Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag

by Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Núñez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, blinding intelligence, and edgy personal style. Sontag introduced Núñez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating. Soon Núñez moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared. As Sontag told Núñez, “Who says we have to live like everyone else?”

Sontag’s influence on Núñez, who went on to become a successful novelist, would be profound. Described by Núñez as “a natural mentor,” who saw educating others as both a moral obligation and a source of endless pleasure, Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions. In this poignant, intimate memoir, Núñez speaks of her gratitude for having had, as an early model, “someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer’s vocation.” For Sontag, she writes, “there could be no nobler pursuit, no greater adventure, no more rewarding quest.” Núñez gives a sharp sense of the charged, polarizing atmosphere that enveloped Sontag whenever she published a book, gave a lecture, or simply walked into a room. Published more than six years after Sontag’s death, Sempre Susan is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsized personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Womens, Writing

140 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2011

About the author

Sigrid Nunez has published seven novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, and, most recently, The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Among the journals to which she has contributed are The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Threepenny Review, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and The Believer. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, including four Pushcart Prize volumes and four anthologies of Asian American literature.

Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Amherst, Smith, Baruch, Vassar, and the University of California, Irvine, among others. In spring, 2019, she will be visiting writer at Syracuse University. Sigrid has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore this book. It made me want to do 3 things:

1. Read more of Sigrid Nunez.
2. Read more Susan Sontag.
3. Be Susan Sontag, or at least believe I could be Susan Sontag.

This book is perfect in many ways, from the length to its treatment of the topic. It is based on a pretty implausible premise (but a true one): she was Susan Sontag's assistant and was dating Sontag's son and then moved in with them. Sounds completely nuts. And something that led to a messed-up relationship with Sontag and the son and the literary world. But how amazing of an experience? And how fortunate we are that she is such a good writer as well, so she can share some memories of it with us. I'm sure Nunez could have written a much longer book about these experiences, and I think it is extremely good judgment that she has condensed them down into a literary work in its own right, not just because of the subject.

And I think the point of this book is not to make people want to be Susan Sontag (it is not a mean portrait or a slander by any stretch of the imagination, but it is hardly flattering in some points), but that's what happened to me when I read this book. Perhaps I fancy that Sontag seems like a really extreme version of my college self, which is something I always secretly wish I could go back to. I could be sleepless, drugged up on caffeine, writing for days at a time, reading a lot, collecting books, thinking constantly, drinking little, judging other women for femininity, etc. I also think I use "boring" a lot. See? I'm almost there. Sadly, that's not what my life is like, and I have a job (a huge sign of failure for Sontag), but there is always a dream of success.

(I'm being partially facetious; it's up to you to figure out how much.)

--- FAVOURITE QUOTES ---

"Looking back, I only wish that I could feel more joy -- or, at least, that I could find a way of remembering that is not so painful." (35)

"After all, what mattered was the life of the mind, and for that life to be lived fully, reading was the necessity." (84)

"She often struck me as someone who wanted to be feeling ten times what she actually felt. Ten times happier, or ten times sadder, or ten times more stimulated by whatever it was that had her attention. (Could this have been at least partly at the root of her hunger to watch so many movies and performances -- to repeat every experience that gave her pleasure -- such a staggering number of times? Never enough: what a cruel ethic to live by." (133)

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

In general, [Susan] had contempt for people who didn't do what they truly wanted to do. She believed that most people, unless they were very poor, made their own lives, and, to her, security over freedom was a deplorable choice. It was servile.

She believed that, in our culture, at least, people were much freer than they thought they were and had more options than they were willing to acknowledge. She also believed that how other people treated you was, if not wholly, mostly within your control, and she was always after me to take that control. "Stop letting people bully you," she would bully me.

I don't know, Susan Sontag sounds kind of awesome.

Sempre Susan is a unique book. When Sigrid Nunez (winner of a 2018 National Book Award) was just starting out as a writer, she worked very briefly as Susan Sontag's assistant, began dating Sontag's son David, and moved in with the two of them for what seems like a relatively brief amount of time, a year or so. This is Nunez's memoir of that time. It's different from any biographical treatment, not only because Nunez was actually living with her subject, but also because Sontag was going through cancer treatment for at least part of that time. So this short book is an encapsulation of an unusual period of both Sontag's and Nunez's lives.

The book is well-written and highly entertaining and definitely gave me a good idea of what Sontag was like as a person, but the tone of it bothered me. I have no doubt that Sontag could be difficult, but she was also clearly operating on a different plane from most of us, and I thought Nunez was a bit too snarky about her (as the quote above might imply). It's ultimately a fond portrayal, but even after all these years, Nunez obviously still sees Sontag as something of an annoying parental figure, despite her brilliance. Really, this book made me realize how difficult it is to write a portrait of a highly influential person that actually does them justice. Even an acclaimed author like Nunez isn't totally up to the task. It's hard to believe anyone would be, although a massive bio of Sontag is coming out later this year, so I guess we'll see.

I read this book because I'd recently seen the documentary Regarding Susan Sontag, and it made me curious to learn more about Sontag and of course to read her work. I plan to do both in 2019, and despite its flaws Sempre Susan was a good introductory text.

[Khush · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a fast-paced book on Sontag. I never doubted what Nunez says about Sontag, but I am not so sure about things that she does not say about herself. For instance, she had such close access to Sontag, but she wrote about working for Sontag as if it were just another job. Before she began working for her, she knew who Sontag was and what she was getting into, but she edited that part completely. I assume that she must have been on cloud nine for getting to know Sontag. Also, the way she writes about the whole ‘affair’ with Sontag, at times, it seems like she must have had a relationship with Sontag, and Sontag's son was merely used to make it all look 'proper.'

I enjoyed the book. Usually, people write about others when they admire them. In Nunez case, it is quite clear that she hated Sontag. She brilliantly showed how mean Sontag was (and I trust Nunez voice), but I also found it petty. She ends the book on a very negative note. I feel that Nunez is taking a subtle revenge on Sontag for being so successful and so articulate.

One of the most striking observations that Nunez makes is that Sontag has no sense of humor. It immediately strikes as true. However, the kind of writing Sontag did, hardly required humor. In other words, her writing never distracts or feels 'less' in any way because of the absence of humor. One is glued to Sontag's forceful sentences, marked by originality, passion, and intelligence. I also wonder what does Nunez think about Walter Benjamin? Is their enough 'humor' in his writing?

Despite biographer's intention, I loved reading the book and knowing about Sontag's (endearing) flaws. By the way, I do not mind 'mean' people if they can speak and write like Sontag.

