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Pod znakiem Saturna
Amerykańska autorka kreśli sylwetki kilku twórców, m.in.: Waltera Benjamina, Eliasa Canettiego, Antonina Artauda, zastanawia się nad źródłami popkulturowej fascynacji faszyzmem i przygląda się kolejnym mistyfikacjom Leni Riefenstahl. Motywem przewodnim wszystkich esejów czyni Sontag związki estetyki i etyki w literaturze, filozofii, teatrze i filmie. Niektóre eseje mają charakter bardziej osobisty, jak wspomnienia o Paulu Goodmanie i Rolandzie Barthesie, inne stanowią interpretacje dzieł, wszystkie jednak cechuje przenikliwość myśli i pasja autorki. „Wszelka sztuka, która wyraża radykalne niezadowolenie i pragnie zaburzyć miłe doznania, ryzykuje, że zostanie rozbrojona, zneutralizowana i pozbawiona burzycielskiej mocy przez podziw innych, przez to, że zostanie (lub wydaje się, że została) całkowicie przeniknięta, przez praktyczne zastosowanie” – pisze Sontag w eseju o Artaudzie. Sama stara się czytać i pisać tak, żeby nie ujarzmić sztuki, lecz ocalić jej niszczycielską moc.
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1980
184 people are currently reading
3904 people want to read
About the author
Susan Sontag
230 books5,497 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 139 reviews
May 8, 2023
Nieustannie jestem pod wrażeniem erudycji oraz przenikliwości twórczości Sontag.
April 3, 2016
superb essays on barthes, fascism, and benjamin
May 22, 2025
Naturalmente non ho letto questa edizione ma quella appena uscita con Nottetempo nella collana Figure (ho provato a caricarla, GR mi rimbalza) che io vi consiglio sia per la copertina STUPENDA che per i contenuti. (vi consiglio anche altri saggi della stessa collana, almeno dategli un'occhiata, c'è roba super interessante).
Ho scoperto la Sontag duemila anni fa all'università, quando un illuminato giovane assistente, a Letteratura Inglese 2 (o 3..) ci proposte un fantastico corso sul camp e sulla cultura queer (duemila anni fa ripeto, altro che avanti) e nessuno non sapeva una beata fava sul genere e figuriamoci sul resto. Già lì sono impazzita per la Sontag, mi aveva aperto un mondo. Quello che ripropone Nottetempo è una raccolta su libri e film e su autori di cui non sapevo NIENTE, niente, la solita ignorante. Sono scritti in modo chiaro ed è un piacere seguire i suoi ragionamenti (il saggio sulla Riefensthal è davvero illuminante).
Se avete voglia di un po' di saggistica, sono certa non vi deluderà.
Ho scoperto la Sontag duemila anni fa all'università, quando un illuminato giovane assistente, a Letteratura Inglese 2 (o 3..) ci proposte un fantastico corso sul camp e sulla cultura queer (duemila anni fa ripeto, altro che avanti) e nessuno non sapeva una beata fava sul genere e figuriamoci sul resto. Già lì sono impazzita per la Sontag, mi aveva aperto un mondo. Quello che ripropone Nottetempo è una raccolta su libri e film e su autori di cui non sapevo NIENTE, niente, la solita ignorante. Sono scritti in modo chiaro ed è un piacere seguire i suoi ragionamenti (il saggio sulla Riefensthal è davvero illuminante).
Se avete voglia di un po' di saggistica, sono certa non vi deluderà.
September 20, 2025
ON PAUL GOODMAN
nonsense – only a supremely naive reader would buy this one. a prime example of what paglia called sontag's image-making hip posturing (and what an adolescent figure she picked for it). if you're not organically one of sontag's big daddies, you don't matter – therefore goodman can't matter, and no quantity of this bizarrely 'americanized' voice trying to come across as earnest and direct could ever convince me otherwise. this is a masquerade by which one should refuse to be convinced, on principle; also, if what sontag was saying here was really true, then she would have certainly found another medium of expressing it
APPROACHING ARTAUD
sontag at her most glorious – the best essay in the collection BY FAR, and certainly has to be one of the best she has ever written. laborious but impeccable, its insights are unparalleled. here goes a series of citations:
"Cultural revolution that refuses to be political has nowhere to go but toward a theology of culture–and a soteriology."
"The project of creating in a secular culture an institution that can manifest a dark, hidden reality is a contradiction in terms."
"The theater Artaud wants to create enacts a secularized Gnostic rite. It is not an expiation. It is not an expiation. (...) It is a rite of transformation–the communal performance of a violent act of spiritual alchemy."
"Art will be redemptive when, like the redeemed body, it transcends itself–when it has no organs (genres), no different parts".
The anarchist view "is a form of conservative, humanistic thinking"; likewise, "Far from being subversive, the spirit of the Surrealists is ultimately constructive and falls well within the humanist tradition". Opposing that, "The literature of the crazy in this century is a rich religious literature–perhaps the last original zone of genuine Gnostic speculation".
Then look at her writing in the tradition of 'humanistic' ease, far removed from theoretical kneejerking, in no danger whatsoever of reaching for Foucauldian terminology: "The values of sanity are not eternal or "natural," any more than there is a self-evident, common-sense meaning to the condition of being insane. The perception that some people are crazy is part of the history of thought, and madness requires a historical definition".
"Madness is the logical conclusion of the commitment to individuality when that commitment is pushed far enough".
"Artaud is someone who has made a spiritual trip for us–a shaman (...) For anyone who reads Artaud through, he remains fiercely out of reach, an unassimilable voice and presence".
FASCINATING FASCISM
the classic sontag irks are here – the pathetic in-vogue signaling ("S-m, not swinging, is the big sexual secret of the last few years"), the odd-flavoured moralism ("The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture"). a multifaced look at fascist aesthetics is ultimately left unstitched because while its structural analysis is good, its cultural analysis is spread too broadly, over too many ephemeral phenomena (not all of them analysed equally strongly or convincingly). the central attack on riefenstahl feels, for me, ultimately somewhat inconclusive. as an analysis of diversification and multi-context 'viability' of fascist aesthetics, it seems to have convinced many – but i remain on the fence
UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN
dense but not overwhelming, this is real sontag – not the uncanny valley sontag of paul goodman hagiography. the meticulous exposition of benjamin's temperament reads as passionate and heartfelt. benjamin the indecisive melancholic, the collector, the meticulous, the dense, the mythographer of space, the metaphoricist and puny archaeologist of self (only dead stuff has meaning; 'memory' is an euphemism for things dead; time only ever moves forward, while space branches in all directions) is carefully 'excavated' and his thought is presented thoroughly, clearly, even systematically. kind of a primer in intellectual biography
SYBERBERG'S HITLER
suffused with magisterial sontagist pronouncements, this one is irresistible. the movie's aesthetics, ethics, poetics, thick allusivity and pretty much every other angle are examined and explicated. like late joyce, sontag says, being in a way absolute, syberberg's hitler "erases other art". utterly unashamed in its embrace of hermetic high art, this is an exercise in canon-making; preaching only to the initiated, it doubles as a supreme intellectual showcase of taste-making's reigning queen. it's a triumphant coronation for the persona of susan the sybil – always just out of reach of those who can only conditionally be called her peers
edit: re-read this one a year later and it's mind-blowingly good. what luminous insights, intelligence, perceptivity, nuance! — this is ex cathedra stuff
REMEMBERING BARTHES
captures an idiosyncratic, cerebrally sensual character with all his traits, quirks and tastes well, but i found it almost impossible not to get irked by some of its bizarre pieties ("sexual transactions aside, his interest in you tended to be your interest in him. 'Ah, Susan. Toujours fidèle,' were the words with which he greeted me, affectionately, when we last saw each other. I was, I am."); these, however, at least ring true, unlike those she wrote for goodman!
MIND AS PASSION
some interesting metaphors here ("Hebrew ear culture" vs "Greek eye culture"; mute knowledge as "dangerous"; emphasis of the importance of the ear as a "consciously archaizing theme"), but canetti himself sounds passionless, sterile, bloated, and self-important, as does (at times) sontag's murky, painfully pious attempt to make him sound relevant out of rational scope
nonsense – only a supremely naive reader would buy this one. a prime example of what paglia called sontag's image-making hip posturing (and what an adolescent figure she picked for it). if you're not organically one of sontag's big daddies, you don't matter – therefore goodman can't matter, and no quantity of this bizarrely 'americanized' voice trying to come across as earnest and direct could ever convince me otherwise. this is a masquerade by which one should refuse to be convinced, on principle; also, if what sontag was saying here was really true, then she would have certainly found another medium of expressing it
APPROACHING ARTAUD
sontag at her most glorious – the best essay in the collection BY FAR, and certainly has to be one of the best she has ever written. laborious but impeccable, its insights are unparalleled. here goes a series of citations:
"Cultural revolution that refuses to be political has nowhere to go but toward a theology of culture–and a soteriology."
