy or intrusive. "In America" we discover the country as the curtain rises on the modern age. After so many moving stories from Irish immigrants, the perspective of aristocratic Poles is unusual, but the plot they encounter belongs to us all.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0309/p1...
March 15, 2019
This is neither a plot-driven nor a character-driven novel. Despite the decades that the story spans, little seems to happen, or what does happen never conveys any real plot tension. The characters never change or develop beyond the incremental alterations of age and experience. I suppose I would have to describe this as a novel of ideas, a chance for the highly regarded essayist to discuss her thoughts on the nature of theatrical performance, the essential differences between the European and American identity, attitudes toward marriage, family, success, and more with a different audience or through an alternative venue. Based on the life of an actual 19th century Polish actress, this story follows a young theatrical star who emigrates from Poland to California to set up a utopian commune with her intellectual friends. When the commune fails after a year, she returns to her career and achieves equal acclaim on this side of the Atlantic. Maybe I am just not smart enough to appreciate this award-winning novel, but I found it tedious, self-important and quite underwhelming.
October 28, 2022
از خواهر سانتاگ تا حالا ناداستان خونده بودم فقط.
این اولین کتاب داستانی بود که به قلمش میخوندم و حقیقتا باید بگم انتظار نداشتم خوب باشه ولی خب خوب بود واقعا.
سانتاگ به واسطهی دید عکاسانهای که داره، تونسته بود اکثر صحنهها، مکانها و وقایع رو زنده دربیاره. کاملا این حس رو داشتم که مشغول تماشای یه فیلمم.
شخصیت اصلی یک بازیگر تئاتره و داستان حول مهاجرت این خانم بازیگر از لهستان به امریکا میگذره. اونم کی؟ قرن ۱۹ !! بهترین زمانی که میشده مهاجرت کرد.
سانتاگ هم چیزی رو از قلم ننداخته و ماجرا رو حسابی با جزئیات روایت کرده. اما یکسوم پایانی کتاب خیلی الکی کش داده شده و میشد خیلی تمیزتر جمعش کنه.
درکل من از خوندنش لذت بردم. تکنیکهای روایت رو پسندیدم. خط داستانی و توصیفها رو هم دوست داشتم.
ولی برای خوندنش باید حوصله داشته باشین و عضلات قوی ادبی (با شکسپیر و شخصیتهاش آشناش باشید).
این اولین کتاب داستانی بود که به قلمش میخوندم و حقیقتا باید بگم انتظار نداشتم خوب باشه ولی خب خوب بود واقعا.
سانتاگ به واسطهی دید عکاسانهای که داره، تونسته بود اکثر صحنهها، مکانها و وقایع رو زنده دربیاره. کاملا این حس رو داشتم که مشغول تماشای یه فیلمم.
شخصیت اصلی یک بازیگر تئاتره و داستان حول مهاجرت این خانم بازیگر از لهستان به امریکا میگذره. اونم کی؟ قرن ۱۹ !! بهترین زمانی که میشده مهاجرت کرد.
سانتاگ هم چیزی رو از قلم ننداخته و ماجرا رو حسابی با جزئیات روایت کرده. اما یکسوم پایانی کتاب خیلی الکی کش داده شده و میشد خیلی تمیزتر جمعش کنه.
درکل من از خوندنش لذت بردم. تکنیکهای روایت رو پسندیدم. خط داستانی و توصیفها رو هم دوست داشتم.
ولی برای خوندنش باید حوصله داشته باشین و عضلات قوی ادبی (با شکسپیر و شخصیتهاش آشناش باشید).
February 9, 2015
A novel about the nineteeth century commune of the great Polish actress Helena Modjeska-- in the era of Bernhardt. It was located near Anaheim California. What an outrageous boatload of bohemians! The commune predated the progressive era's burgeoning of California cults and communes by thirty years. Susan Sontag only wrote two novels, both of them historical, and her sense of character, her ability to bring to life such a wacky crew of intelligentsia utopians, is to be treasured. That Sontag was a Los Angeles native is a fact that often overlooked, but it comes out in her love of this early bohemia. A terrific novel deserving of a new readership.
December 5, 2021
Aunque buscaba leer era ensayos de esta autora encontré este libro y debo decir que me termine sorprendiendo para bien.
La utopía de la vida rural, la independencia de una mujer, la mirada de la sociedad.
una historia sobre lucha y aceptación
las mujeres somos lo que somos.
video reseña en:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLmzhVgAkVi/
La utopía de la vida rural, la independencia de una mujer, la mirada de la sociedad.
una historia sobre lucha y aceptación
las mujeres somos lo que somos.
video reseña en:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLmzhVgAkVi/
July 13, 2016
Well, that was a whole lot of words. About 400 pages where pretty much nothing of interest happened, internally or externally to any of the characters. Was this a story about a marriage? Not really. Story about an immigrant family? No, not quite. Story about America in 1876? No, not exactly. It just seemed like a ramble. The first chapter is Sontag imagining herself being a fly on the wall at a party given by this family/friend group. They are based on real people, though she changes their names, presumably creates most of their actions. But I can't figure out why she bothered. Lots of words about the differences in theatre in Poland/Europe (its ART!) and America (its celebrity and $$). But we sure didn't need 400 pages to make that point. Marena, the actress and main character is likable enough, but exceedingly dull. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if her transfer to the US stage was not so successful and quick. Sontag is usually making some sort of political point, and she starts down a whole lot of paths, but I could see no conclusion to any of them.
February 24, 2017
I came for the reputation, stayed for the form and history, stayed til the end for the attention to detail and plot & character development, and was glad to leave when the experiment had run its course.