[Wojciech Szot · Rating 3 out of 5]

- Jak dobrze nie mieć piszącej rodziny - pomyślałem po lekturze “Sempre Susan” Sigrid Nunez w przekładzie Dobromiły Jankowskiej. Pisząca rodzina nie zwiastuje niczego dobrego - opiszą cię, opowiedzą, przeinaczą, ubiorą w swoje wspomnienia, swoją biografią uzupełnisz im portfele, spłacisz kredyty. Nic atrakcyjnego w piszącej rodzinie.

Czytelnicy i czytelniczki bardziej dociekliwi lub zwyczajnie pamiętający pierwsze dziesięciolecie XXI wieku być może znają wspomnienia Davida Rieffa, syna autorki “Notatek o kampie”, które pod tytułem “W morzu śmierci” i w przekładzie Agnieszki Nowakowskiej ukazały się w Czarnym koło 2009 roku. W emocjonalnej i - jak to zawsze bywa - trochę manipulatywnej formie Rieff opowiedział o ostatnich miesiącach życia matki zastanawiając się nad tym, czy okłamywanie umierającego jest moralnie uzasadnione. Z książki można też wyczytać bardzo krytyczną ocenę albumu Anne Leibovitz, “Sontag”, który fotografka uznawała za swoje najbardziej osobiste dokonanie, a syn pisarki za “karnawał celebryckiej fotografii”. Trzy lata po książce Rieffa ukazały się wspomnienia Nunez, które choć bardzo dobrze napisane, pięknie poruszające się pomiędzy oddaniem czci a wyrażoną bardzo wprost krytyką postaw Sontag, nie zamykają możliwych sposobów patrzenia na amerykańską eseistkę.

Książka Nunez nie jest biografią Sontag, choć wiele wątków biograficznych autorka porusza i rozbudowuje, żeby czytelnik mógł zrozumieć tło wydarzeń. A wszystko zaczęła się gdy, tuż po studiach, Nunez trafia do mieszkania Sontag, by pomóc jej w korespondencji. Dość szybko okazuje się, że relacja między paniami staje się mentorsko-uczniowska, a gdy Sigrid związuje się z synem Susan, zaczyna się w ich życiu rozdział tworzenia nienormatywnej, budzącej kontrowersje rodziny, którą niektórzy podejrzewali o… kazirodztwo.

Sontag wzbudzała kontrowersje - wybitna eseistka, hermetyczna i niezbyt dobra twórczyni fikcji, poruszająca się na skali arcydzieło-dno, nie uznająca przeciętności, gotowania i pracy na pół gwizdka, ciągle się spóźniająca, fatalna wykładowczyni i gościni spotkań autorskich. Zamożna członkini bohemy, ale też osoby narkotyzująca się, by jeszcze intensywniej pracować, snobistyczna (choć Nunez próbuje ją tłumaczyć w tej kwestii, ale to dość nieporadne moim zdaniem tłumaczenie) i uznająca prymat człowieka nad “naturą”. Książka Nunez pokazała mi dlaczego nigdy nie byłem w stanie zapisać się do klubu fanów Sontag, a jej intelektualna poza choć w tekstach wybitna i zmieniająca sposób patrzenia na świat, dzisiaj wydaje mi się niezwykle antropocentryczna, jakby świat nieludzki zupełnie nie interesował Sontag, a najważniejsza była przyjmowana wobec świata poza łącząca snobizm z uprzywilejowaniem i niewielką dawką refleksji nad tym.

Nunez podsuwa czytelnikom i czytelniczkom dziesiątki scen opowiadających coś o Susan Sontag, dzięki czemu każdy może wybrać te, które umożliwią zbudowanie własnego portretu, w efekcie czego będzie to portret wielokrotny, w pewnych rejestrach wspólny, ale i rozdzielny. Dlatego na przykład nie zgadzam się z Magdą Kicińską, która na okładce książki pisze, że Nunez Sontag opisuje “nie oceniając” - moim zdaniem oceny tu są cały czas, zwłaszcza gdy chodzi o styl, ubiór, a szczególnie - włosy. Nunez ciągle wspomina o tym, że coś pasowało albo - częściej - nie pasowało (czerń) do Sontag, jakby sama nosiła w sobie jakąś wizje Sontag, która, gdyby urzeczywistniona, zmieniłaby życie eseistki i jej rodziny. Także wybór konkretnych scen i momentów z ich wspólnego życia nastawiony jest na to, by dokonywać ocen, budować portret Sontag.

I pewnie dlatego bardziej niż los Sontag w książce Nunes zainteresował mnie los psa, który musiał używać tarasu jako wychodka. Pies ginie w całej tej opowieści, poświęcona zostaje mu tylko ta jedna, skromna uwaga. Amerykański krytyk kultury, James Wolcott pisał ironicznie, że Sontag nigdy nie miała zwierząt, bo nie mogła z nimi porozmawiać o Kancie. Jednak jakiś pies musiał tam rzeczywiście być, skoro 29 sierpnia 1957 roku pisze Sontag w “Dzienniku”: “David radosny, pies spokojny” (“Dzienniki”, t. 1, tłum. Dariusz Żukowski). To jedyny ślad żyjącego psa w dziennikach, których trzeci tom wciąż nie ukazał się po angielsku.

Jest jeszcze jeden drobny, psi ślad z dzieciństwa Sontag. Pisze: “Zaczynam pisać dziennik. Pierwszy wpis jest o tym, że przy Speedway, niedaleko sklepu Limów, zobaczyłam martwego gnijącego psa” (“Dzienniki”, t. 1, tłum. Dariusz Żukowski). To notatka, którą z juweniliów przepisuje Sontag do swojego dorosłego dziennika. Wiadomo, że w dzieciństwie czytała książki o psie “Chipsie”, autorstwa popularnego pisarza dla dzieci, Alfreda Paysona Terhune, który był hodowcą psów i potwornym rasistą, ale samo dzieciństwo autorka “O fotografii” wspominała jako “zbyteczne”, zatem i lekturom o Chipsie nie poświęciła w przydatniejszym, dorosłym życiu, uwagi.

Ale ponoć lubiła psy. W dzienniku pod datą 21 lutego 1977 roku Sontag wymienia rzeczy, które lubi. Wśród nich ognisko, Wenecję, tequilę, zachody słońca, nieme filmy… ale też “duże długowłose psy” (“large long-haired dogs”). Dodaje również “niemowlęta”, w co trudno uwierzyć, bo pisarka ponoć na dzieci nie zwracała uwagi.