"The project of creating in a secular culture an institution that can manifest a dark, hidden reality is a contradiction in terms."
"The theater Artaud wants to create enacts a secularized Gnostic rite. It is not an expiation. It is not an expiation. (...) It is a rite of transformation–the communal performance of a violent act of spiritual alchemy."
"Art will be redemptive when, like the redeemed body, it transcends itself–when it has no organs (genres), no different parts".
The anarchist view "is a form of conservative, humanistic thinking"; likewise, "Far from being subversive, the spirit of the Surrealists is ultimately constructive and falls well within the humanist tradition". Opposing that, "The literature of the crazy in this century is a rich religious literature–perhaps the last original zone of genuine Gnostic speculation".
Then look at her writing in the tradition of 'humanistic' ease, far removed from theoretical kneejerking, in no danger whatsoever of reaching for Foucauldian terminology: "The values of sanity are not eternal or "natural," any more than there is a self-evident, common-sense meaning to the condition of being insane. The perception that some people are crazy is part of the history of thought, and madness requires a historical definition".
"Madness is the logical conclusion of the commitment to individuality when that commitment is pushed far enough".
"Artaud is someone who has made a spiritual trip for us–a shaman (...) For anyone who reads Artaud through, he remains fiercely out of reach, an unassimilable voice and presence".
FASCINATING FASCISM
the classic sontag irks are here – the pathetic in-vogue signaling ("S-m, not swinging, is the big sexual secret of the last few years"), the odd-flavoured moralism ("The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture"). a multifaced look at fascist aesthetics is ultimately left unstitched because while its structural analysis is good, its cultural analysis is spread too broadly, over too many ephemeral phenomena (not all of them analysed equally strongly or convincingly). the central attack on riefenstahl feels, for me, ultimately somewhat inconclusive. as an analysis of diversification and multi-context 'viability' of fascist aesthetics, it seems to have convinced many – but i remain on the fence
UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN
dense but not overwhelming, this is real sontag – not the uncanny valley sontag of paul goodman hagiography. the meticulous exposition of benjamin's temperament reads as passionate and heartfelt. benjamin the indecisive melancholic, the collector, the meticulous, the dense, the mythographer of space, the metaphoricist and puny archaeologist of self (only dead stuff has meaning; 'memory' is an euphemism for things dead; time only ever moves forward, while space branches in all directions) is carefully 'excavated' and his thought is presented thoroughly, clearly, even systematically. kind of a primer in intellectual biography
SYBERBERG'S HITLER
suffused with magisterial sontagist pronouncements, this one is irresistible. the movie's aesthetics, ethics, poetics, thick allusivity and pretty much every other angle are examined and explicated. like late joyce, sontag says, being in a way absolute, syberberg's hitler "erases other art". utterly unashamed in its embrace of hermetic high art, this is an exercise in canon-making; preaching only to the initiated, it doubles as a supreme intellectual showcase of taste-making's reigning queen. it's a triumphant coronation for the persona of susan the sybil – always just out of reach of those who can only conditionally be called her peers
edit: re-read this one a year later and it's mind-blowingly good. what luminous insights, intelligence, perceptivity, nuance! — this is ex cathedra stuff
REMEMBERING BARTHES
captures an idiosyncratic, cerebrally sensual character with all his traits, quirks and tastes well, but i found it almost impossible not to get irked by some of its bizarre pieties ("sexual transactions aside, his interest in you tended to be your interest in him. 'Ah, Susan. Toujours fidèle,' were the words with which he greeted me, affectionately, when we last saw each other. I was, I am."); these, however, at least ring true, unlike those she wrote for goodman!
MIND AS PASSION
some interesting metaphors here ("Hebrew ear culture" vs "Greek eye culture"; mute knowledge as "dangerous"; emphasis of the importance of the ear as a "consciously archaizing theme"), but canetti himself sounds passionless, sterile, bloated, and self-important, as does (at times) sontag's murky, painfully pious attempt to make him sound relevant out of rational scope
August 20, 2018
Time does not give one much leeway: it thrusts us forward from behind, blows us through the narrow tunnel of the present into the future. But space is broad, teeming with possibilities, positions, intersections, passages, detours, U-turns, dead-ends, one-way streets.
This is an important collection of essays. One which quickly afforded me acquaintance with an unknown figure (Paul Goodman) and then continued with intriguing approaches to figures which have occupied my personal pantheon for decades: Artaud, Canetti, Benjamin and Barthes. Today is my best friend Joel's birthday and when I told him earlier he should use the Fascinating Fascism essay for his classes, he shot back that he was curious about Sontag on Bataille. Well, apparently this occurred at least twice. These essays were written throughout the 1970s and there is a sobriety in effect. The risks of extremism have be calculated and are to be avoided.
My one concern was in her measured approach to My Hitler: A Film From Germany she didn't mention Fassbinder. I do agree with her on the point that despite the hubris of the director's claim: we haven't been exorcised of Der Führer.
This is an important collection of essays. One which quickly afforded me acquaintance with an unknown figure (Paul Goodman) and then continued with intriguing approaches to figures which have occupied my personal pantheon for decades: Artaud, Canetti, Benjamin and Barthes. Today is my best friend Joel's birthday and when I told him earlier he should use the Fascinating Fascism essay for his classes, he shot back that he was curious about Sontag on Bataille. Well, apparently this occurred at least twice. These essays were written throughout the 1970s and there is a sobriety in effect. The risks of extremism have be calculated and are to be avoided.
My one concern was in her measured approach to My Hitler: A Film From Germany she didn't mention Fassbinder. I do agree with her on the point that despite the hubris of the director's claim: we haven't been exorcised of Der Führer.
October 8, 2008
Sontag has once again compiled an intelligent collection of essays on widely varying aesthetic topics. Though she begins with a rather artificial and patronizing obituary for the late man of letters Paul Goodman, whose body of work she is evidently less than enthused with, though she feels obliged to compare him to Sartre. The essay rings of false piety.
She moves into an expansive and favorable essay on Antonin Artaud, the great playwright and artist of the avant-garde movement. Sontag reviews the developments of his great career within the context of moralistic philosophic aesthetics, liking him with Nietzsche, then Sade, then Breton.
Yet the most impressive essay in Under the Sign is titled `Fascinating Fascism,' and it is truly fascinating. In it, Sontag overviews the work of filmmaker, actress, and photographer Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi propagandist whose body of work includes the esteemed documentaries Triumph of the Will, and Olympia, the latter about the 1936 Olympic games. Sontag reviews Riefenstahl's book of photography on the Nuba tribe in Sudan, which is apparently breathtaking. Sontag concludes that Reifenstahl, despite her `de-Nazification' and renunciation of her political past is still enamored with a fascist ideal, valuing the masculine strength of the male Nuba and placing their bodies in the foreground, while the women remain vulnerable and tucked away in shadowy corners. The essay is highly provocative.
The title essay is about the great philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin, whom she reviews favorably. This essay provides some interesting tidbits of information that Hannah Arendt neglects to include in her introduction, such as Benjamin's apparent hatred for Heidegger's philosophy.
Also included in this volume is an excellent and terse review of Roland Barthes, and the fine novelist Elias Canetti, whom she holds in great esteem.
She moves into an expansive and favorable essay on Antonin Artaud, the great playwright and artist of the avant-garde movement. Sontag reviews the developments of his great career within the context of moralistic philosophic aesthetics, liking him with Nietzsche, then Sade, then Breton.
Yet the most impressive essay in Under the Sign is titled `Fascinating Fascism,' and it is truly fascinating. In it, Sontag overviews the work of filmmaker, actress, and photographer Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi propagandist whose body of work includes the esteemed documentaries Triumph of the Will, and Olympia, the latter about the 1936 Olympic games. Sontag reviews Riefenstahl's book of photography on the Nuba tribe in Sudan, which is apparently breathtaking. Sontag concludes that Reifenstahl, despite her `de-Nazification' and renunciation of her political past is still enamored with a fascist ideal, valuing the masculine strength of the male Nuba and placing their bodies in the foreground, while the women remain vulnerable and tucked away in shadowy corners. The essay is highly provocative.