I am charmed by the peculiar metafiction in this book, but I think it works against itself. Chapter Zero conjures a fictional dinner party that the invisible narrator haunts, observing Polish intellectuals who are based on real historical figures. The titular character, Maryna Zalezowska, derives from the 19th century Shakespearean diva Helena Modrzejewska. The narrator sets out to learn whether "theirs would be a story that would speak to me," and thus to the reader. Fine: I love fiction about a historical problem. However, I made the mistake of reading Sontag's thoughts on the book beforehand. "I made her into a marvelous person. The real Modjeska [Modrzejewska's stage name] was a horrible racist" (found here). I couldn't escape that contradiction: if you're scrubbing these characters of their flaws, how can you expect their story to speak to you?
Also, her approach to citing sources is lacking. The foreword pays homage to a few works, but she does not mention her practice of lifting phrases, descriptions, and a couple whole passages from other works and articles. Sontag described this act as scholarly in-joking, and she distinguished between writers and sources (bullshit). Regardless of her reasons, if she benefited from others' works, why not include a bibliography so others can, too?
I am charmed by the peculiar metafiction in this book, but I think it works against itself. Chapter Zero conjures a fictional dinner party that the invisible narrator haunts, observing Polish intellectuals who are based on real historical figures. The titular character, Maryna Zalezowska, derives from the 19th century Shakespearean diva Helena Modrzejewska. The narrator sets out to learn whether "theirs would be a story that would speak to me," and thus to the reader. Fine: I love fiction about a historical problem. However, I made the mistake of reading Sontag's thoughts on the book beforehand. "I made her into a marvelous person. The real Modjeska [Modrzejewska's stage name] was a horrible racist" (found here). I couldn't escape that contradiction: if you're scrubbing these characters of their flaws, how can you expect their story to speak to you?
Also, her approach to citing sources is lacking. The foreword pays homage to a few works, but she does not mention her practice of lifting phrases, descriptions, and a couple whole passages from other works and articles. Sontag described this act as scholarly in-joking, and she distinguished between writers and sources (bullshit). Regardless of her reasons, if she benefited from others' works, why not include a bibliography so others can, too?
May 25, 2017
In English - http://bombitaluivladmusatescuenglish...
În limba română - http://bombitaluivladmusatescu.blogsp...
În limba română - http://bombitaluivladmusatescu.blogsp...
March 8, 2019
If you're Susan Sontag, this probably counts as an adventure novel. We follow famous Polish actress Maryna Zalenska through the 1870s in America.
Omniscient point of view is all over the place. Maryna, her husband, son, inept maid, and a group of close friends buy a farm in Annaheim California and try to live well and simply there. No one finds happiness and the work is too hard, so she tries out for a part in a local theater and becomes famous all over again, here in America.
She tours constantly and her fame grows. Eventually she and her supporting players and assistants are given their own train car to live and sleep in as they go between cities and venues.
The story could be simple and dull. But it is given lots of texture as the author brings us readers to crash a party at the beginning, and then she borrows some private journals of some of the characters, and at the end we see a drunken soliloquy delivered by none other than Edwin Booth, yes, the surviving actor brother of the notorious Booth who killed Lincoln.
The events are fictionalized. History doesn't support any of the happenings and the central actress doesn't really exist. But she does seem believable.
However, the most prominent character is the author, herself, Susan Sontag. She was a famous essayist in the 1960s. She wrote the article Notes on Camp, which defined a cultural entertainment phenomenon. She took a "you'll-know-it-when-you-see-it" concept and made it so complicated in theory and definition, that to this day I still have no idea what to say about "Camp."
And for some reason when I checked out this book, I had the misconception that she did some time as a humor writer, but most likely I was misinformed. I THINK I remember reading a very funny essay by a woman who spent a day with her friend and her friend's children. But maybe the author was Susan Orlean? Erica Jong? Dorothy Parker? I just don't know!
The author who was probably not Susan Sontag made a note to her readers something in the mood of: "I have no idea why children's hands are ALWAYS sticky! I assume it's because they don't smoke enough."
Does anyone know who DID write that?
Omniscient point of view is all over the place. Maryna, her husband, son, inept maid, and a group of close friends buy a farm in Annaheim California and try to live well and simply there. No one finds happiness and the work is too hard, so she tries out for a part in a local theater and becomes famous all over again, here in America.
She tours constantly and her fame grows. Eventually she and her supporting players and assistants are given their own train car to live and sleep in as they go between cities and venues.
The story could be simple and dull. But it is given lots of texture as the author brings us readers to crash a party at the beginning, and then she borrows some private journals of some of the characters, and at the end we see a drunken soliloquy delivered by none other than Edwin Booth, yes, the surviving actor brother of the notorious Booth who killed Lincoln.
The events are fictionalized. History doesn't support any of the happenings and the central actress doesn't really exist. But she does seem believable.
However, the most prominent character is the author, herself, Susan Sontag. She was a famous essayist in the 1960s. She wrote the article Notes on Camp, which defined a cultural entertainment phenomenon. She took a "you'll-know-it-when-you-see-it" concept and made it so complicated in theory and definition, that to this day I still have no idea what to say about "Camp."
And for some reason when I checked out this book, I had the misconception that she did some time as a humor writer, but most likely I was misinformed. I THINK I remember reading a very funny essay by a woman who spent a day with her friend and her friend's children. But maybe the author was Susan Orlean? Erica Jong? Dorothy Parker? I just don't know!
The author who was probably not Susan Sontag made a note to her readers something in the mood of: "I have no idea why children's hands are ALWAYS sticky! I assume it's because they don't smoke enough."
Does anyone know who DID write that?