Nunez przytacza cytat z “Fajdrosa” Platona, gdzie Sokrates mówi: “Ja się przecież lubię uczyć. A okolice i drzewa niczego mnie nie chcą nauczyć, tylko ludzie na mieście” (tłum. Witwicki). I to spojrzenie na życie i dzieło Sontag wydaje mi się najciekawsze w tej książce, pokazujące, że zamknięcie się w apartamentowcach i bibliotekach sprawia, że tylko wydaje nam się, że widzimy świat, a tak naprawdę wciąż jest on dla nas nieuchwytny, nawet jeśli codziennie plącze się pod nogami.

“Milczenie to jest przyszłość dni...” pisał Brodski (w przekładzie K. Krzyżewskiej) i jego również przytacza Nunez. Właśnie wydaje mi się, że jest inaczej - przyszłością jest mówienie o tym, co do tej pory było na marginesach. O tym, kto defekował na tarasie apartamentowca na Manhattanie i czy zachowały się jakieś jego zdjęcia. Gdyby ktoś miał więcej informacji o psie Susan Sontag, zapraszam - poszukuję.

Sigrid Nunez kilka lat po wspomnieniowej książce o Susan Sontag napisała “Przyjaciela”, jedną z najpiękniejszych książek, w których psy odgrywają znaczącą rolę. Dostała za nią mnóstwo nagród, pokochali ją czytelnicy i czytelniczki na całym świecie, co na szczęście dzięki Pauzie oznacza też Polskę. Jak widać po tym przykładzie - psy są ważne i nie warto ich pomijać. A “Sempre Susan” choć skłania do refleksji i jest zbiorem pozornie interesujących anegdot, to jest też opowieścią o snobizmie intelektu, sztuczności tej konstrukcji, do której z roku na rok mam większy dystans. Warto, ale z dystansem.

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twórczość Sontag znam stosunkowo krótko i raczej słabo, ale wydaje mi się, że taka książka była mi potrzebna. Teraz podchodząc do innych jej dzieł będę miał trochę szerszy punkt widzenia, bo Nunez w „Sempre Susan” przedstawia ją jako zwykłego człowieka, który posiada swoje wady i popełnia błędy, co trochę demitologizuje obraz, który powstał przez lata w kulturze. Autorka ma wiele trafnych spostrzeżeń i po raz kolejny (po przeczytanym przeze mnie niedawno „Przyjacielu”) udowadnia, że ma świetny warsztat, a w formie non-fiction trafia do mnie praktycznie bez zastrzeżeń.

[marta (sezon literacki) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oczywiście nie można traktować tej książki jak biografii. Jest na to przede wszystkim zdecydowanie zbyt krótka. To tylko zlepek wspomnień autorki z okresu, w którym mieszkała z Susan Sontag pod jednym dachem, pracując jako jej asystentka. Nie ma tu jakiejś chronologii czy konkretnej wizji. Raczej luźne opowiadania o tym, jaka była Sontag na co dzień. Dosyć intymne i bardzo ciekawe. Dzięki tej książce Susan jest trochę mniej legendą, a trochę bardziej człowiekiem. Myślę, że w połączeniu z pełnowymiarową biografią, może dać bardzo ciekawy obraz tego, kim naprawdę była ta słynna amerykańska eseistka. Choć za tę eseistkę pewnie by się obraziła.

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“..𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺.”

Intimacy adjacent. Nunez provides a close portrait of the titan Susan Sontag was.

With much grace, Nunez builds her up immensity, only then to tackle the titan through all of her insecurities. Sontag’s needs to constantly be around people. Sontag’s needs to feel things 10x more than she needed to. Her reasons for so many books or films. Carelessness. Reckless rage at restaurants. The list goes on.

“𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘧 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶. 𝘛𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘺 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵.”

But with this close examination, we see the complexities of the way Susan thought. How she wrote. Tirelessly. How she consumed art. Ravenously. No one is perfect. And it’s always why I loved Sontag. In all of her brute imperfections, she is someone who worked through her thoughts, thoughts we could see over time, see her through to the way a person can change, for better. And when we see that change we have so much more hope for the world and art.

“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴?” FKA Twigs whimsically calls out to the world in dainty naivety. I laughed at this. No, scoffed. Became embarrassed for Twigs for claiming such a thing. They’re still around. Has she not read Andrea Long Chu? Hanif Abdurraqib? But when I think of great thinkers, I really do miss the big ones. The ones we used to watch that spanned talk shows. That provided fruitful context to a world of horrors. Where are the great thinkers? Where are the Sontags? The Bergers? The Mailers? The ones who tied art to life in ways that makes us matter?

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because I enjoyed reading Sigrid Nunez’s novel The Last of Her Kind when I saw Sempre Susan on the “new non-fiction” shelf of the Chicago Public Library, I thought it would be worth reading. The subject of this memoir is the late, iconic intellectual, writer and activist Susan Sontag; and it centers specifically on when Nunez met Sontag in 1976---they were ages 25 and 43, respectively.

It was fun to read that Sontag believed in reading one book a day and that her personal library consisted of literally thousands of physical books! From Nunez’s non-idealized portrait, I understood Sontag to be brilliant, ambitious, generous, and idiosyncratic; someone whose insecurities translated into exaggeration, and, often an imposition of her body and ideas in the lives of others.

It’s likely that any fierce [American] woman intellectual who emerged on the New York scene in the late 1960s and early 70s came across like a force of nature even if that wasn’t her style. While Sontag had “elite” tastes, and privileged European male intellectuals, she had no shortage of friends, lovers, and admirers throughout her adult life. Nunez writes of her mentor in a very candid, fluid, respectful, and thought-provoking style that makes me consider returning to Sontag’s texts---which I found too cool and impenetrable for my taste when I’ve tried to read them in the past.

[Patrycja Krotowska]

Mam problem z oceną. Dałabym 4/5 według przyjemności z czytania, ale mam kilka wątpliwości i przemyśleń, o których poniżej.

Przez cały czas czytania "Sempre Susan" zastanawiałam się, jaki był cel powstania tej książki. Książki wciągającej, dobrze napisanej, interesującej, trochę kontrowersyjnej? No właśnie, czy Nunez napisała tę książkę z żalu, rozgoryczenia, poczucia niedowartościowania czy jako hołd wielkiej intelektualistce? Nadal nie umiem opowiedzieć na to pytanie i nadal mąci mi w głowie. Tak samo jak pytanie, czy "Sempre Susan" jest o Sontag, czy może jednak bardziej o Nunez.