The title essay is about the great philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin, whom she reviews favorably. This essay provides some interesting tidbits of information that Hannah Arendt neglects to include in her introduction, such as Benjamin's apparent hatred for Heidegger's philosophy.
Also included in this volume is an excellent and terse review of Roland Barthes, and the fine novelist Elias Canetti, whom she holds in great esteem.
July 19, 2014
Sontag, as ever, manages to craft writings of remarkable intellectual range and depth on pretty much anything she focuses. Under the Sign of Saturn feels a bit darker than some of her other books I've read, in so far is a lot of the essays focus on (both directly and implicity) fascism and its broad appeal and continued resonance in the arts and culture of the post-war era. I think the best thing I can say about these is that even when you have no exposure to the works of people she writes about (I for one don't know the first thing about Antonin Artaud Elias Canetti or Hans Syberberg) she still manages to spin out so many dazzlingly smart observations that they are absolutely worth your time. Sontag makes you passionate about everything she's passionate about. And there seems to be very little that she isn't passionate about.
August 24, 2021
literally drop dead gorgeous
the coolest most insightful queen, I had no idea this is even possible
the coolest most insightful queen, I had no idea this is even possible
February 18, 2014
Re-reading this I'm once again struck by the sheer scope of Sontag's writing—the variety of topics she encompasses here—and her powerful devotion to the culture context of art in its many forms. Sontag became known as both the most current, pop-culture-aware and most adroit critic of her generation and this accomplishment was in good part due to her ability to weave between topics so flawlessly and with such true and exacting insight. Possibly none of her collections of essays really showcase that acumen better than this one: Sontag here gets away from the overriding concept of the day that art was to be focused upon in either a historical context (for older works) or in the guise of its own merits alone. Instead of taking either an arts historical or straight-ahead critical view, Sontag is able to combine these; even when speaking of film she is able to really dive deep into the procedural as well as external, cultural, aspects. She's concerned above all else with aesthetics but not just in an isolated or immediate context. Probably what she accomplishes most here is providing a groundwork for how criticism can be undertaken in a way that is provident and comprehensive to all facets of a work, including its extended cultural ramifications.
It's important to remember that at this point in her career, while known as a critic, Sontag first had published a novel and was as keen on writing fiction as commenting on it: that is clear in her treatment here of Elias Canetti and also her approach to Walter Benjamin in what is perhaps the finest essay in this collection. It is however her command of the immediate powers of film that is probably most vital: in 1980 when this collection was first published, film criticism was starting to be taken seriously in literary circles however the reach and depth of Sontag's introspection here is simply without precedent.
It's important to remember that at this point in her career, while known as a critic, Sontag first had published a novel and was as keen on writing fiction as commenting on it: that is clear in her treatment here of Elias Canetti and also her approach to Walter Benjamin in what is perhaps the finest essay in this collection. It is however her command of the immediate powers of film that is probably most vital: in 1980 when this collection was first published, film criticism was starting to be taken seriously in literary circles however the reach and depth of Sontag's introspection here is simply without precedent.
July 10, 2022
The title essay is about Walter Benjamin, who wrote of himself "I came into the world under the sign of Saturn--the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays." Sontag organizes her essay around the astrological theme to which Benjamin alludes, writing about his melancholic temperament and how this relates to his writings, projects and interests.
The longest essay in the book is about Antonin Artaud, and the way Sontag employs his works--not only his essays and letters, but his appearances in film as well--to show the relations Artaud traced among his art, his ideas, his experience of language, and his madness, left me with the impression that she had read everything of Artaud's she was able to get her hands on.
There is an essay about the career of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, and another about Syberberg's Hitler, a Film. The book opens with Sontag's memorial of the recently deceased Paul Goodman and closes with another on Roland Barthes.
Acquired Jun 9, 1998
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec
The longest essay in the book is about Antonin Artaud, and the way Sontag employs his works--not only his essays and letters, but his appearances in film as well--to show the relations Artaud traced among his art, his ideas, his experience of language, and his madness, left me with the impression that she had read everything of Artaud's she was able to get her hands on.
There is an essay about the career of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, and another about Syberberg's Hitler, a Film. The book opens with Sontag's memorial of the recently deceased Paul Goodman and closes with another on Roland Barthes.
Acquired Jun 9, 1998
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec
April 24, 2024
Necesitaba ser fijado a la tierra, y nada como los pensamientos de Sontag me pueden ser tan útiles. Descargar energía.
Todo libro es sobre otro libro —dijo Bloom I believe— pero este libro es sobre otros libros. Escribe sobre autores que admira, y aunque sea tan fría es tan sensible y apasionada. Reconoce el presente como fórmula para leer la vida, para leer el futuro. Voy a hacer énfasis en los que más me gustaron (Benjamin-Barthes-Weil).
"Bajo el signo de Saturno" tiene una carilla entera sin mencionar a quién pingo se refiere. Y es tan excitante. Esta es la primera oración: 'En la mayor parte de sus retratos, tiene la mirada baja, la mano derecha en el rostro', QUÉ RETRATOS? DE QUIÉN? Excelente. Una vez hice eso en un ensayito sobre Silvina Ocampo y una profesora me escribió "DE QUIÉN HABLÁS?" en mayús: hay que manejar la ansiedad *nomeacuerdoelnombredelamujer*, ya te vas a enterar. No solo no revela el nombre, sino que además describe fotografías de él o ella.
Bueno, siga el baile. La segunda hoja —todavía sin mencionar a quién se refiere— dice 'Otra foto, de 1937, muestra a Benjamin en la Biblioteca Nacional de París'. Y después de dos párrafos y un doble espaciado revela 'Benjamin era lo que los franceses llaman un triste'; es sobre Benjamin, top héroe de Sontag.
'«Yo vine al mundo bajo el signo de Saturno: la estrella de revolución más lenta, el planetá de las desviaciones y demoras..»', ella dice que la clave en el modo de leer de Benjamin está en su temperamento (melancólico). Lo expresa en todo lo que ve. Es parte de un mundo que cae —PGM— y va camino a caerse otra vez. Y en esa oscuridad, esa aprehensión, twist of the wrist, encuentra una sensibilidad. Durísimo. Nadie quiere eso, pero le tocó, y por algo fue Benjamin, y por algo le fue como le fue, y por algo le va como le va. Él para el mundo en un oleaje de cambios intransigentes. La vida le es un laberinto y no tiene apuro, no puede tenerlo.
El choque entre la visión astrológica-emocional de Benjamin y la racionalidad de Sontag es brillante. Me hace pensar en que Benjamin llega a las cosas a través de las emociones, y Sontag también, pero entiende la maleabilidad de ellas, así que racionaliza y racionaliza, arma y desarma. La infidelidad con la que Benjamin se autodenomina es para Sontag una imposibilidad por aferrarse al mundo, a la gente, pero sí a las cosas, pues Benjamin coleccionista.
Ahora Barthes. "La escritura en sí misma". Es curioso, aunque Barthes es terriblemente autorreferencial y siempre habla de sí mismo, tuvo un destino muy distinto —o no tanto— al de Benjamin. Mi teoría es que produjo mucho a partir de las semillas plantadas por el anterior, las asentó, y las vio crecer, es decir, tuvo muchísimo renombre e hizo lo que quería y como quería. El tema de su escritura para Sontag es la escritura en sí misma, cosa que dije en el primer párrafo de esto, antes de haber leído el texto, my dreams, my inner visions, all my mystical ambitions.
Barthes vio la literatura como una chispa, y la hizo crecer escribiendo sobre ella. Es mutuo. "Temperamento" vuelve a repetirse en este texto, como visión muy fuerte del mundo, y pregnada en su obra. La importancia de la forma y su efecto sobrematerial en el lector. Forma de desarmar el texto y alcanzar nuevos niveles de placer. Aunque después se aleje del formalismo —a falta de otra cosa— y se funda emocionalmente. Porque en Barthes nada es estático. Las emociones no lo son.
Sofisticado intelectualmente pero expansivo social, culturalmente. Y con tanto cariño que transgrede el reglamento académico —y su visión— para mostrar algo más: lo que él ve. Algo que no está atado. Lo que desprende el poder de las palabras. Él y Benjamin son las puertas a la escritura de Sontag, una bastante amena y enlighteadora para cualquier lector. No estoy devolviendo ni el 10% de lo buenos que son estos textos, no me da la cabeza como a Sontag, o tal vez solo soy vago. Hermosísimo.