January 1, 2021
H Susan Sontag λοιπόν... Μεγάλη μορφή της αμερικάνικης διανόησης, γαλοθρεμμένη όμως και πολύ πιο κοντά στην ευρωπαϊκή κουλτούρα απ' όσο σε αυτή της πατρίδας της, είναι κυρίως γνωστή για το δοκιμιακό της έργο (Περί φωτογραφίας, Η γοητεία τους Φασισμού, Η νόσος ως μεταφορά κ. α.). Τέσσερα όλα κι όλα τα μυθιστορήματά της, εκ των οποίων τα δύο τελευταία - και τα δύο ιστορικά - μεταφράστηκαν και εκδόθηκαν για το ελληνικό αναγνωστικό κοινό από τις εκδόσεις Οδυσσέας, αλλά δυστυχώς γνώρισαν ελάχιστη ανταπόκριση: "Ο Εραστής του Ηφαιστείου (1992), ένα αντισυμβατικό ρομάντζο του ναυάρχου Νέλσον και της Λαίδης Χάμιλτον που εκτυλίσσεται στη Νάπολη του 18ου αιώνα, και το περι ου ο λόγος ¨"Αμέρικα" (1999), βραβευμένο με το Εθνικό βραβείο των ΗΠΑ.
Εν ολίγοις: βρισκόμαστε στα 1876 όταν μια ντίβα του Εθνικού Θεάτρου της Πολωνίας και εθνικό σύμβολο της πατρίδας της, η Μαριάννα Ζαλένσκα, αποφασίζει, λίγο για να ξεφύγει από το βάρος του διάσημου εαυτού της και λίγο για να ανακουφίστεί από την πληγή της τριχοτομημένης της παρίδας και των αποτυχημένων εθνικών επαναστάσεων, να ακολουθήσει το Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο στην Καλιφόρνια, όπου αγοράζει ένα ράντσο ονειρευόμενη να ιδρύσει μια ουτοπική κοινότητα μαζί με τον αριστοκράτη σύζυγό της και μια ομάδα στενών φίλων που την ακολουθούν. Σε ένα χρόνο το όνειρο τελειώνει άδοξα και αναγκάζεται να επιστρέψει στο σανίδι, κατ' αρχάς για βιοπορισμό, αρχής γενομένης από το Σαν Φρανσίσκο, ερμηνεύοντας όλες τις αγαπημένες της ηρωίδες (Ανδριανή Λεκουβρέρ, Μαργαρίτα Γκωτιέ, Οφηλία και Ιουλιέττα) ενώ μόνιμα παλεύει να αρθρώσει σωστά τα αγγλικά και να καταπνίξει τη βαριά σλάβικη προφορά της. Ο Θρίαμβος δεν αργεί: μια μεγάλη αμερικανίδα Σταρ γεννιέται...
Ο αναγνώστης δεν θα το βρει πουθενά γραμμένο μέσα στο βιβλίο, αλλά επί της ουσίας η Πολωνικής - λόγω των γονέων της - καταγωγής συγγραφέας, παρακολουθεί στενά το βίο της διάσημης Πολωνέζας σαιξπηρικής ηθοποιού Helena Modjeska, από τη στιγμή που αποφασίζει να εγκαταλείψει την καριέρα και την πατρίδα της για να ακολουθήσει το αμερικάνικο όνειρο μια ανάσα από τα μεξικάνικα σύνορα της Καλιφορνέζικης χερσονήσου, μέχρι την ανάδυσή της ως μεγάλη STAR των αμερικάνικων θεατρικών σκηνών, στηριγμένη κυρίως στα απομνημονεύματα της ηθοποιού αλλά και σε πλήθος άλλων κειμένων (που επίσης δεν αναφέρονται). Στην πορεία αυτή, ακούμε υπόκωφα αλλά σταθερά τη φωνή της δοκιμιογράφου Sontag να σχολιάζει εύστοχα τη σχέση αμερικάνικης και ευρωπαϊκής κουλτούρας, τη θέση του χρήματος και της δόξας στην νεότευκτη αμερικάνικη κοινωνία, την απουσία παρελθόντος και την πίστη στο μελλον που καθιστά προκλητικό το αμερικάνικο όνειρο, την υποκριτική ως στάση ζωής και ως πολλαπλό προσωπείο, το δίλημμα καριέρα ή ιδιωτικός βίος, και πλήθος άλλα. Επιπλέον η ηρωίδα συναντάται με ενδιαφέρουσες ιστορικές προσωπικότητες σε καμέο εμφανίσεις, όπως ο ποιητής Paul Whitman και ο Henry James, αλλά και Η Κόρη της Δύσης (ηρωίδα ενός παλιού αμερικάνικου μυθιστορήματος στο οποίο βασίστηκε η ομώνυμη όπερα του Puccini), ενώ καταλήγει να συμπρωταγωνιστεί στο σανίδι με τον θρυλικό αμερκανό σιαξπηρικό ηθοποιό Edwin Booth, αδελφό του επίσης ηθοποιού John Wilkes Booth, που έμεινε στην ιστορία ως ο δολοφόνος του Abraham Lincoln. Ας αναφέρω εδώ και την πληθώρα σαιξπηρικών αποσπασμάτων με τα οποία διανθίζεται η αφήγηση...
Ένα βιβλίο που απόλαυσα πραγματικά, και θα ευχόμουν να έχει καλύτερη τύχη στην Ελλάδα.
4,5 🌟
Εν ολίγοις: βρισκόμαστε στα 1876 όταν μια ντίβα του Εθνικού Θεάτρου της Πολωνίας και εθνικό σύμβολο της πατρίδας της, η Μαριάννα Ζαλένσκα, αποφασίζει, λίγο για να ξεφύγει από το βάρος του διάσημου εαυτού της και λίγο για να ανακουφίστεί από την πληγή της τριχοτομημένης της παρίδας και των αποτυχημένων εθνικών επαναστάσεων, να ακολουθήσει το Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο στην Καλιφόρνια, όπου αγοράζει ένα ράντσο ονειρευόμενη να ιδρύσει μια ουτοπική κοινότητα μαζί με τον αριστοκράτη σύζυγό της και μια ομάδα στενών φίλων που την ακολουθούν. Σε ένα χρόνο το όνειρο τελειώνει άδοξα και αναγκάζεται να επιστρέψει στο σανίδι, κατ' αρχάς για βιοπορισμό, αρχής γενομένης από το Σαν Φρανσίσκο, ερμηνεύοντας όλες τις αγαπημένες της ηρωίδες (Ανδριανή Λεκουβρέρ, Μαργαρίτα Γκωτιέ, Οφηλία και Ιουλιέττα) ενώ μόνιμα παλεύει να αρθρώσει σωστά τα αγγλικά και να καταπνίξει τη βαριά σλάβικη προφορά της. Ο Θρίαμβος δεν αργεί: μια μεγάλη αμερικανίδα Σταρ γεννιέται...