Nie da się ukryć, że czytelnicy, którzy pierwszy raz zetkną się z Susan Sontag właśnie oczami Nunez, raczej nie będą zainteresowani dalszą eksploatacją jej twórczości. Sontag przedstawiona przez Nunez to kobieta krytyczna, protekcjonalna, nieempatyczna, niedyskretna, pyszna. Generalnie pełna wad, uprzedzeń, niechęci. Te wszystkie ciekawostki wyciągane na światło dzienne przez Nunez - dziewczynę zaproszoną do swojego życia przez Sontag, najpierw w roli asystentki a następnie partnerki syna - one wszystkie są interesujące i w pewnym stopniu oczyszczające, bo Sontag jawi nam się jako człowiek z krwi i kości, z wadami i zaletami (choć mam wrażenie, jakby Nunez chciała przedstawić ją z wyjątkowo złej strony). Tylko: jak ważne jest to, że Nunez nie podobało się białe pasmo włosów Susan? Co wnoszą wszystkie te drobne aluzje dotyczące tego, co Susan "zawsze" i co Susan "nigdy"? Generalizowanie, przytaczanie opinii Susan wyrywanych czasem z kontekstu, pasujących do całościowego przyjętego obrazu autorki, kumulowanie złych przyzwyczajeń i uprzedzeń na niewielu stronach, opisywanie dość bagatelnych sytuacji.

Bo mimo tego że pochłaniałam tę książkę z niemałą przyjemnością to miałam wrażenie, jakbym czytała skrupulatnie przygotowaną listę przywar mających podważyć ikonowość Susan Sontag. Listę powstałą z frustracji, chęci zwrócenia uwagi, powiedzenia 'Ja Wam pokażę jaka była naprawdę! Dopiero się zdziwicie!'. Jakby nagle, w trakcie pisania tej książki, Nunez przypominała sobie, co jeszcze może wytknąć Susan. Czym jeszcze w nią rzucić. Które drobne zdarzenie z przeszłości przywołać.

I takie pytania mi się rodziły w głowie: na ile obraz rysowany przez Nunez może być traktowany poważnie? Na ile jest on zmanipulowany? Czy te wspomnienia więcej mi mówią o Sontag, czy jednak o Nunez? I to nie tak, że kwestionuję relacje autorki (wierzę, że wszystko o czym pisze jest prawdą) tylko zastanawiam się, na ile tak bardzo subiektywne i obciążone bagażem doświadczeń i emocji spojrzenie na kogoś (bez znaczenia, czy kogoś z dużym dorobkiem czy mniejszym) jest warte upubliczniania. Zresztą, Nunez sama pisze w pewnym momencie: "Nigdy nie interesowało mnie co inni mają na jej temat do powiedzenia." - dlaczego zatem uznała, że jej wspomnienie (bardzo, bardzo konkretne i wyraźne) będzie cieszyło się zainteresowaniem?

Podobała mi się ta książka, czytało mi się ją wyśmienicie, wcale nie odciągnęła mnie od Sontag, wręcz przeciwnie - mam ochotę czytać Susan więcej i co ciekawe - mam ochotę czytać również więcej Nunez. Poza tymi wszystkimi ciekawostkami i subiektywnym obrazem Susan "na co dzień", książka ta przyniosła mi również mnóstwo pytań i tematów do dyskusji - a to już samo w sobie jest świetne. Generalnie, bardzo polecam!

[Vartika · Rating 4 out of 5]

In college, Susan Sontag had much the same hold on me as she did on most students aspiring towards bohemia: when it came to the coffee, cigarettes and turtlenecks, the proneness to declaring things "boring" or "servile," the feverish reading, and the episodic but copious writing, we were here; and in all our essayisms and forays into taste-making we wanted to be her. Besides, we had all read On Photography —there simply wasn't anyone cooler, at least as far as the aesthetics of being a public intellectual were concerned. It didn't even matter that her novels were (mostly) unreadable crap.

It surprises me then that the brief time that Sigrid Nunez spent working for Sontag, dating her son David, and sharing an apartment with the both of them didn't drive her insane. Or perhaps it did, but she did pull a mighty fine memoir out of it.

Sempre Susan is a stimulating and candid recollection of the time Nunez spent with Sontag, and unlike most things written about her, does not deify. On the contrary, it humanizes her—as flawed, snobbish and idiosyncratic, and as wretched for her influence as she was enlightened. There are instances in this memoir where Sontag really does come across as quite mean, especially towards the author—and yet, Nunez does not write about her with vindictiveness but with puzzlement, confusion, and—in stark contrast with Sontag's own lack of it—humour.

Moreover, even as she lays out Sontag's insecurities and inadeptness at maintaining relationships, the author dignifies her with empathy: her disdain for teaching, her indignation and regret regarding her writing, her relationship with therapy and her unhealthy motherly attachment with her son, and the curious way she dyed her hair (the two white strands were not bleached, but rather the only parts of her crown that she didn't touch!) are all treated with grace and sensitivity, even beauty. Overall, Nunez does not attempt to displace Sontag as an icon—she merely writes of her as a real one. A nail-biting, obsessively talkative, reluctantly feminist, self-conscious, mortally malcontented one.

I started reading this while balanced atop a lumpy cushion at the foot of a friend's couch in New York, and—despite my physical discomfort—did not move until I was finished. I exclaimed a lot, underlined even more, and found a lot to discuss with my friends after. We are not undergraduates anymore—haven't been for a while—and neither do we blindly idolize Sontag, but this book made us admire an altogether different side of her.

[Martyna Antonina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nunez kreśli portret wydziedziczony z mitologii, w której Sontag opowiadana jest zazwyczaj. Gorzki, ale niepozbawiony czułości - tak podskórnie bliski, tak przylegający, że niekiedy przeszywający jej własny. A jednak! - pozbawiony oceny. Pełen strachu przed samotnością, dramatyzmu, intelektualnego snobizmu, mentorskiej retoryki, twórczej ambicjonalności i bezustannej ruchliwości. Lubię jej pisanie, jego wnikliwą, empatyczną skromność; proces niepodejrzewanej elektryfikacji słowem (zabawnym, definitywnym, celnym, szarpanym). W sposób, zdaje się, mimochodny pozostawiające nas z potrzebą eksploracji także sempre Sigrid. Mam nadzieję - do zaspokojenia w jej powieściach.