En "Simone Weil" —no lo incluye acá pero no me importa, se va a levantar de la tumba y hauntearme? Que haga fila— Sontag es tan reticente. Podría haber hecho un texto afirmando a Weil, pero se pone en un punto medio, y no porque no la admire. 'La verdad es equilibrio, pero quizá lo opuesto a la verdad, el desequilibrio, no sea mentira'.
Desconfía de toda esencia místico-esotérica, no enaltece al artista sufrido, tampoco es que lo ataque precisamente, explica las circunstancias.
'En el respeto que sentimos por esas vidas, reconocemos la presencia del misterio en el mundo, y el misterio es precisamente lo que desmiente una segura posesión de la verdad, de una verdad objetiva'. Para ella la mejor verdad es la sana. Y uno no puede coincidir. No podemos decir que las verdades de gente como Pizarnik o Plath son las mejores, porque estaríamos todos mword, y porque *mi profesora de Semiótica's voice* por regla general las sociedades no se swordean. Pero. Tal vez esas verdades sirvan como iluminaciones, para seguir viviendo. Cero bullshit romántica esta muchacha. Volviendo al inicio, a Benjamin, pareciera haber entonces cierta derrota en sí mismo, en su cosmovisión. Pareciera. 'El suicidio es comprendido como una respuesta de la voluntad heroica a la derrota de la voluntad. La única manera de evitar el suicidio, sugiere Benjamin, consiste en estar más allá del heroísmo, más allá de los esfuerzos de la voluntad. El carácter destructivo no puede sentirse atrapado, porque «ve caminos por doquier». Comprometido alegremente a reducir lo que existe a escombros, «se coloca en las encrucijadas»'. La conclusión, como siempre, es Dios teda Dios tekita.
Muchísimo placer. Me cansé. En otro momento reseñaré "Fascinante fascismo", que no dudo es genial.
I'll wait for you if you want me to
I'll wait for you if you want me to
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
If you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go go)
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
If you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go)
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
if you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go go)
I will wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
if you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I will wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go)
I'll wait wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait oh
Todo libro es sobre otro libro —dijo Bloom I believe— pero este libro es sobre otros libros. Escribe sobre autores que admira, y aunque sea tan fría es tan sensible y apasionada. Reconoce el presente como fórmula para leer la vida, para leer el futuro. Voy a hacer énfasis en los que más me gustaron (Benjamin-Barthes-Weil).
"Bajo el signo de Saturno" tiene una carilla entera sin mencionar a quién pingo se refiere. Y es tan excitante. Esta es la primera oración: 'En la mayor parte de sus retratos, tiene la mirada baja, la mano derecha en el rostro', QUÉ RETRATOS? DE QUIÉN? Excelente. Una vez hice eso en un ensayito sobre Silvina Ocampo y una profesora me escribió "DE QUIÉN HABLÁS?" en mayús: hay que manejar la ansiedad *nomeacuerdoelnombredelamujer*, ya te vas a enterar. No solo no revela el nombre, sino que además describe fotografías de él o ella.
Bueno, siga el baile. La segunda hoja —todavía sin mencionar a quién se refiere— dice 'Otra foto, de 1937, muestra a Benjamin en la Biblioteca Nacional de París'. Y después de dos párrafos y un doble espaciado revela 'Benjamin era lo que los franceses llaman un triste'; es sobre Benjamin, top héroe de Sontag.
'«Yo vine al mundo bajo el signo de Saturno: la estrella de revolución más lenta, el planetá de las desviaciones y demoras..»', ella dice que la clave en el modo de leer de Benjamin está en su temperamento (melancólico). Lo expresa en todo lo que ve. Es parte de un mundo que cae —PGM— y va camino a caerse otra vez. Y en esa oscuridad, esa aprehensión, twist of the wrist, encuentra una sensibilidad. Durísimo. Nadie quiere eso, pero le tocó, y por algo fue Benjamin, y por algo le fue como le fue, y por algo le va como le va. Él para el mundo en un oleaje de cambios intransigentes. La vida le es un laberinto y no tiene apuro, no puede tenerlo.
El choque entre la visión astrológica-emocional de Benjamin y la racionalidad de Sontag es brillante. Me hace pensar en que Benjamin llega a las cosas a través de las emociones, y Sontag también, pero entiende la maleabilidad de ellas, así que racionaliza y racionaliza, arma y desarma. La infidelidad con la que Benjamin se autodenomina es para Sontag una imposibilidad por aferrarse al mundo, a la gente, pero sí a las cosas, pues Benjamin coleccionista.
Ahora Barthes. "La escritura en sí misma". Es curioso, aunque Barthes es terriblemente autorreferencial y siempre habla de sí mismo, tuvo un destino muy distinto —o no tanto— al de Benjamin. Mi teoría es que produjo mucho a partir de las semillas plantadas por el anterior, las asentó, y las vio crecer, es decir, tuvo muchísimo renombre e hizo lo que quería y como quería. El tema de su escritura para Sontag es la escritura en sí misma, cosa que dije en el primer párrafo de esto, antes de haber leído el texto, my dreams, my inner visions, all my mystical ambitions.
Barthes vio la literatura como una chispa, y la hizo crecer escribiendo sobre ella. Es mutuo. "Temperamento" vuelve a repetirse en este texto, como visión muy fuerte del mundo, y pregnada en su obra. La importancia de la forma y su efecto sobrematerial en el lector. Forma de desarmar el texto y alcanzar nuevos niveles de placer. Aunque después se aleje del formalismo —a falta de otra cosa— y se funda emocionalmente. Porque en Barthes nada es estático. Las emociones no lo son.
Sofisticado intelectualmente pero expansivo social, culturalmente. Y con tanto cariño que transgrede el reglamento académico —y su visión— para mostrar algo más: lo que él ve. Algo que no está atado. Lo que desprende el poder de las palabras. Él y Benjamin son las puertas a la escritura de Sontag, una bastante amena y enlighteadora para cualquier lector. No estoy devolviendo ni el 10% de lo buenos que son estos textos, no me da la cabeza como a Sontag, o tal vez solo soy vago. Hermosísimo.
En "Simone Weil" —no lo incluye acá pero no me importa, se va a levantar de la tumba y hauntearme? Que haga fila— Sontag es tan reticente. Podría haber hecho un texto afirmando a Weil, pero se pone en un punto medio, y no porque no la admire. 'La verdad es equilibrio, pero quizá lo opuesto a la verdad, el desequilibrio, no sea mentira'.
Desconfía de toda esencia místico-esotérica, no enaltece al artista sufrido, tampoco es que lo ataque precisamente, explica las circunstancias.
'En el respeto que sentimos por esas vidas, reconocemos la presencia del misterio en el mundo, y el misterio es precisamente lo que desmiente una segura posesión de la verdad, de una verdad objetiva'. Para ella la mejor verdad es la sana. Y uno no puede coincidir. No podemos decir que las verdades de gente como Pizarnik o Plath son las mejores, porque estaríamos todos mword, y porque *mi profesora de Semiótica's voice* por regla general las sociedades no se swordean. Pero. Tal vez esas verdades sirvan como iluminaciones, para seguir viviendo. Cero bullshit romántica esta muchacha. Volviendo al inicio, a Benjamin, pareciera haber entonces cierta derrota en sí mismo, en su cosmovisión. Pareciera. 'El suicidio es comprendido como una respuesta de la voluntad heroica a la derrota de la voluntad. La única manera de evitar el suicidio, sugiere Benjamin, consiste en estar más allá del heroísmo, más allá de los esfuerzos de la voluntad. El carácter destructivo no puede sentirse atrapado, porque «ve caminos por doquier». Comprometido alegremente a reducir lo que existe a escombros, «se coloca en las encrucijadas»'. La conclusión, como siempre, es Dios teda Dios tekita.
Muchísimo placer. Me cansé. En otro momento reseñaré "Fascinante fascismo", que no dudo es genial.
I'll wait for you if you want me to
I'll wait for you if you want me to
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
If you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go go)
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
If you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go)
I'll wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
if you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I'll wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go go)
I will wait for you (I will wait wait wait)
if you want me to (and I'll go go go)
I will wait for you if you want me to (go go at night go)
I'll wait wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait oh
June 12, 2016
It's hard to talk with any clarity about my admiration for Susan Sontag's work. Her books have been able to change my daily habits, direct me to writers I hadn't known previously that I loved, and dictate a new line of inquiry for my own writing. Under the Sign of Saturn is familiar in that sense; as a collection of essays, it both reoriented my thinking about familiar topics and introduced me to new ones. Even when I disagree with her, I can't help but admire the strength and ferocity of Sontag's thinking.