Ο αναγνώστης δεν θα το βρει πουθενά γραμμένο μέσα στο βιβλίο, αλλά επί της ουσίας η Πολωνικής - λόγω των γονέων της - καταγωγής συγγραφέας, παρακολουθεί στενά το βίο της διάσημης Πολωνέζας σαιξπηρικής ηθοποιού Helena Modjeska, από τη στιγμή που αποφασίζει να εγκαταλείψει την καριέρα και την πατρίδα της για να ακολουθήσει το αμερικάνικο όνειρο μια ανάσα από τα μεξικάνικα σύνορα της Καλιφορνέζικης χερσονήσου, μέχρι την ανάδυσή της ως μεγάλη STAR των αμερικάνικων θεατρικών σκηνών, στηριγμένη κυρίως στα απομνημονεύματα της ηθοποιού αλλά και σε πλήθος άλλων κειμένων (που επίσης δεν αναφέρονται). Στην πορεία αυτή, ακούμε υπόκωφα αλλά σταθερά τη φωνή της δοκιμιογράφου Sontag να σχολιάζει εύστοχα τη σχέση αμερικάνικης και ευρωπαϊκής κουλτούρας, τη θέση του χρήματος και της δόξας στην νεότευκτη αμερικάνικη κοινωνία, την απουσία παρελθόντος και την πίστη στο μελλον που καθιστά προκλητικό το αμερικάνικο όνειρο, την υποκριτική ως στάση ζωής και ως πολλαπλό προσωπείο, το δίλημμα καριέρα ή ιδιωτικός βίος, και πλήθος άλλα. Επιπλέον η ηρωίδα συναντάται με ενδιαφέρουσες ιστορικές προσωπικότητες σε καμέο εμφανίσεις, όπως ο ποιητής Paul Whitman και ο Henry James, αλλά και Η Κόρη της Δύσης (ηρωίδα ενός παλιού αμερικάνικου μυθιστορήματος στο οποίο βασίστηκε η ομώνυμη όπερα του Puccini), ενώ καταλήγει να συμπρωταγωνιστεί στο σανίδι με τον θρυλικό αμερκανό σιαξπηρικό ηθοποιό Edwin Booth, αδελφό του επίσης ηθοποιού John Wilkes Booth, που έμεινε στην ιστορία ως ο δολοφόνος του Abraham Lincoln. Ας αναφέρω εδώ και την πληθώρα σαιξπηρικών αποσπασμάτων με τα οποία διανθίζεται η αφήγηση...
Ένα βιβλίο που απόλαυσα πραγματικά, και θα ευχόμουν να έχει καλύτερη τύχη στην Ελλάδα.
4,5 🌟
February 14, 2011
Ugh, one of the most dismally boring books I have ever read! Why can I not just discard it? Somehow I always think it will get better and I drag myself through to the bitter end.
What is up with Susan Sontag here? This must be some secret passion she always had...telling the story of a Polish "theataaah" actress.
It's like Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho...huh? What was he thinking!
Unless you are truly into "Theataaaah" and I mean in the WORST way, then this book is for you!
The main character is a spoiled, unfeeling actress who Susan Sontag apparently loves but gives us NO sympathy for.
The other characters all cater to her and talk incessantly about the Theatahhhh and reference plays and quote plays. Apparently they only knew a few plays in ol' Poland so they talk about all three plays throughout the entire book.
The main character is a heartless, famous, rich actress slut who stays with her husband because he dotes on her prima donna ass while spending all her free time shamelessly leading on their best family friend until she finally has an affair with him. Then she dumps him and goes back to her husband. Nothing really happens after that. Oh yeah, and she has a son. We never hear much about the poor kid. Susan seems to forget that he is there....so she finally ships him off to boarding school. Hmmmm, they go on holiday a lot. One time they tried to leave the Theatre behind and moved to California to be farmers. They have so much money that even though they could not grow a single thing they could just buy it at the store or from their neighbors! How nice.
Do not read this book. If you must get your fill of Theataaaah B.S. try 42nd street. It is much more entertaining.
What is up with Susan Sontag here? This must be some secret passion she always had...telling the story of a Polish "theataaah" actress.
It's like Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho...huh? What was he thinking!
Unless you are truly into "Theataaaah" and I mean in the WORST way, then this book is for you!
The main character is a spoiled, unfeeling actress who Susan Sontag apparently loves but gives us NO sympathy for.
The other characters all cater to her and talk incessantly about the Theatahhhh and reference plays and quote plays. Apparently they only knew a few plays in ol' Poland so they talk about all three plays throughout the entire book.
The main character is a heartless, famous, rich actress slut who stays with her husband because he dotes on her prima donna ass while spending all her free time shamelessly leading on their best family friend until she finally has an affair with him. Then she dumps him and goes back to her husband. Nothing really happens after that. Oh yeah, and she has a son. We never hear much about the poor kid. Susan seems to forget that he is there....so she finally ships him off to boarding school. Hmmmm, they go on holiday a lot. One time they tried to leave the Theatre behind and moved to California to be farmers. They have so much money that even though they could not grow a single thing they could just buy it at the store or from their neighbors! How nice.
Do not read this book. If you must get your fill of Theataaaah B.S. try 42nd street. It is much more entertaining.
