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Indlæser... At the Same Time: Essays and Speechesaf Susan Sontag
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. I didn't finish the whole book before I had to return it to the library. I read her fantastic essay, An Argument About Beauty, which I will not forget because I loved it; 1926...Pasternak, Tsvetayeva, Rilke; Loving Dostoyevsky (about Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden Baden); Unextinguished: the Case for Victor Serge; and A Double Destiny: On Anna Banti's Artemesia. (All waiting on my shelves to be read.) I skimmed the Laxness essay and the rest, which doesn't count as reading. I felt a failing desire to continue, not sure why, but it may have been the 9/11 pieces. I just might have overdosed on 9/11 writing, in general, and couldn't find it in me to revisit it now. I might pick this up again another day. I would give this book more stars on the Beauty essay alone, but I will resist the urge to be too expansive (you know how I can be). Sontag is as observational and exceptionally well written as always in this, her last collection of essays. Literary observations on Halldor Laxness, Nadine Gordimer and Victor Serge are among the highlights, as are her political meditations on contemporary ('post-postmodernist') politics. Excellent and enjoyable. From the first point of view, it has many different kinds of analysis of modern literature & for formation of Susan Sontag. It is still a way of introduction to new readers, although i less clearly of understanding in some passages. I would say that from here, I will continue to read & discovery the worlds of words across english texts A collection of Sontag´s final essays and speeches, the most personally touching is perhaps “Photography: A Little Summa.” Always questioning and always observant, Sontag writes, “A photograph may be telling us: this too exists. And that. And that. (And it is all “human.”) But what are we to do with this knowledge–if indeed it is knowledge, about, say, the self, about abnormality, about ostracized or clandestine worlds?” And then, “What is liberating, we are told, is to notice more and more.” ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
Sontag's incisive intelligence, expressive brilliance, and deep curiosity about art, politics, and the writer's responsibility to bear witness have secured her place as one of the most important thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. This collection gathers sixteen essays and addresses written in the last years of Sontag's life, when her work was being honored on the international stage, which reflect on the personally liberating nature of literature, her deepest commitment, and on political activism and resistance to injustice as an ethical duty. She considers the works of writers, from the little-known Soviet novelist Leonid Tsypkin, who struggled and eventually succeeded in publishing his only book days before his death; to the greats, such as Nadine Gordimer, who enlarge our capacity for moral judgment. Sontag also fearlessly addresses the dilemmas of post-9/11 America, from the degradation of our political rhetoric to the appalling torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)814.54Literature English (North America) American essays 20th Century 1945-1999LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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We detect some dissonance within her award speeches. Her praise of prose for it's ability to make time stretch and the distant near, to make characters' lives close to us and the Other known - perhaps correct - is only one part of what drives the obsessive reader (Sontag herself). The secret hope of this reader is the search for the Final Book, which will put everything to right (an impossibility), and for whom Sontag's romantic vision of vast tracts of literature stretching out into eternity is one of both excitement and crushing anxiety.
Her brief Photography: A Little Summa is the best work in the collection, as always. ( )