Notable in this collection is the title essay, which discusses the life and work of Walter Benjamin; her expansive essay on Syberberg's Hitler, a Film from Germany; and her amazing razing of Leni Riefenstahl. But from the first page to the last, whether discussing Paul Goodman or Roland Barthes, she always delivers pertinent and interesting thinking about her subjects. (In fact, her elegiac essay Remembering Barthes may be the most humanizing treatment of the man I've ever read, and may be responsable for his rehabilitation in my eyes/interests.) For such a sharp, uncompromising mind, Sontag's work is amazing in its generosity.
I believe it will be a very sad day for me when I have finally read everything she has written.
Notable in this collection is the title essay, which discusses the life and work of Walter Benjamin; her expansive essay on Syberberg's Hitler, a Film from Germany; and her amazing razing of Leni Riefenstahl. But from the first page to the last, whether discussing Paul Goodman or Roland Barthes, she always delivers pertinent and interesting thinking about her subjects. (In fact, her elegiac essay Remembering Barthes may be the most humanizing treatment of the man I've ever read, and may be responsable for his rehabilitation in my eyes/interests.) For such a sharp, uncompromising mind, Sontag's work is amazing in its generosity.
I believe it will be a very sad day for me when I have finally read everything she has written.
October 1, 2018
Contents:
Paul Goodman
Antonin Artaud
Leni Riefenstahl
Elias Canetti
Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
Roland Barthes
Walter Benjamin
Paul Goodman
Antonin Artaud
Leni Riefenstahl
Elias Canetti
Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
Roland Barthes
Walter Benjamin
January 2, 2020
un libro muy inteligente escrito por una mujer muy inteligente sobre personas muy inteligentes que hicieron cosas muy inteligentes
Read
September 6, 2023how im tryna be (good at writing)
August 31, 2025
So, I'm not a big Sontag reader, and I came across Under the Sign of Saturn because I was facing a reading slump. I know Susan Sontag is a smart and capable writer, and I was looking for something sharp that would prompt me to think. This collection of essays did the job, and I am very interested in reading more from Sontag.
The seven essays here are as follows:
1. On Paul Goodman
2. Approaching Artaud
3. Fascinating Fascism
4. Under the Sign of Saturn
5. Syberberg's Hitler
6. Remembering Barthes
7. Mind As Passion
For me, the standouts that I found to be absolute perfection were "Approaching Artaud" and "Fascinating Fascism" because they articulated some of my same thoughts on the aesthetics of fascism and the way conservatism manifests in so-called anarchists. "Under the Sign of Saturn," "Syberberg's Hitler," and "Mind As Passion" were interesting and held my attention even if they were a bit on the kooky side at times. Out of these three, I would say that "Syberberg's Hitler" is close to perfection. I barely remember "Remembering Barthes," and I flat out didn't enjoy "On Paul Goodman."
What I enjoyed in "Fascinating Fascism" was her take on the fetishization of Nazi aesthetics in sex and pornography. She also speaks about the way it is aligned with sexual adventurism and erotic paraphernalia in the West and Japan.
All in all, this was a solid collection of essays. I wanted to read some sort of commentary and criticism to close out the month. I'm glad I read this, and I will probably think about a few lines from this for a long time. I wouldn't say this is the best Sontag to start with, though.
The seven essays here are as follows:
1. On Paul Goodman
2. Approaching Artaud
3. Fascinating Fascism
4. Under the Sign of Saturn
5. Syberberg's Hitler
6. Remembering Barthes
7. Mind As Passion
For me, the standouts that I found to be absolute perfection were "Approaching Artaud" and "Fascinating Fascism" because they articulated some of my same thoughts on the aesthetics of fascism and the way conservatism manifests in so-called anarchists. "Under the Sign of Saturn," "Syberberg's Hitler," and "Mind As Passion" were interesting and held my attention even if they were a bit on the kooky side at times. Out of these three, I would say that "Syberberg's Hitler" is close to perfection. I barely remember "Remembering Barthes," and I flat out didn't enjoy "On Paul Goodman."
What I enjoyed in "Fascinating Fascism" was her take on the fetishization of Nazi aesthetics in sex and pornography. She also speaks about the way it is aligned with sexual adventurism and erotic paraphernalia in the West and Japan.
All in all, this was a solid collection of essays. I wanted to read some sort of commentary and criticism to close out the month. I'm glad I read this, and I will probably think about a few lines from this for a long time. I wouldn't say this is the best Sontag to start with, though.
December 12, 2020
A collection of the essays Susan Sontag wrote in the 1970s mostly for the New York Review of Books. Each focuses on a single figure (six men and a woman) and puts their work in context and digests and interprets their historical significance. Most are celebratory--Paul Goodman, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, Roland Barthes, and Elias Canetti--and one, pretty much my favorite of the six essays, was an excoriation of Leni Riefenstahl and her recuperation as an aesthetic icon in the 1970's despite her Nazi past. I had never heard of either Goodman or Syberberg, and am now interested in seeking out their work. The Artaud essay is also the introduction to his collected writings that Sontag edited, and the most elaborate of the essays is the title track, "Under the Sign of Saturn," which deals with Benjamin. Interesting how time reassesses authors and artists--which is why reading this five decades on made the Riefenstahl essay the most interesting to me, I think, as it was charting a miraculous phoenix-like return of fascist style in another context. Also it was angry, which I liked, and I agreed with its outrage. There is a point beyond which some people just don't deserve a second chance.
April 28, 2021
La colección de pequeños ensayos que compila este libro es una pequeña ventana a los intereses culturales de Sontag. No he leído la versión de Debolsillo porque las traducciones de esa editorial me parecen muy frías, poco personales, como si no estuviera leyendo a Sontag (tiene sentido, porque leemos siempre a los traductores). En cambio, la edición mexicana de Lasser Press de 1981 me ha parecido más cercana, como si estuviera leyendo a otra Sontag a la que no acostumbro. Destacaría dos ensayos: "Fascismo fascinante" y "Bajo el signo de saturno". En el primero, la autora redefine las categorías del arte cinematográfico de Leni Riefenstahl que le han sido aplicadas desde la historiografía occidental para legitimar el valor de su obra desligada de su trayectoria propagandística nazi. Da pie, entonces a una segunda reflexión sobre las imágenes multiplicadas de los uniformes de las SS y la subversión de la idea de poder al performarlos en la estética camp, generando incluso iconos eróticos. Respecto al segundo, se trata de un análisis del concepto melancólico en la vida de Walter Benjamin que como a tantos "genios" ha sobrevenido y se ha proyectado sobre todas sus sobras.
February 18, 2024
sontag jak zawsze zaspokaja czytelnika zarówno pod względem intelektualnym jak i emocjonalnym; w treść należy się wczytywać, nie można czytać esejów mimochodem - wtedy cała ich jakoś rozpłynie się w nonszalancji; teksty bardzo dobre, może czasem, jak to u sontag, przeintelektualizowane, ale poprowadzone rzetelnie aż do zamknięcia; zachęcają czytelnika do wysiłku i poznania postaci nieoczywistych; są jedynie wstępem do poznania i zrozumienia mieszanki estetyki i etyki w naukach społecznych u sztuce
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August 19, 2025Si bien "Fascinante Fascismo" era la principal razón por la que compré este libro, el resto de ensayos son de igual o mayor importancia. "Fascinante Fascismo" es tan popular quizá por la obsesión que tenemos en occidente de querer analizar cualquier fenómeno social y económico mirando de reojo el nazismo y el fascismo, pero el resto de ensayos ofrecen una cantidad de referencias mucho más interesantes que el ensayo principal. Se habla de Barthes, Artaud, Canetti, Walter Benjamin, Syberberg... ni como en una biografía, ni una opinión, ni un análisis; Sontag aquí mezcla lo filosófico con lo biográfico, lo poético con lo político y lo académico con lo personal.
una maravilla!! :)))
una maravilla!! :)))
February 19, 2022
Under the Sign of Saturn is the third essay collection by Susan Sontag, first published in 1980 and comprises seven essays written between 1972 and 1980. It is the second book of Sontag that I have read after
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
(1966). What I noticed from Sontag’s essays in this volume is that each essay focuses on the analysis of one particular individual, quite different from her previous book. Two essays are written in the form of obituaries, particularly On Paul Goodman and Remembering Barthes in which the tones in both writings are more personal, citing Sontag’s relations with both critics and focusing on the merits they had achieved during their lives.