Read
March 10, 2014Susan Sontag, in the tradition of Kafka and Pavese, wants to write a European book about American novelty, with the hitch that she's an American novelist.
This is the first time I've read any of her fiction, and it shows the same erudition and elegant style as her nonfiction. America is space and possibility and alienation from ritual and coarse capitalism and such. Old themes, for sure, but well-told. If you can get past the big/shitty hump that is the first chapter, a very worthy read.
This is the first time I've read any of her fiction, and it shows the same erudition and elegant style as her nonfiction. America is space and possibility and alienation from ritual and coarse capitalism and such. Old themes, for sure, but well-told. If you can get past the big/shitty hump that is the first chapter, a very worthy read.
November 3, 2020
"Niezdecydowana, nie, zziębnięta, wkroczyłam bez zaproszenia na przyjęcie w zamkniętej sali jadalnej hotelu".
Podobał mi się ten zabieg na początku: jako człowiek nam współczesny wkroczyć w kostiumie dziewiętnastowiecznego przechodnia w miejsce akcji własnej powieści i...podsłuchiwać, jak bohaterowie (w tym "Helena albo Maryna") mówią w niezrozumiałym dla autorki języku polskim. Prawie niezrozumiałym, bo - jak uzasadnia to w tekście - choć osłuchała się tylko z językiem bośniackim (3 lata w Sarajewie) w cudowny sposób rozumie mówiących. Być może słyszała ten język w domu? Dziadkowie wychowujący Susan Sontag przybyli do Ameryki właśnie z terenów Polski i Litwy. W powieści, dość wiernie opartej na życiu Heleny Modrzejewskiej (mimo zmiany wszystkich nazwisk polskich bohaterów), Sontag wykorzystuje i dalsze środki stylistyczne: dziennik męża, Bogdana Dembowskiego (Karola Chłapowskiego), niewyróżnione w tekście i przemieszane ze sobą myśli Maryny Załężowskiej/Mariny Zalenskiej (Heleny Modrzejewskiej/Modjeskiej), kierowane to jako listy do Henryka (dr Chramiec?) - przyjaciela i lekarza w Zakopanem, to jako pozostawiane bez odpowiedzi elementy rozmowy z rodziną i znajomymi, zaś w innym miejscu w dialog aktorów - Mariny i Edwina Bootha, największego amerykańskiego aktora szekspirowskiego - wstawia didaskalia. To dość oryginalne rozwiązania narracyjne.
Książka zostaje w pamięci i po latach wydaje się dużo lepsza, niż natychmiast po przeczytaniu.
Całość recenzji na stronie: https://nakanapie.pl/ksiazka/w-ameryc...
Podobał mi się ten zabieg na początku: jako człowiek nam współczesny wkroczyć w kostiumie dziewiętnastowiecznego przechodnia w miejsce akcji własnej powieści i...podsłuchiwać, jak bohaterowie (w tym "Helena albo Maryna") mówią w niezrozumiałym dla autorki języku polskim. Prawie niezrozumiałym, bo - jak uzasadnia to w tekście - choć osłuchała się tylko z językiem bośniackim (3 lata w Sarajewie) w cudowny sposób rozumie mówiących. Być może słyszała ten język w domu? Dziadkowie wychowujący Susan Sontag przybyli do Ameryki właśnie z terenów Polski i Litwy. W powieści, dość wiernie opartej na życiu Heleny Modrzejewskiej (mimo zmiany wszystkich nazwisk polskich bohaterów), Sontag wykorzystuje i dalsze środki stylistyczne: dziennik męża, Bogdana Dembowskiego (Karola Chłapowskiego), niewyróżnione w tekście i przemieszane ze sobą myśli Maryny Załężowskiej/Mariny Zalenskiej (Heleny Modrzejewskiej/Modjeskiej), kierowane to jako listy do Henryka (dr Chramiec?) - przyjaciela i lekarza w Zakopanem, to jako pozostawiane bez odpowiedzi elementy rozmowy z rodziną i znajomymi, zaś w innym miejscu w dialog aktorów - Mariny i Edwina Bootha, największego amerykańskiego aktora szekspirowskiego - wstawia didaskalia. To dość oryginalne rozwiązania narracyjne.
Książka zostaje w pamięci i po latach wydaje się dużo lepsza, niż natychmiast po przeczytaniu.
Całość recenzji na stronie: https://nakanapie.pl/ksiazka/w-ameryc...
December 4, 2019
I'm waiting for the Literature Police to knock down my door for 3-starring a National Book Award winner. I was sure I would love this book, but not so much. The paragraphs sometimes last for pages at a time, and this is dense, tiny print that takes up the whole page with very small margins, too. The protagonist feels dull to me, and the narrative wakes up in places, but mostly it drones. I soldiered through it to page 80, and then I just.
February 27, 2016
I'm sorry, but I have to agree with a certain unnamed author who - during a book tour - called this "an unreadable piece of shit." I couldn't even get past the first chapter.
July 4, 2025
Un grupo de polacos liderado por la actriz de teatro Maryna Zalenska emigra hacia Estados Unidos en 1876. La novela está dividida en tres partes: la primera es la partida, Europa y el pasado de Maryna; la segunda (y la mejor) es el intento por establecer una colonia polaca en las montañas de California; la tercera es el éxito de la nueva carrera dramática de Maryna. Sontag prueba que tiene el oficio, la disciplina y el rigor que exigen las novelas históricas; abundan los detalles de la escena teatral de la época, o de la vida de los colonos en el desierto, y el efecto realista es muy preciso. Los personajes están sólidamente construidos y las tensiones entre ellos incluyen deseo, admiración, temor o duda en una cuidadosa combinación. Sontag usa varios recursos narrativos, desde la correspondencia hasta los diarios, desde la primera persona al estilo libre indirecto, una experimentación controlada que siempre responde a la historia misma y nunca es gratuita. Secuencias como la descripción de la feria de Filadelfia, o el retrato grupal que les hace una fotógrafa itinerante, están especialmente bien logradas. El monólogo final de Edwin Booth es ya de otra liga, incluso para este libro, un cierre magistral.