[Kathrin Passig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Leseprobe war nur mittelinteressant, aber leicht zu lesen und ich war auf der Suche nach erholsamer Lektüre. Ich habe immer noch nichts von Susan Sontag gelesen und war nur wegen des Fotos von ihr im Bärenkostüm interessiert, auf dem sie wie eine sympathische Person wirkt. Etwa die erste Hälfte des Buchs mochte ich gern, ich habe interessante, verwirrende Details über das Autorinnenleben in New York Mitte der 70er Jahre erfahren. Man hatte einen schwerreichen Bekanntenkreis und eine riesige Wohnung? Entweder waren es sehr andere Zeiten oder es lag an Susan Sontag. Die Erzählweise gefiel mir auch gut, nicht um Vollständigkeit bemüht, ein bisschen sprunghaft, nie langweilig. Im letzten Drittel wird es aber so grausam, dass ich gar nicht wusste, wen ich unsympathischer finden soll, Núñez oder Sontag. Unsympathisch nicht, weil Núñez in irgendwas offensichtlich unrecht hätte, aber es geht schon sehr zentral um Sontags Scheitern als Mutter. Ich hätte gern mehr über das Schreiben und weniger über das Muttersein erfahren. Aber vielleicht gibt es schon zehn andere Bücher, die davon handeln, keine Ahnung.

[Lamia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Czyż życie nie jest rozczarowujące? 😂

[Joshie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s no secret I immensely adore Susan Sontag for her intelligence, eloquence, and profound love for literature and cinema. Her serious demeanour with the manner she carried herself, her thick hair, the timbre of her voice make me swoon with admiration. Sempre Susan colours in the obscured shade of humanness frequently eclipsed by Sontag’s public persona and intellect. As such there’s no surprise (but there’s still disappointment) to see Sontag as a flawed, set of contradictions and complications, at times nasty and unkind (one time she suggests in front of other people Nunez and her son stick to oral sex alone so as not to bother with birth control), and surprisingly had the inclination to incessantly chatter to fill in the quiet (be it whilst peeing or making a cup of coffee in the kitchen). Her desire to be remembered as a fiction writer instead of as an essayist/philosopher was a lasting frustration; she also lamented the years she lost because of writing essays, even her inaptitude to sketch certain feelings, certain imagery into her fictional work and the disdain she had of her years as a professor whilst happily nostalgic with her time as a student.

“In general, she had contempt for people who didn’t do what they truly wanted to do. She believed that most people, unless they were very poor, made their own lives, and, to her, security over freedom was a deplorable choice. It was servile.”

Nunez’ reminiscence makes an unsuccessful effort to avoid any kind of bias but her reverence leaks in Sempre Susan; and opposite Sontag’s sometimes cruel ways Nunez was movingly empathetic. Having lived with Sontag whilst she was Sontag’s son’s, David, girlfriend, their relationship was rather complex, mostly a muddled and blurred plane of a mentor and mentee where there’s rivalry for David’s love and attention. I find Sontag was selfish in this regard. She never wanted her son to be completely independent (people insinuated incestuous relationship between them which I haven’t personally heard of) whereas she went to college at 15, got married at 17 and had David at 19 which she affixed to her eagerness to grow-up; childhood having been a boring time in her life (in one interview she stated “childhood has wasted on me”) besides having to deal with an alcoholic mother. At the same time, it showed her vulnerability beyond her questionable, unusual ways of having brought up her son which she was so often proud of (or perhaps done only to console herself), her refusal to yield to mortality yet elation to having been brushed with it several times. Of course, this memoir is not without its absurdly odd/funny recollections of how Sontag never understood why owning a lot of underwear was necessary when one can own a pair and wash the other at night, her belief women exaggerate the inconveniences of menstruation, and the dislike she had for people who go to therapy (albeit she went to one herself) or take antidepressants because she believed stoicism was the perfect response to depression. It's interesting (and a comfort) to read about Sontag’s preference to sit in front of a theatre screen, how she highlighted books with pencils, and her devotion to beauty in all its forms and interpretations amidst her small insecurity with her looks (one time she said, “Here’s a big difference between you and me. You wear makeup and you dress in a certain way that’s meant to draw attention and help people find you attractive. But I won’t do anything to draw attention to my looks. If someone wants to, they can take a closer look and maybe they’ll discover I’m attractive. But I’m not going to do anything to help them.”) However Sempre Susan may come off as clanky and intermittent in places and jumps from one memory to another like a puzzle solved without an image to rely on but to form upon. Its briefness made me want more; and so does my love for Susan Sontag which reached extremely new heights. To end the memoir with one unforgettable, devastating dialogue from Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story aptly puts life’s trickles of heartache and shame, how it may palpably feel very long yet insufficient to fully clasp and hold all of our desires and pleasures.

Notes — —
-She didn’t like Kerouac and didn’t see Carver’s influence as something to cheer on.
-She bit her nails.
-She called herself a melancholic.
-She didn't like being called 'Sue.'
-“If I’m close to someone, even if it’s just a friend, I always feel some sexual attraction to that person.”
-Advice from Susan: if you cry once, people feel sorry for you. But if you cry every day, they just think you’re a drag.
-Some of Susan’s favourite words: servile, boring, besotted, exemplary, serious.
-She made it a point to see one film a day at theatres.

[Larnacouer de SH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kafam çok dağınık bu nedenle zihnimden geçenleri aşağı yukarı şöyle ifade edeceğim: İçli dışlı olmadığım yazar/ların hayat hikayeleri doğal olarak ilgimi çekmiyor. Doğal olarak diyorum çünkü ben herkes böyle düşünür sanıyordum: Bu noktada okurların ikiye ayrıldığını görmek benim için çok şaşırtıcı olmuştu vakti zamanında. Mesela okurların bir kısmı evvela hayatını sonra yazılarını okumaktan hoşlanıyormuş ya da tam tersi işte, önce kitapları sonra kendisi.
Ben ikinci kısımdayım, genellikle.
Fakat bazı zamanlar vikipedi gibi bir bilgi kargaşası değil de, çok da tanımadığım o kişiye dair hikayeleri özellikle bir arkadaşın dilinden dinlemekten keyif alıyorum.
Bu kitap öyle.

Arkadaşlık dedim ama uf, sert. Nunez Sontag’ın asistanlığı dışında, oğlunun sevgilisi olarak epey gözlemleme şansı bulmuş Sontag’ı. Anlattıklarından hiçbir şekilde şüphe duymadım ama bazı zamanlar biiiiiraz abartmış gibi gelmedi de değil. Sivri dilli bir kere. Kadını harcamadıysa bile harcamaya çok yakın yanlarından bahsetmiş. Gerçi ben sevdim bu dürüst ya da çirkef tavrını. Sontag fanına göre değişir herhalde tanımı.
Özetle okunur, beğendim.
Ebet, şu özet için on saattir ne konuşuyorum ben bilmem Allah bilir. *Allah eli kırmızı pilot kalem tutan arkadaşlarıma sabır versin.

Şimdi Sontag kitapları yetmiyor gibi bi’ de Nunez kitapları okuyacağız mecbur.