The titular essay Under the Sign of Saturn is of particular interest to me, in which Sontag describes the life of the German Jewish critic Walter Benjamin with his melancholic temperament, attributing the quality to Benjamin’s own description: “I came into the world under the sign of Saturn–the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays . . . .” Sontag cites Benjamin’s own predilection of himself that the influence of Saturn makes people “apathetic, indecisive, slow,” as Benjamin writes in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1928). Benjamin as Sontag describes him somehow echoes the artist whom she describes in another essay in her previous book about “the artist as exemplary sufferer”, who replaces the role of the saint in the modern consciousness. It’s as though through her analysis of Benjamin’s life, whose life ended in a tragic suicide in 1940 as he seek passage to escape the Nazis, Sontag is building an intertextual description of the artist from her previous essay in the form of her fellow critics.
In Approaching Artaud, Sontag invites us to rethink the discourse of madness, chronicling the misfortunes of Antonin Artaud and Friedrich Nietzsche who spent the last years of their lives in mental institutions due to schizophrenia. About it, she says, “In every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary–are in the largest sense, political.” This observation mirrors the contemporary political situation of Sontag’s time during which many political prisoners and oppositions in the Soviet Union were silenced by putting them inside a mental institution, attributing “madness” as their misfortunes. Artaud’s quest to discover the master art that breaks from the traditional form of theatre in favour of some Gnostic elements he encountered in several indigenous theatrical performances in the 1920s, i.e. the Balinese and Khmer theatres he witnessed in Paris, was deemed impractical and mad by his contemporaries, about which Sontag praises Artaud’s approach as even impossible to be achieved even by Artaud himself. Sontag further opines that when behaviour becomes sufficiently “individual, it will become objectively anti-social and seems mad,” something apparent in every society and differs only in the standard applied.
Two essays are particularly vocal in criticising the legacies of Hitler in Fascinating Fascism which focuses on Leni Riefenstahl’s work and Syberberg’s Hitler about which Sontag deconstructs Hans-Jürgen Sybenberg’s seven-hour film Hitler, a Film from Germany. The Third Reich existed only for a mere 12 years, but its cultural impact could still be traced in post-war German films, which Sontag traces in the works of both Riefenstahl and Sybenberg. Riefenstahl was a chief director in some of the Nazi’s propaganda films in the 1930s. However, she could still resume her filmmaking career in post-war West Germany with production that seems unrelated to her Nazi’s past but is deconstructed by Sontag with several signifiers that still adhere to what Riefenstahl had done for the Nazis. Sontag’s proposition seems to suggest that ideas that are inherent in Nazi’s rhetorics, such as “beautiful, strong, healthy”, to borrow from Riefenstahl’s own predilection, seem to gain wider acceptance in the post-war situation as a subtext to the new plastic consumer society.
I just simply like Sontag’s writings. They make me think and overthink, her essays introduce me to some new cultural references or expand my understanding regarding some artists or writers whom I thought I already knew a lot about. It’s as though she invites me to see discourses against interpretation, to throw away all of my previously-held opinions to see more clearly what lays ahead in a text. Even though I haven’t read or watched the works of some of the artists or critics who became her corpus, it’s as though Sontag is able to keep me interested throughout her essays. As one of the reviews says, everyday aspects of thinking and feeling become something interesting to discuss with Sontag.
The titular essay Under the Sign of Saturn is of particular interest to me, in which Sontag describes the life of the German Jewish critic Walter Benjamin with his melancholic temperament, attributing the quality to Benjamin’s own description: “I came into the world under the sign of Saturn–the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays . . . .” Sontag cites Benjamin’s own predilection of himself that the influence of Saturn makes people “apathetic, indecisive, slow,” as Benjamin writes in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1928). Benjamin as Sontag describes him somehow echoes the artist whom she describes in another essay in her previous book about “the artist as exemplary sufferer”, who replaces the role of the saint in the modern consciousness. It’s as though through her analysis of Benjamin’s life, whose life ended in a tragic suicide in 1940 as he seek passage to escape the Nazis, Sontag is building an intertextual description of the artist from her previous essay in the form of her fellow critics.
In Approaching Artaud, Sontag invites us to rethink the discourse of madness, chronicling the misfortunes of Antonin Artaud and Friedrich Nietzsche who spent the last years of their lives in mental institutions due to schizophrenia. About it, she says, “In every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary–are in the largest sense, political.” This observation mirrors the contemporary political situation of Sontag’s time during which many political prisoners and oppositions in the Soviet Union were silenced by putting them inside a mental institution, attributing “madness” as their misfortunes. Artaud’s quest to discover the master art that breaks from the traditional form of theatre in favour of some Gnostic elements he encountered in several indigenous theatrical performances in the 1920s, i.e. the Balinese and Khmer theatres he witnessed in Paris, was deemed impractical and mad by his contemporaries, about which Sontag praises Artaud’s approach as even impossible to be achieved even by Artaud himself. Sontag further opines that when behaviour becomes sufficiently “individual, it will become objectively anti-social and seems mad,” something apparent in every society and differs only in the standard applied.
Two essays are particularly vocal in criticising the legacies of Hitler in Fascinating Fascism which focuses on Leni Riefenstahl’s work and Syberberg’s Hitler about which Sontag deconstructs Hans-Jürgen Sybenberg’s seven-hour film Hitler, a Film from Germany. The Third Reich existed only for a mere 12 years, but its cultural impact could still be traced in post-war German films, which Sontag traces in the works of both Riefenstahl and Sybenberg. Riefenstahl was a chief director in some of the Nazi’s propaganda films in the 1930s. However, she could still resume her filmmaking career in post-war West Germany with production that seems unrelated to her Nazi’s past but is deconstructed by Sontag with several signifiers that still adhere to what Riefenstahl had done for the Nazis. Sontag’s proposition seems to suggest that ideas that are inherent in Nazi’s rhetorics, such as “beautiful, strong, healthy”, to borrow from Riefenstahl’s own predilection, seem to gain wider acceptance in the post-war situation as a subtext to the new plastic consumer society.
I just simply like Sontag’s writings. They make me think and overthink, her essays introduce me to some new cultural references or expand my understanding regarding some artists or writers whom I thought I already knew a lot about. It’s as though she invites me to see discourses against interpretation, to throw away all of my previously-held opinions to see more clearly what lays ahead in a text. Even though I haven’t read or watched the works of some of the artists or critics who became her corpus, it’s as though Sontag is able to keep me interested throughout her essays. As one of the reviews says, everyday aspects of thinking and feeling become something interesting to discuss with Sontag.
April 16, 2021
Holy "Fascinating Fascism."
(Also for my reference, this followup exchange in The New York Review, David Hinton’s putrid apology for Riefenstahl and Sontag’s typically thrilling response.)
And her eulogy for Paul Goodman, “marginal figure.” Wow.
(Also for my reference, this followup exchange in The New York Review, David Hinton’s putrid apology for Riefenstahl and Sontag’s typically thrilling response.)
And her eulogy for Paul Goodman, “marginal figure.” Wow.
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January 18, 2025"comprender algo es comprender su topografía, saber cómo trazar su mapa. y saber cómo perderse.
(...)
realmente, demasiadas posibilidades. como el temperamento saturnino es lento, proclive a la indesición, a veces hay que abrirse paso con un cuchillo. a veces, terminamos volviendo el cuchillo contra nosotros."
(...)
realmente, demasiadas posibilidades. como el temperamento saturnino es lento, proclive a la indesición, a veces hay que abrirse paso con un cuchillo. a veces, terminamos volviendo el cuchillo contra nosotros."
February 22, 2025
relembrando Barthes.
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May 21, 2008I read these essays because Susan Sontag is famous, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. They turned out to be much closer to my current preoccupations than I had expected, which I found by turns exhilarating, ominous, disappointing and disturbing. Lately I've been almost obsessively troubled by the relation between power and aesthetics and so, it seems, was she.
"Riefenstahl's current de-Nazification and vindication as indomitable priestess of the beautiful—as a filmmaker and, now, as a photographer—do not augur well for the keenness of current abilities to detect the fascist longings in our midst."
"Somewhere, of course, everyone knows that more than beauty is at stake in art like Riefenstahl's. And so people hedge their bets—admiring this kind of art, for its undoubted beauty, and patronizing it, for its sanctimonious promotion of the beautiful."
"The end to which all sexual experience tends, as Bataille insisted in a lifetime of writing, is defilement, blasphemy. To be 'nice,' as to be civilized, means being alienated from this savage experience—which is entirely staged."
-"Fascinating Fascism"
"There was something sad in all this talk about pleasure..." -"Remembering Barthes"
...to covet, to thirst, to long for-these are passionate but also acquisitive relations to knowledge and truth..."