August 26, 2023
This is an odd case for me: a novel very well written, quite interesting in it subject (a group of Polish immigrants to the USA in the late 19th century centered around that nation's most famous actress), that just never quite grabbed me. Somehow, while being quite good in just about any literary critical category that I can think of--mostly form and character--the novel somehow failed to ever be compelling. I can only blame this on plot, then--even if plot is usually the last thing I look for in a novel, given that I grew up with modernism and then embraced postmodernism in my young adulthood. Or perhaps it was simply that the parts (and this is something of a postmodern text, its various chapters coming at the characters' experiences from several different angles--narrative, diary, monologue etc.) just didn't, for me, come together into the whole I hoped to find. That is to say, since I can't critically put my finger on what I think is missing from the text that's keeping it from achieving greatness, I blame myself. Anyway, it certainly achieves verygoodness.
maybe
September 18, 2019*******************************
*Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
*The Volcano Lover: A Romance DNF
*In America
*Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
*The Volcano Lover: A Romance DNF
*In America
December 21, 2022
Wow, this was a really cool novel, fun to read (except the first chapter which was tough to get into). Sontag takes you to Poland, California, New York, and all across America in the 1860s and 1870s, as a Polish actress takes the nation by storm, more or less, after a few months trying to live in a rural "utopia" effort.
It's very post modern--multiple narrators and styles, some stream of consciousness stuff, a chapter where three conversations are going on at the same time (maybe more, hard to say), a couple of chapters that are diary entries, etc., so if that throws you for a loop, look out.
I loved it though, and didn't expect to. I'm not a big theater person (though I do like and appreciate it, just not a huge fan or anything) but it really pulls you into that world, (I do like reading about people who take art and the arts very seriously) and the utopia attempt is fascinating (I do like reading about utopian societies), if only for descriptions of people and places in 1860s Anaheim and Los Angeles (wow) that sure seems meticulously researched. (All of it does.)
I don't think I've read any Sontag other than "Notes on Camp" in college, which I hated at the time and have never tried again (nothing like taking camp super-duper seriously to bore a young reader). Anyway, this is an excellent book, enough to make me look into more Sontag.
It's very post modern--multiple narrators and styles, some stream of consciousness stuff, a chapter where three conversations are going on at the same time (maybe more, hard to say), a couple of chapters that are diary entries, etc., so if that throws you for a loop, look out.
I loved it though, and didn't expect to. I'm not a big theater person (though I do like and appreciate it, just not a huge fan or anything) but it really pulls you into that world, (I do like reading about people who take art and the arts very seriously) and the utopia attempt is fascinating (I do like reading about utopian societies), if only for descriptions of people and places in 1860s Anaheim and Los Angeles (wow) that sure seems meticulously researched. (All of it does.)
I don't think I've read any Sontag other than "Notes on Camp" in college, which I hated at the time and have never tried again (nothing like taking camp super-duper seriously to bore a young reader). Anyway, this is an excellent book, enough to make me look into more Sontag.
September 21, 2025
Very good prose, and I started off loving the book but the last third or so of the novel does kind of drag so only 4 stars. Surprised I had never heard of Sontag's fiction, and surprised to see this has such a low rating.
August 5, 2016
In America is an historical novel, yet it is more. It is a novel about identity, about names and words and people who leave their homeland for a new unknown and undiscovered land called America. The novel is one where the stage and all that it represents mirrors life -- a story set near the end of the nineteenth century.
On the first page of the novel the motif of the stage is hinted at by how snow flakes seen through a window are described as a "scrim" for the moonlight in the background. The unnamed narrator looks out on the wintry landscape from her vantage point in a warm corner of a large room filled with people. Slowly the narrator, who is Sontag herself embedded in this prelude to the novel, gradually introduces the main characters who are gathered at a private party. These characters include an actress, Maryna the greatest leading lady in Poland; her husband, Bogdan; and a budding writer, Ryszard, who will eventually become her lover.
Language is an important aspect of the novel as the narrator meditates on all the words in the air swirling around her at this party. Her meditation leads he to comment that "I mean here only to give these words their proper, poignant emphasis. And it occurred to me that this might explain, partly, my presence in this room. For I was moved by the way they possessed these words and regarded themselves bound by them to actions. . . . I was enjoying the repetition. Dare I say I felt at one with them? Almost. Those dreaded words, dreaded by others (not by me), seemed like caresses. Pleasantly numbed, I felt myself borne along by their music . . ." (p 8) While musing on the Polish diva who holds the company spellbound, Sontag notes: "I remember when I first read Middlemarch: I had just turned 18, and a third of the way through the book burst into tears because I realised not only that I was Dorothea but that a few months earlier, I had married Mr Casaubon... It took me nine years to decide that I had the right, the moral right, to divorce Mr Casaubon." (p 24) She indulges herself and suggests that this will be the story of a Dorothea who does not, like George Eliot's heroine, bury herself in the obscurity of "private" good works. She will shine in the public blaze of celebrity.