[Declan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully readable and utterly lacking in vindictiveness despite the difficulties Sigrid Nunez faced at times in dealing with Susan Sontag, not least when Nunez was in a relationship with Sontag's son David. That she remains puzzled by some aspects of the great essayist's behaviour makes the book all the better. No cheap and easy analyzing, just a kind of sadness that someone who could so clearly and deeply feel the weakness or greatness of films and novels evinced so little awareness of how she - in her worse moments - could make other people feel.

For me, as someone who has huge admiration for her writing and her unapologetically serious devotion to great art, the biggest shock of this memoir was finding out that Sontag had absolutely no appreciation of the beauty of nature. I have many books with her recommendations on the back of them and I like many of the same films she did, but we would not have got on. She loved city life, hated being alone and could not understand why anyone would want to spend time in the countryside. In those regards at least, I am her complete opposite. But she is still a hero of mine.

[küb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Sontag benim fotoğrafçılıkla ilgilenmeye başladığım yıllardan Başkarının Acısına Bakmak kitabıyla tanıştığım ve üstüne kitaplarını okumaya devam ettiğim, evet seviyorum dediğim bir yazardı. Duruşunu, kendini ifadesini, özgünlüğünü seviyordum. Ama bu kitapla bambaşka bir yere koydum. Kitabın dinamiği çok başarılıydı. Bilmiyorum yapılmak istenen şey bu muydu ama çok daha gerçekçi, yalın, şüphe duyulmayan bir anlatımla hakkında çok detaya sahip oluyoruz.
Yazar Sigrid Nunez’le tanışıklığım Dost romanıyla olmuştu. Şimdi hem Nunez’in diğer kitapları hem Sontag’ın tamamlanacak kitapları hem kitaptan radarıma katılanlar derken kabarık bir liste sahibi olduğum bir okuma oldu.
Ve bir yandan sadece Susan Sontag biyografisi değil Nunez’in otobiyografisini okuduğum için çok mutlu oldum.

[Gretchen Rubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very short, impressionistic memoir whetted my appetite to learn more about Susan Sontag and her work.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

It turns out Sigrid Nunez has a lot of feelings about Susan Sontag, having lived with her in her New York apartment for a period of time when she was dating Sontag's son, David Rieff.

Whilst most of these feelings are not complimentary she paints a vivid portrait of Sontag's personality, and it's clear she shaped her life in many ways (whether that was what Nunez wanted or not).

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit to a prurient interest in Sontagiana. I've always liked Sontag—well, always is a Sontag-like exaggeration, but I do believe I bought a '60s paperback of Against Interpretation, with her face in close-up on the cover, at the age of 16 or so from the now-defunct Eljay's Books on Pittsburgh's South Side. Since then, many of her famous essays from "Against Interpretation" itself to Regarding the Pain of Others have in whole or part burned their way into my brain. She is of that select company of great and aphoristic essayists—with Hazlitt, Emerson, Thoreau, Wilde, Chesterton, Woolf, Orwell, Baldwin, Didion, Hitchens, Vidal, Paglia, Bloom, Zizek—that, whether you agree with them or not, come up with unimprovable and unforgettable formulations. I remember welcoming (and quarreling with, as when she advocated "liberal imperialism" in her 2003 C-Span2 interview) her contributions when she was alive; and I even remember quite vividly where I was when I read that she had died (admittedly, I was in a—to me—strange place in those pre-constant-connectivity days: a cybercafe on a cold December morning somewhere on the eastern edge of Rome). I am surprised that I have only rated one of her books on Goodreads, as I feel like I have read many, many of her essays; but I suppose I read them non-consecutively, without reading her collections themselves cover to cover.

Sorry for all this autobiography—but then Sempre Susan is a memoir. It recounts the period in the late 1970s during which its author dated David Rieff, Sontag's son, and lived with the two in Sontag's apartment. The title, which sounds to me like a sitcom (perhaps I am thinking of Suddenly Susan), refers to the fact that Sontag's eminence in the New York literary world was such that everyone simply called her by her first name, including her son. Like many intimate portraits of Sontag, this one is ultimately unflattering—a portrait of a person more selfish and less exceptional than she understood. Sontag came from nowhere and created herself as a central figure in international culture, and the intimate portraits tend, unavoidably, to show the seams in that self-construction (she couldn't be alone! she insulted people! she endlessly resented her mother! she couldn't cook! she was an overbearing mother!). While Nunez writes about Sontag in this manner, she does so with "even-handed good humor and more than a little compassion," as Lydia Davis observes on the back cover. Nunez's tone is warm and bemused ("Oh, that Susan," you imagine her sighing with fond exasperation), not condemnatory at all, even as Nunez admits that Sontag's sensibility was somewhat alien to her own. In fact, my one complaint about this memoir is that Nunez tells us almost nothing about herself or her own background, which led me to wonder from what perspective exactly she was judging Sontag.

Anyway, I am interested in Sontagian gossip less because I want to judge her (for instance, as a coldly aloof but insanely needy friend/mother/lover, as she seems to have been) and more because I have always (always!) wanted to be her. I find her life of endless reading, obsessive writing, and cosmopolitan urbanity utterly attractive, and I like to live it vicariously through books. Some of Sontag's qualities that puzzle Nunez I frankly share—her conviction that her childhood was a waste of time, for instance, or her Wildean contempt for nature. And Sontag's personal failings seem rather trivial to me; I have personally known people who behaved far worse without having managed to contribute anything to the world as brilliant as "Fascinating Fascism" or Regarding the Pain of Others. I love this moment of witting or unwitting high camp (would I know it was camp without Sontag?) that Nunez records:

(Once, when she was struggling to finish an essay, angry that we weren't being supportive enough, she said, "If you won't do it for me, at least you could do it for Western culture.")

I am not really fond of attacking great writers or artists for how they conducted their personal lives, whether it's sexist men doing it to women or feminist women doing it in turn to men or whatever the situation is. Could the critics pass this test? Whose personal life would escape censure? And what, really, does it matter to literary history if you were a good mother or not?

The only revelation in this book that shocked me was intellectual rather than personal: Sontag, who wrote so authoritatively about German-language literature and culture, did not read German. (Then again, neither do I). Nunez also shares a very strange anecdote toward the end of the book about Edward Said, but it is Said who comes off poorly there, not Sontag.

A writer's politics are a more important question than his or her personal life, in my view, but this book doesn't really deal with that issue. If I were going to criticize Sontag, it would probably be for her political activities, from the overwrought radicalism of the 1960s ("The white race is the cancer of human history") to her self-aggrandizing "liberal imperialist" interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, which Toni Morrison and Fran Lebowitz amusingly mocked in Stockholm, as John Leonard reproachfully reports:

[I didn't know] about the scam she pulled with Lebowitz on an English reporter. They knew this reporter would ask what she intended to do with her $825,000 in prize money. By prearrangement, Toni said she would go to Somalia and mount, in Mogadishu, a stage production of The Emperor Jones.