The very last passage in this book I found beautiful: "The last achievement of the serious admirer is to stop immediately putting to work the energies aroused by, filling up the space opened by, what is admired. Thereby talented admirers give themselves permission to go beyond avidity; to identify with something beyond achievement, beyond the gathering of power."
It is such a strange and yet maybe fitting ending, because this is exactly what Sontag seems not to do. She is avid, she achieves, and she gathers power, but she doesn't go beyond. She has a wonderful capacity for lucid prose and logical argument, but these very capacities take on a sinister quality when they are placed so insistently in the forefront, while the subjects she proposes to champion: troubled, mad, and mostly dead, recede. I am thinking in particular here of Artaud and Benjamin. I have never read any Artaud and don't plan to, but what I gathered in her essay about him was exactly that it shouldn't have been written. What does it mean to break down a theater of cruelty for the readers of the New Yorker? One has a sense of her sense of herself as serving her subjects by bringing them out of obscurity. But when their power, as she acknowledges and dwells on, is intrinsically related to their obscurity, then there is something troubling about her attempt to disseminate it. Again back to Artaud, she seems at times to be approaching an argument in favor of madness, then draws back for a distinction between identification and appreciation. And, ok, I thought it was gross. Get in or get out, sister. As it stands, I just can't get past those New Yorker readers, and the sense in her writing that she is performing for them, showing off how edgy she is while remaining palatable.
"Riefenstahl's current de-Nazification and vindication as indomitable priestess of the beautiful—as a filmmaker and, now, as a photographer—do not augur well for the keenness of current abilities to detect the fascist longings in our midst."
"Somewhere, of course, everyone knows that more than beauty is at stake in art like Riefenstahl's. And so people hedge their bets—admiring this kind of art, for its undoubted beauty, and patronizing it, for its sanctimonious promotion of the beautiful."
"The end to which all sexual experience tends, as Bataille insisted in a lifetime of writing, is defilement, blasphemy. To be 'nice,' as to be civilized, means being alienated from this savage experience—which is entirely staged."
-"Fascinating Fascism"
"There was something sad in all this talk about pleasure..." -"Remembering Barthes"
...to covet, to thirst, to long for-these are passionate but also acquisitive relations to knowledge and truth..."
The very last passage in this book I found beautiful: "The last achievement of the serious admirer is to stop immediately putting to work the energies aroused by, filling up the space opened by, what is admired. Thereby talented admirers give themselves permission to go beyond avidity; to identify with something beyond achievement, beyond the gathering of power."
It is such a strange and yet maybe fitting ending, because this is exactly what Sontag seems not to do. She is avid, she achieves, and she gathers power, but she doesn't go beyond. She has a wonderful capacity for lucid prose and logical argument, but these very capacities take on a sinister quality when they are placed so insistently in the forefront, while the subjects she proposes to champion: troubled, mad, and mostly dead, recede. I am thinking in particular here of Artaud and Benjamin. I have never read any Artaud and don't plan to, but what I gathered in her essay about him was exactly that it shouldn't have been written. What does it mean to break down a theater of cruelty for the readers of the New Yorker? One has a sense of her sense of herself as serving her subjects by bringing them out of obscurity. But when their power, as she acknowledges and dwells on, is intrinsically related to their obscurity, then there is something troubling about her attempt to disseminate it. Again back to Artaud, she seems at times to be approaching an argument in favor of madness, then draws back for a distinction between identification and appreciation. And, ok, I thought it was gross. Get in or get out, sister. As it stands, I just can't get past those New Yorker readers, and the sense in her writing that she is performing for them, showing off how edgy she is while remaining palatable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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April 11, 2008Like so many other contemporary cultural critics, Sontag hones in on key figures of our era: Benjamin, Riefenstahl, Barthes, Canetti, etc. Through a thorough analysis, Sontag provides a mechanism for dissecting hot topics, reading fascism or flanerie in a way that manages to fuse praxis and theory while simultaneously remaining accessible.
August 13, 2015
I hesitate to give 4 stars because her approach is too academic for my liking (I know, that's such a silly thing to say about Sontag).
The eponymous essay makes up for everything, though. Brilliant.
The eponymous essay makes up for everything, though. Brilliant.
April 11, 2021
Хорошее антифашистское эссе и портреты интересных людей. Ну и просто люблю как Сонтаг пишет.
July 20, 2021
Been holding off on updating this for a couple months because I wanted to dedicate a bit of time to it, re-reading some parts and putting some thoughts together. It’s hard realising I might never have enough time to do all those things as much as I’d like because I think this collection of essays deserve a lot of time; when I’m re-reading some of the quotes in my previous updates I want to take a seat for the whole day and really give them a think!
Sontag writes critically extremely well, I had the impression that Under the Sign of Saturn would be a slow burner for me with all of its ideas and the particularly winding way that Sontag writes. Ten pages in I realised I had so much time for the structure of these essays - I love the way the subjects are framed within a world that feels as if there’s only space for artists and their art. When I think about examples of fiction I really enjoy (predictably, the first coming to mind being Virginia Woolf), the universes are limited in size - filled with a few people and a handful of places - and it feels like there isn't any space left over for much else, no room for any more characters or their thoughts/beliefs. I feel a similar way about these essays, for me it’s like Sontag mirrors our world, empties it of all other people and considers where these few artists could be placed if our history had only been full of that which (in)directly affected them. Thinking about their aims, politics, personal and theoretical flaws, friendships, she then mixes a little fact with detailed pathways to her (very powerful) opinions and invites you to see geography as mental over anything else. It’s definitely enjoyable to experience this in prose.
After reading this, I would like to read more about the aesthetics of fascism, as Fascinating Fascism and Syberberg's Hitler were real standouts, and I’m definitely more open to critical writings of artists I don’t know a lot about (even with my very basic knowledge, Approaching Artaud was my favourite read as probably evident by my separate review). Really, really enjoyed my first experience of Sontag and her style of critique, noting especially our shared love for discussions of power. Here’s one of my favourite quotes to end:
‘The last achievement of the serious admirer is to stop immediately putting to work the energies aroused by, filling up the space opened by, what is admired. Thereby talented admirers give themselves permission to go beyond avidity; to identify with something beyond achievement, beyond the gathering of power.’
Sontag writes critically extremely well, I had the impression that Under the Sign of Saturn would be a slow burner for me with all of its ideas and the particularly winding way that Sontag writes. Ten pages in I realised I had so much time for the structure of these essays - I love the way the subjects are framed within a world that feels as if there’s only space for artists and their art. When I think about examples of fiction I really enjoy (predictably, the first coming to mind being Virginia Woolf), the universes are limited in size - filled with a few people and a handful of places - and it feels like there isn't any space left over for much else, no room for any more characters or their thoughts/beliefs. I feel a similar way about these essays, for me it’s like Sontag mirrors our world, empties it of all other people and considers where these few artists could be placed if our history had only been full of that which (in)directly affected them. Thinking about their aims, politics, personal and theoretical flaws, friendships, she then mixes a little fact with detailed pathways to her (very powerful) opinions and invites you to see geography as mental over anything else. It’s definitely enjoyable to experience this in prose.
After reading this, I would like to read more about the aesthetics of fascism, as Fascinating Fascism and Syberberg's Hitler were real standouts, and I’m definitely more open to critical writings of artists I don’t know a lot about (even with my very basic knowledge, Approaching Artaud was my favourite read as probably evident by my separate review). Really, really enjoyed my first experience of Sontag and her style of critique, noting especially our shared love for discussions of power. Here’s one of my favourite quotes to end:
‘The last achievement of the serious admirer is to stop immediately putting to work the energies aroused by, filling up the space opened by, what is admired. Thereby talented admirers give themselves permission to go beyond avidity; to identify with something beyond achievement, beyond the gathering of power.’
July 21, 2025
I have delayed consolidating my rough notes and fragments on Sontag since finishing "Against Interpretation" and "Under The Sign of Saturn." As with reading Stevens, Carson, Barthes, all the writers I most esteem, I feel almost frightened by the scale of her wit and intellect. Almost undeserving or insufficient as a reader. Like looking at a mountain from below.
It is generally accurate that in a writer’s life there are several decades of quality production, several halcyon years (if one is lucky), followed by a marked decline. Such describes the arc of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Shelley, and Whitman. Sontag’s works, however, only improve as her career progresses. Sontag herself believed her strongest work, across all plays, films, and essays of her oeuvre, to be the (late) 1999 novel "In America."