The party is in Poland, but some converse in French as well. This is their home where they are known and comfortable--yet there is more--ideas are in the air. The narrator hears bits of conversation that hint at plans Maryna has to leave Poland. These words suggest the possibility of a project to create a "perfect" society, one influenced by both Voltaire and Rousseau. After further ruminations on these people surrounding her at the party the narrator decides to write their story: "I decided to follow them out into the world." (p 27)
After this unusual introduction the actual story, an historical one, continues for nine more chapters chronicling the journey of Maryna, her close friends, family, and entourage, to America. They fairly quickly settle in a dusty southern California village established originally by Germans, namely Anaheim. Just as earlier communities like Brook Farm in New England and others have failed theirs does as well. The experiment is unsuccessful due to unexpected difficulties as they find the empty and dry expanse of California is not conducive to their plans. While many of them return to Poland it is at this moment that Maryna, longing for a return to the stage, decides to move to San Francisco and mount an American career where she can once again become a leading lady, perhaps a legend. This is, after all, an historical novel and the main characters are based on real people. Maryna is based on Helena Modrzejewska, who at 35 years old was Poland's greatest actress and who emigrated to America. The story abounds with moments when Maryna is in the theater playing Camille or Juliet for adoring audiences. Gradually her stage character takes hold of the reader much as it must have for those audiences. Following her came her husband and her lover, based on the writer Henryk Sinkiewicz (later famous as the author of Quo Vadis, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature). However, not all the real names are changed and , not unlike some other historical novels, famous names drop in from time to time including Edwin Booth and Henry James (later in the story as Maryna has moved on to conquer the London stage; her success there was limited but better by far than that of James whose plays bombed).
This is a novel that, according to the author, was inspired by her own family background as all four of her grandparents came from Poland. She herself, in the three years of the novel's conception, frequently visited "besieged Sarajevo" (the novel is dedicated to her friends in that unhappy city). The main character has luminescent moments, but I found the story as a whole uneven. Ryszard and Bogdan both have moments "on stage" but the rest of the characters fade into the background. They all were on stage as followers of Maryna to America and it is a book worth reading to share the experiences of her dramatic and eventful life.
On the first page of the novel the motif of the stage is hinted at by how snow flakes seen through a window are described as a "scrim" for the moonlight in the background. The unnamed narrator looks out on the wintry landscape from her vantage point in a warm corner of a large room filled with people. Slowly the narrator, who is Sontag herself embedded in this prelude to the novel, gradually introduces the main characters who are gathered at a private party. These characters include an actress, Maryna the greatest leading lady in Poland; her husband, Bogdan; and a budding writer, Ryszard, who will eventually become her lover.
Language is an important aspect of the novel as the narrator meditates on all the words in the air swirling around her at this party. Her meditation leads he to comment that "I mean here only to give these words their proper, poignant emphasis. And it occurred to me that this might explain, partly, my presence in this room. For I was moved by the way they possessed these words and regarded themselves bound by them to actions. . . . I was enjoying the repetition. Dare I say I felt at one with them? Almost. Those dreaded words, dreaded by others (not by me), seemed like caresses. Pleasantly numbed, I felt myself borne along by their music . . ." (p 8) While musing on the Polish diva who holds the company spellbound, Sontag notes: "I remember when I first read Middlemarch: I had just turned 18, and a third of the way through the book burst into tears because I realised not only that I was Dorothea but that a few months earlier, I had married Mr Casaubon... It took me nine years to decide that I had the right, the moral right, to divorce Mr Casaubon." (p 24) She indulges herself and suggests that this will be the story of a Dorothea who does not, like George Eliot's heroine, bury herself in the obscurity of "private" good works. She will shine in the public blaze of celebrity.
The party is in Poland, but some converse in French as well. This is their home where they are known and comfortable--yet there is more--ideas are in the air. The narrator hears bits of conversation that hint at plans Maryna has to leave Poland. These words suggest the possibility of a project to create a "perfect" society, one influenced by both Voltaire and Rousseau. After further ruminations on these people surrounding her at the party the narrator decides to write their story: "I decided to follow them out into the world." (p 27)
After this unusual introduction the actual story, an historical one, continues for nine more chapters chronicling the journey of Maryna, her close friends, family, and entourage, to America. They fairly quickly settle in a dusty southern California village established originally by Germans, namely Anaheim. Just as earlier communities like Brook Farm in New England and others have failed theirs does as well. The experiment is unsuccessful due to unexpected difficulties as they find the empty and dry expanse of California is not conducive to their plans. While many of them return to Poland it is at this moment that Maryna, longing for a return to the stage, decides to move to San Francisco and mount an American career where she can once again become a leading lady, perhaps a legend. This is, after all, an historical novel and the main characters are based on real people. Maryna is based on Helena Modrzejewska, who at 35 years old was Poland's greatest actress and who emigrated to America. The story abounds with moments when Maryna is in the theater playing Camille or Juliet for adoring audiences. Gradually her stage character takes hold of the reader much as it must have for those audiences. Following her came her husband and her lover, based on the writer Henryk Sinkiewicz (later famous as the author of Quo Vadis, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature). However, not all the real names are changed and , not unlike some other historical novels, famous names drop in from time to time including Edwin Booth and Henry James (later in the story as Maryna has moved on to conquer the London stage; her success there was limited but better by far than that of James whose plays bombed).
This is a novel that, according to the author, was inspired by her own family background as all four of her grandparents came from Poland. She herself, in the three years of the novel's conception, frequently visited "besieged Sarajevo" (the novel is dedicated to her friends in that unhappy city). The main character has luminescent moments, but I found the story as a whole uneven. Ryszard and Bogdan both have moments "on stage" but the rest of the characters fade into the background. They all were on stage as followers of Maryna to America and it is a book worth reading to share the experiences of her dramatic and eventful life.
January 16, 2023
The relentless success of these Californians gets on my nerves. I am bred to a distinctively Polish appreciation of the nobility of failure. (It seems vulgar to succeed, and so forth.)
A plague of grasshoppers has descended on our fields.
A plague of grasshoppers has descended on our fields.
November 20, 2016
Review published: https://chronicbibliophilia.wordpress...
“In Poland, you were allowed some practice of the arts of self-indulgence, but you were expected to be sincere and also to have high ideals – people respected you for that. In America, you were expected to exhibit the confusions of inner vehemence, to express opinions no one need take seriously, and have eccentric foibles and extravagant needs, which exhibited the force of your will, your appetitiveness, the spread of your self-regard – all excellent things.”