I’m generally not in favor of Susan Sontag jokes by people who’ve stayed home from Bosnia. [...] And when this English reporter checked his story with Lebowitz, she confirmed it except for The Emperor Jones; the play instead would be, Fran said, A Raisin in the Sun.

Sontag's much-resented comments after 9/11, though, seemed correct to me at the time and seem correct to me now; I am also not bothered by her notorious remarks—"fascism with a human face"—at the 1982 Solidarity rally. (Sontag's Wikipedia page has a useful summary of all these controversies, with quotations.) I think that, like so many activist writers of the 20th century, she should have just stayed at her desk—not that she was even close to being the worst of the lot.

Back to Nunez's memoir. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this exemplary (a Sontagian word) twentieth-century life. Some highlights follow.

Sontag on feminism:

She was a feminist, but she was often critical of her feminist sisters and of much of the rhetoric of feminism for being naïve, sentimental, and anti-intellectual. And she could be hostile to those who complained about being underrepresented in the arts or banned from the canon, ungently reminding them that the canon (or art, or genius, or talent, or literature) was not an equal opportunity employer.

She was a feminist who found most women wanting.

Sontag on teaching:

Teach as little as possible, she said. Best not to teach at all: "I saw the best writers of my generation destroyed by teaching." She said the life of the writer and the life of the academic would always be at odds. She liked to refer to herself as a self-defrocked academic. She was even prouder to call herself self-created. [...] Besides, Susan had never wanted to be anyone's employee. The worst part of teaching was that it was, inescapably, a job, and for her to take any job was humiliating.

Sontag and class:

After I published a memorial essay in which I had written that Susan was not a snob, I head some outraged responses: everyone knew that she was a terrible snob! What I meant was that she did not believe a person must be lacking in any worthy quality simply because of his or her roots, no matter how primitive or deprived; she was not a class snob. She was the kind of person who noticed that the uneducated young woman who cleaned her house for a time had "beautifully, naturally aristocratic manners." On the other hand, she never pretended that a person's success did not depend—and to no small extent, either—on being connected...or that she didn't know what Pascal meant when he said that being wellborn can save a man thirty years. [...] She could not have cared less if a person came from a "good" or a "bad" family; she knew the distinction was specious. Wherever you were from, what really mattered to her was how smart you were—for, needless to say, she was an elitist.

Sontag on American vs. European literature:

Among living American writers, she admired, besides [Elizabeth] Hardwick, Donald Barthelme, William Gass, Leonard Michaels, Joan Didion, Grace Paley. But she had no more use for most contemporary American fiction (which, as she lamented, usually fell into either of two superifical categories: passé suburban realism or "Bloomingdale's nihilism") than she did for most contemporary American film. In her view, the last first-rate American novel had been Light in August, by Faulkner (a writer she respected but did not love). Of course, Philip Roth and John Updike were good writers, but she could summon no enthusiasm for the things they wrote about. Later, she would not find the influence of Raymond Carver on American fiction something to cheer. It wasn't at all that she was against minimalism, she said; she just couldn't be thrilled about a writer "who writes the same way he talks."

What thrilled her instead was the work of certain Europeans, for example Italo Calvino, Bohumil Hrabal, Peter Handke, Stanislaw Lem. They, along with Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, were creating far more daring and original work than her less ambitious fellow Americans. She liked to describe all highly inventive form- or genre-bending writing as science fiction, in contrast to banal contemporary American realism. It was this kind of literature that she thought a writer should aspire to, and that she aspired to, and that she believed would continue to matter.

On that note, and here I'll end, Nunez, like many others, tells us that Sontag often lamented that she was not taken seriously as a novelist, no matter how acclaimed she was as a critic. I am as guilty of this as anyone else; I finished this book determined to give Sontag her due by trying one of her novels—most likely The Volcano Lover. But if I do not admire it, I will not hesitate to say so—for Western culture.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

ne zaman bir yazarın mektuplarını, günlüklerini ya da işte bu kitap gibi mahrem anlarını okusam kendimi kötü hissediyorum. ki ölmüş bir yazarın varislerinin izniyle de olsa mektuplarını okumama kararı aldım mesela...
sigrid nunez apaçık, dosdoğru yazmış anılarını. bu tam bir biyografi kitabı değil. ama ben doğruluğundan zerre kuşku duymuyorum. bir yazarın egosunu, cinsel kimliğini, annelik travmalarını olduğu gibi yazmış ki bunu dibine kadar yaşamış çünkü oğluyla birlikte olup sontag'la aynı evde yaşamış.
hiç kimse tanrılaştırılmamalı, hiçbir sanatçı. bunu içselleştirdiğimden beri daha rahat yaşıyorum. sosyal medya mesela pek çok tanrı yerine koyduğumuz yazarın zaaflarını, çocukluklarını ve maalesef bazen salaklıklarını gözümüzün önüne serdi. çok iyi oldu. artık o dokunulamaz kimliklerinden kurtuldular.
sontag da ne kadar müthiş bir denemeci olsa da kurmaca konusundaki özgüvensizliğiyle, gayet psikoanalitik olarak incelenmesi gereken anneliğiyle karşımızda bu kez. üstelik gencecik bir yazara yaptığı narsistik çıkışlar da cabası...
kim olursa olsun resmi ya da değil kayınvalideyle yaşamak böyle bir kitap çıkarır :) üstelik nunez aslında akıl hocası ve esin perisi olarak önemini pek çok yerde anıyor.
ama benim hakkımda böyle bir kitap yazılmasını ister miyim? işte orada oluşuyor soru işareti. ama sonuçta siz gittikten sonra arkanızdan neler olmuş, söz hakkınız yok.
allah herkese jean echenoz'un yazdığı jérôme lindon gibi bir biyografi nasip etsin :))

[Diana Willemsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zeer snel te vergeten boekje over herinneringen van de auteur aan haar “schoonmoeder” Susan Sontag.

Gewoon uit interesse zou ik willen weten waarom Sontag feminist genoemd wordt. Ze was een begaafde, fascinerende, bijzondere, succesvolle vrouw, maar dat maakt iemand geen feminist. Ze was geen voorvechtster van vrouwenrechten, keek op haar seksgenoten neer en behandelde de meeste vrouwen als vuil. Mannen daarentegen aanbad ze. Kortstondig. Tenminste dat blijkt uit de biografieën en dagboeken. Ze leek vooral een Susanist, geen feminist.

[lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mam takie spaczenie, że uwielbiam czytać wspomnienia o wybitnych postaciach kultury i sztuki, szczególnie takie, w których pokazana jest ich często życiowa niezręczność. Zacieram ręce z ekscytacji, gdy trafi się fragment wspominający jak wielki intelektualista zrobi coś głupiutkiego. Żyję dla informacji, że wielki intelektualista nie lubił soku z pomidorów albo pokonało go metro w jakimś mieście. A to wszystko nadal z ogromną sympatią i szacunkiem do tych osób.

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Asıl planım Yeniden Doğan ile Susan Sontag günlükleri okumaya başlamaktı. Ancak yakın zamanda bu kitabın çıktığını görünce bir ön okuma olması açısından Daima Susan ile başladım. Sigrid Nunez bir dönem Sontag'ın asistanlığını yapmış, aynı zamanda da oğlunun sevgilisi olarak bir süre aynı evi paylaşmış. Bu yüzden de çok fazla bilinmeyen yönlerine dair, ancak Sontag figürünü de bozmadan dürüst bir biyografi oluşturmuş. 104 sayfalık kısa bir metin olduğunu da göz önünde bulundurursanız yazarın hayatına ve çalışmalarına dair bütün detayları bulmayı beklemeden okursanız oldukça memnun kalırsınız. Bu yıl içerisinde hem Susan Sontag hem de Sigrid Nunez okumaya devam etme niyetindeyim.

[Laurie Neighbors · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the midst of reading this book, I met my partner for dinner one evening, and we sat in the corner of the restaurant near our house, the one that we eat at all the time. The one with the porkchops. I ordered fish tacos and he ordered some fusilli with sausage and while we waited I told him about this book -- with more intensity than I had told him about any book in a while, since Lionel Shriver's "So Much for That," and definitely with more words than I'd ever talked about a memoir (except for his, of course) since I am deeply critical of the memoir genre (except when he uses it, of course). What I couldn't stop talking about was not just Sigrid Nunez's portrait of Susan Sontag but her balance (when she was balanced) and lack of balance (when she chose to be unbalanced) and how the book was both immediate (in the sense that it felt that we were right there with her twenty-something self as she was thrown into the deep water of Susan Sontag's apartment) and reflective (in that she told this story with such wholeness of understanding). Nunez understood this other woman, this other very complicated woman -- the way that women understand women. It was quite touching. It made me love Sontag even more, even in Nunez's most unflattering (yet always empathetic) portrayals.

Recently I started Sontag's son's memoir or her death. I doubt I will finish it. He writes like a fish.

[Jakub · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Sempre Susan" proved to be an interesting, stimulating read, despite my lack of interest in the private life of Susan Sontag. This short memoir did not change that disinterest but nevertheless is gave much food for thought revolving around perception, fame and self-creation.

[Lulufrances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nunez‘ writing and my tastes click really, really well, so her writing about Susan Sontag, someone who has always been fascinating yet distant to me (despite having read a bit of her work), worked a treat!
Nunez paints a very human figure and shows as many sides as she can of Sontag‘s being and it felt a bit like a mystery being spoiled but in a good way.
Recommended!

[Rodica Iavorschii · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am citit traducerea în română a cărții, apărută la editura Musai. M-a prins, dar ceva parcă mi-a lipsit.

[Senga krew_w_piach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ta książka nie jest typową biografią. Jak zwykle u Sigrid Nunez składa się z rzutów okiem na konkretne scenki, przebłysków wspomnień, które zaskakują nas znienacka, skojarzeń, które budzą się pod wpływem jakichś rzeczy czy zdarzeń. Nie ma tu chronologii, nie ma konstruowania życiorysu, nie ma stawiania pomnika. Jest tylko krótki moment w czasie, który zupełnie przypadkiem splótł życie trzech osób. Nunez opowiada o najsłynniejszej eseistyce, która marzyła o byciu prozatorką, takiej jaką znała, z jej słabościami, przywarami, ale też pokazuje zalety, które przez ogół były niedostrzegane. Opowiada o pisarce, kobiecie, matce, chorej. Każda z tych ról była w portrecie psychologicznym Sontag równie ważna. Przytacza mnóstwo anegdotek - i tych zabawnych i tych trochę creepy.

Jak zwykle w prozie nowojorskiej autorki jej opowieść poza wątkiem przewodnim porusza jeszcze całe mnóstwo tematów, które czasem są tylko zarysowane gdzieś pod powierzchnią. Jest o feminizmie, macierzyństwie i toksycznej relacji z dzieckiem, jest o byciu pisarką w świecie literatury zdominowanej przez mężczyzn, jest o walce z nowotworem i niezgodzie na smierć, w końcu, tradycyjnie dla Sigrid Nunez jest dużo o pisaniu, procesie twórczym, literaturze. Jest też o stawaniu się pisarką i kobietą, szukaniu własnej tożsamości, poznawaniu siebie i buncie - bowiem opowiada ten krótki szkic w takiej samej mierze o Susan Sontag co Sigrid Nunez.

Nie jest to „Przyjaciel” ani „Pełnia miłości”, jest dużo mniej dygresji, autorka dokładniej trzyma się tematu. Niemniej poczucie humoru, inteligencja i trafność spostrzeżeń jest identyczna jak w tamtych książkach i taka sama jest też przyjemność jej czytania. „Sempre Susan” ma dla mnie tylko jedną, zasadniczą wadę - jest dużo za krótka.

[Steve Turtell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the last thing by or about Susan Sontag I ever intend to read, and confirms me in my opinion of her. Yes she was sometimes brilliant, but she was never in the first rank of writers that she aspired to and demanded to be placed within. Her fiction is unreadable, even the one for which she got the National Book Award as a consolation prize for--the year she won she beat out Charles Baxter, Alan Lightman, Joyce Carol Oates, and Francine Prose--all much more talented writers than Sontag ever was. Her essays, even when they lead you to other, better, more interesting writers than herself are nothing more than introductions, and once you've read them you can go on to the writers themselves. The truth is she never left grad school, which this memoir confirms. For years I've said that every six months or year Sontag would deliver the best fucking term paper anyone had ever seen. That's her accomplishment. She kept herself out of even those works where she could have been a better and maybe even a great writer if she'd been willing to reveal more than her brain: Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and It's Metaphors. Save your time. Look at the titles of her essays and then go read the person she's writing about. My prediction, in twenty years no one will be reading or talking about her as much as they were when she was alive. There'll be no need to. Unless you want to learn how to become a literary power broker: she was brilliant at that.