It’s surprising that the 1966 collection “Against Interpretation” is likely a sooner pick for Sontag readers, when "Under the Sign of Saturn" is evidently superior. It would flatten the depth of her assessments to say the later text is more “balanced.” It is perhaps that her criticisms are less scathing, or lead into territory more expansive than condemnation. It is perhaps an issue of scale. The earlier collection is longer, yes, but with twenty six briefer essays. "Under the Sign of Saturn" contains only seven.
The strongest essays from the collection are the longest, including “Approaching Artaud,” “Fascinating Fascism,” and the titular “Under the Sign of Saturn.” This is not to say that the shorter form pieces are weak. The opening dedication to the recently deceased Paul Goodman is as incisive and far-reaching as it is adulatory. Rather, Sontag working in “large-scale” simply has more space and means to interrogate and astonish.
I believe this is an invaluable text for writers. Sontag’s grasp on the progression and predicament (the postmodern image economy of the seventies is largely applicable to our present condition) of history and literary culture. The most essential of the essays, the text with the greatest didactic potential for the young or questioning writer, is “Approaching Artaud.” Artaud’s life bears some resemblance to Sontag’s. Artaud was a fiercely radical intellectual that worked obsessively across genres and disciplines. He wrote essays, manifestos, poems, screenplays, acted on stage and in films. He is the exemplar of the now conventional trope of “artist as pure victim of his consciousness.” His oeuvre amounts to an ars poetica.
Sontag extricates from Artaud’s work an essential grievance impeding my practice of late, one I had previously been unable to articulate. I’ve grown weary of my easy gestures, my “tame spiritual themes,” to invoke Glück. Light, dark, silence, the mind, nothing, distance, expansion, contraction, mentalization of the body and corresponding sexualization of consciousness… More specifically, it seems all my creative output from the last three years has taken as its primary subject (despite my resistance to subjecthood and “aboutness”) the act of creation. Further, the particulars of my personal creative process, of “inspiration” itself, it’s erotic code. Coming upon such a manner of working appeared at first like the final and only project one could ever dedicate oneself to. Mind was universal. Was truth. Infinite. Inexhaustible. This is an avenue many questioning souls are likely to find themselves drawn to.
I can conjure countless instances of contemporary art and poetry invoking the late and decadent thematics of gnostic thought—works that presume to be made by mad and true believers, by fools, not by cautiously deliberate and academy trained intellectuals. It is an ungenerous delight, pretending to be a seer. As with the telling of dreams, the telling of circuitous self-transformation only pleases the teller, “his thinking ultimately shuts out all but the private self… he is a radical individualist.” Artaud's works prove the capacities of self-reference can be exhausted.
“It is not a question of giving one’s assent to Artaud—this would be shallow… How could anyone assent to Artaud’s ideas unless one was already in the demonic state of siege that he was in?… not only is Artaud’s position not tenable; it is not a “position” at all.” Such is precisely why his greatest work, his second manifesto for the Theater of Cruelty, available in "The Theater and Its Double," has yet to be realized, rather, why it proposes a project impossible to realize. Such a theater would destroy the worn premise of "entertainment," the spectator’s illusion of “viewing,” collapsing all space between audience and performer/performance. The Theater of Cruelty would, of course, engage bodily sensation, invoke tangible emotional affects reinterpreting for modern life the traditional purgative function of Greek theater. It would be symbolic (unintelligible) and metaphysical (rites that actually bring the audience into contact with a secular divinity). Several movements from twentieth century art history have approached the Theater of Cruelty's paradigm-shattering radical idealism—noteworthy attempts include the Viennese Actionists, Gutai, and the Happenings of 60s New York.
Artaud’s call for a complete unification of art and life is an imperative retained from Surrealist thought, an imperative in turn retained from Romantic thought. Both of which have already proven themselves to be arbitrary and self-defeating systems. Artaud's works, as with Surrealist and Romantic works, possess merit and intrigue insofar as they act as metaphors for works of art, metaphors for consciousness.
What position then, should the writer take in relation to his audience? What manner of work should the writer aspire to produce? "How does one stand/to behold the sublime?" (Stevens) What form does the next paradigm take? Elsewhere in Sontag’s essays we can find possible directions forward. More to come...
It is generally accurate that in a writer’s life there are several decades of quality production, several halcyon years (if one is lucky), followed by a marked decline. Such describes the arc of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Shelley, and Whitman. Sontag’s works, however, only improve as her career progresses. Sontag herself believed her strongest work, across all plays, films, and essays of her oeuvre, to be the (late) 1999 novel "In America."
It’s surprising that the 1966 collection “Against Interpretation” is likely a sooner pick for Sontag readers, when "Under the Sign of Saturn" is evidently superior. It would flatten the depth of her assessments to say the later text is more “balanced.” It is perhaps that her criticisms are less scathing, or lead into territory more expansive than condemnation. It is perhaps an issue of scale. The earlier collection is longer, yes, but with twenty six briefer essays. "Under the Sign of Saturn" contains only seven.
The strongest essays from the collection are the longest, including “Approaching Artaud,” “Fascinating Fascism,” and the titular “Under the Sign of Saturn.” This is not to say that the shorter form pieces are weak. The opening dedication to the recently deceased Paul Goodman is as incisive and far-reaching as it is adulatory. Rather, Sontag working in “large-scale” simply has more space and means to interrogate and astonish.
I believe this is an invaluable text for writers. Sontag’s grasp on the progression and predicament (the postmodern image economy of the seventies is largely applicable to our present condition) of history and literary culture. The most essential of the essays, the text with the greatest didactic potential for the young or questioning writer, is “Approaching Artaud.” Artaud’s life bears some resemblance to Sontag’s. Artaud was a fiercely radical intellectual that worked obsessively across genres and disciplines. He wrote essays, manifestos, poems, screenplays, acted on stage and in films. He is the exemplar of the now conventional trope of “artist as pure victim of his consciousness.” His oeuvre amounts to an ars poetica.
Sontag extricates from Artaud’s work an essential grievance impeding my practice of late, one I had previously been unable to articulate. I’ve grown weary of my easy gestures, my “tame spiritual themes,” to invoke Glück. Light, dark, silence, the mind, nothing, distance, expansion, contraction, mentalization of the body and corresponding sexualization of consciousness… More specifically, it seems all my creative output from the last three years has taken as its primary subject (despite my resistance to subjecthood and “aboutness”) the act of creation. Further, the particulars of my personal creative process, of “inspiration” itself, it’s erotic code. Coming upon such a manner of working appeared at first like the final and only project one could ever dedicate oneself to. Mind was universal. Was truth. Infinite. Inexhaustible. This is an avenue many questioning souls are likely to find themselves drawn to.
I can conjure countless instances of contemporary art and poetry invoking the late and decadent thematics of gnostic thought—works that presume to be made by mad and true believers, by fools, not by cautiously deliberate and academy trained intellectuals. It is an ungenerous delight, pretending to be a seer. As with the telling of dreams, the telling of circuitous self-transformation only pleases the teller, “his thinking ultimately shuts out all but the private self… he is a radical individualist.” Artaud's works prove the capacities of self-reference can be exhausted.
“It is not a question of giving one’s assent to Artaud—this would be shallow… How could anyone assent to Artaud’s ideas unless one was already in the demonic state of siege that he was in?… not only is Artaud’s position not tenable; it is not a “position” at all.” Such is precisely why his greatest work, his second manifesto for the Theater of Cruelty, available in "The Theater and Its Double," has yet to be realized, rather, why it proposes a project impossible to realize. Such a theater would destroy the worn premise of "entertainment," the spectator’s illusion of “viewing,” collapsing all space between audience and performer/performance. The Theater of Cruelty would, of course, engage bodily sensation, invoke tangible emotional affects reinterpreting for modern life the traditional purgative function of Greek theater. It would be symbolic (unintelligible) and metaphysical (rites that actually bring the audience into contact with a secular divinity). Several movements from twentieth century art history have approached the Theater of Cruelty's paradigm-shattering radical idealism—noteworthy attempts include the Viennese Actionists, Gutai, and the Happenings of 60s New York.
Artaud’s call for a complete unification of art and life is an imperative retained from Surrealist thought, an imperative in turn retained from Romantic thought. Both of which have already proven themselves to be arbitrary and self-defeating systems. Artaud's works, as with Surrealist and Romantic works, possess merit and intrigue insofar as they act as metaphors for works of art, metaphors for consciousness.
What position then, should the writer take in relation to his audience? What manner of work should the writer aspire to produce? "How does one stand/to behold the sublime?" (Stevens) What form does the next paradigm take? Elsewhere in Sontag’s essays we can find possible directions forward. More to come...
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