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In Susan Sontag’s National Book Award winning novel, “In America”, we find another story of immigration, of nineteenth century America, and, most pervasively, a story of female strength and character in a staunchly chauvinistic time and place.
Polish celebrity-couple Maryna Zalezowska and Bogdan Dembowski have decided to emigrate to America. This is not, however, the ‘typical’ poor immigrant, boot-strap story. Maryna Zalezowska is one of Poland’s best-loved actresses and her husband Bogdan is Polish aristocracy. Maryna and Bogdan come to America with financial resources, a veritable village of supporters, and a confidence in their inevitable success. They are determined to make America their own and, though she initially intends to step away from acting and the public eye, Maryna soon can no longer ignore her need for the stage and the limelight.
“In America” takes a deep and developing look at what it means to be one’s self, to discover who we truly are. As a lifelong actress, Maryna is constantly balancing and striving to discriminate among her public persona, the many roles she embodies, and her ‘true’ self.
“If I knew how to hate, perhaps hatred would bring me relief. I ought to have a steel brow and a heart of stone – but what true artist possesses such armor? Only one who feels can produce feeling, only one who loves can inspire love. And would I suffer less if I appeared cold and haughty? No, no, I should just be acting! Yes, a public life is not suited to a woman. Home is the proper place for her. There she reigns – inaccessible, inviolable! But a woman who has dared to raise her head above the others, who has extended her eager hand for laurels, who has not hesitated to expose to the crowds all that her soul contains of enthusiasm and despair – that woman has given everyone the right to rummage in the most secret recesses of her life.”
It is nearly impossible, given the past weeks’ political catastrophe, to ignore the parallels between Maryna, a nineteenth century Polish actor, and the public mishegas surrounding a female candidate for president of the United States in the twenty-first century. Maryna notes to one of her ardent admirers:
“‘It is harder for a woman to want a life different from the one decreed for her. You men have it much easier. You are commended for recklessness, for boldness, for striking out, for being adventurous. A woman has so many inner voices telling her to behave prudently, amiably, timorously. And there is much to be afraid of, I know that. Don’t assume, dear friend, that I have lost all sense of reality. Each time I am brave, I am acting. But that is all that’s needed to be brave, don’t you agree? The appearance of bravery. The performance of it. Since I know I am not brave, not at all this spurs me on to act as if I were.'”
Sigh.
Susan Sontag is a strong, outspoken, much-admired, and often-maligned American woman. Her writing is, as the Washington Post once said, “brave and beautiful”. Though “In America” is set more than 150 years ago, Sontag has made her story relevant and resonant for today. She has also, not incidentally, created a delightful escape. “Losing oneself in a book is a great consolation”, thinks one of the book’s characters, and Sontag’s book was a consolation desperately needed by me these days.
“In Poland, you were allowed some practice of the arts of self-indulgence, but you were expected to be sincere and also to have high ideals – people respected you for that. In America, you were expected to exhibit the confusions of inner vehemence, to express opinions no one need take seriously, and have eccentric foibles and extravagant needs, which exhibited the force of your will, your appetitiveness, the spread of your self-regard – all excellent things.”
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In Susan Sontag’s National Book Award winning novel, “In America”, we find another story of immigration, of nineteenth century America, and, most pervasively, a story of female strength and character in a staunchly chauvinistic time and place.
Polish celebrity-couple Maryna Zalezowska and Bogdan Dembowski have decided to emigrate to America. This is not, however, the ‘typical’ poor immigrant, boot-strap story. Maryna Zalezowska is one of Poland’s best-loved actresses and her husband Bogdan is Polish aristocracy. Maryna and Bogdan come to America with financial resources, a veritable village of supporters, and a confidence in their inevitable success. They are determined to make America their own and, though she initially intends to step away from acting and the public eye, Maryna soon can no longer ignore her need for the stage and the limelight.
“In America” takes a deep and developing look at what it means to be one’s self, to discover who we truly are. As a lifelong actress, Maryna is constantly balancing and striving to discriminate among her public persona, the many roles she embodies, and her ‘true’ self.
“If I knew how to hate, perhaps hatred would bring me relief. I ought to have a steel brow and a heart of stone – but what true artist possesses such armor? Only one who feels can produce feeling, only one who loves can inspire love. And would I suffer less if I appeared cold and haughty? No, no, I should just be acting! Yes, a public life is not suited to a woman. Home is the proper place for her. There she reigns – inaccessible, inviolable! But a woman who has dared to raise her head above the others, who has extended her eager hand for laurels, who has not hesitated to expose to the crowds all that her soul contains of enthusiasm and despair – that woman has given everyone the right to rummage in the most secret recesses of her life.”
It is nearly impossible, given the past weeks’ political catastrophe, to ignore the parallels between Maryna, a nineteenth century Polish actor, and the public mishegas surrounding a female candidate for president of the United States in the twenty-first century. Maryna notes to one of her ardent admirers:
“‘It is harder for a woman to want a life different from the one decreed for her. You men have it much easier. You are commended for recklessness, for boldness, for striking out, for being adventurous. A woman has so many inner voices telling her to behave prudently, amiably, timorously. And there is much to be afraid of, I know that. Don’t assume, dear friend, that I have lost all sense of reality. Each time I am brave, I am acting. But that is all that’s needed to be brave, don’t you agree? The appearance of bravery. The performance of it. Since I know I am not brave, not at all this spurs me on to act as if I were.'”
Sigh.
Susan Sontag is a strong, outspoken, much-admired, and often-maligned American woman. Her writing is, as the Washington Post once said, “brave and beautiful”. Though “In America” is set more than 150 years ago, Sontag has made her story relevant and resonant for today. She has also, not incidentally, created a delightful escape. “Losing oneself in a book is a great consolation”, thinks one of the book’s characters, and Sontag’s book was a consolation desperately needed by me these days.
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