Reviews
Ich schreibe, um herauszufinden, was ich denke: Tagebücher 1964-1980 by David Rieff, Susan Sontag
shlackspot's review against another edition
5.0
Leer los más íntimos pensamientos de esta mujer es un privilegio. Es que alucino con lo brillante y sensible que era ❤️
laura_sonja's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed reading this, but I wish it had been slightly less edited - there are some passages that are nearly impossible to read because of how many square-bracketed explanations there are. Plus, abbreviations like “betw” feel very different than “betw[een]” so I do kind of wish those had just been left alone. Still definitely worth reading though!
mmorenagomes's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
laurelsanders's review against another edition
4.0
Abandoned it some months ago cos I couldn't get through the Vietnam section (too fragmented and vague) but as a whole incredibly insightful and fun. on page 409 she calls Fitzgerald's oeuvre "midcult junk"
gasbolina's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
lots to agree with and lots to disagree with; either way, underlined most of the book. god what a mind.
dinosaursatwork's review
I wanted to read this book (read: fragment of thoughts) perhaps tenyears ago when I read a very positive review in "Der Spiegel". Since then I have not read a single page - until the beginning of this year. Full disclosure: I have absolutely no idea anymore what the book critic liked about Sontag's diaries and I was unable to find the review again.
Personally, I feel ambivalent (I'm sorry Susan, I know you had bad experiences with that). There were passages I enjoyed reading, particularly those when Sontag is writing about her failed/failing relationships. In these passages, I thought that I gained some kind of understanding of her life and the people around her. I also kept finding sentences that I'd like to come back to, and use in projects of my own. Besides that, the journal entries seemed poorly curated to me. We get lists after lists of words, of movies, of fragments that did not make sense to me. I have never read anything by Sontag before this, so perhaps her working processes might be enjoyable to people who are familiar with her work. I, however, do not want to read her essays or novels after this mess.
Even Sontag's introspective moments are a mess: She is the best proof that psychology is not just "common sense" and that philosophy is not basically the same thing as psychology. I'm glad that Sontag got to work through her problems, but it feels really strange to me how many issues she had to resolve - it seemed like she hadn't tried to confront her problems before 1964.
I'm also not a fan of the intellectual fragments I got to read. Most of the time, I don't have enough context to understand what she wants to say. I also find her statements questionable - they remind me of qualitative researchers who think opinions or unsystematic observations are science (I am sure Sontag has encountered these people, too, since she started a Ph.D. in philosophy). This concerns, for example, her never-ending observations about protestants/Jewish people and Catholics - none of which I, raised protestant in a catholic region, can confirm. At some point, I began to skip over many entries which helped my reading enjoyment but shouldn't be the purpose of a book with over 500 pages.
Her word choices were deeply uncomfortable at times: For about the first half of the book, she used the n-word for black people. There is also a pretty bad/confusing section about people with down syndrome. She also seems to like the word rape and uses it in a variety of contexts: Her first sexual encounter with a woman was "rape" but very positive. She also asks a rape victim whether she found it exciting sexually to be raped, because, according to her, that would make sense. Oh my.
Personally, I feel ambivalent (I'm sorry Susan, I know you had bad experiences with that). There were passages I enjoyed reading, particularly those when Sontag is writing about her failed/failing relationships. In these passages, I thought that I gained some kind of understanding of her life and the people around her. I also kept finding sentences that I'd like to come back to, and use in projects of my own. Besides that, the journal entries seemed poorly curated to me. We get lists after lists of words, of movies, of fragments that did not make sense to me. I have never read anything by Sontag before this, so perhaps her working processes might be enjoyable to people who are familiar with her work. I, however, do not want to read her essays or novels after this mess.
Even Sontag's introspective moments are a mess: She is the best proof that psychology is not just "common sense" and that philosophy is not basically the same thing as psychology. I'm glad that Sontag got to work through her problems, but it feels really strange to me how many issues she had to resolve - it seemed like she hadn't tried to confront her problems before 1964.
I'm also not a fan of the intellectual fragments I got to read. Most of the time, I don't have enough context to understand what she wants to say. I also find her statements questionable - they remind me of qualitative researchers who think opinions or unsystematic observations are science (I am sure Sontag has encountered these people, too, since she started a Ph.D. in philosophy). This concerns, for example, her never-ending observations about protestants/Jewish people and Catholics - none of which I, raised protestant in a catholic region, can confirm. At some point, I began to skip over many entries which helped my reading enjoyment but shouldn't be the purpose of a book with over 500 pages.
Her word choices were deeply uncomfortable at times: For about the first half of the book, she used the n-word for black people. There is also a pretty bad/confusing section about people with down syndrome. She also seems to like the word rape and uses it in a variety of contexts: Her first sexual encounter with a woman was "rape" but very positive. She also asks a rape victim whether she found it exciting sexually to be raped, because, according to her, that would make sense. Oh my.
heartsneedle's review against another edition
4.0
4/5
“I’m now writing out of rage—and I feel a kind of Nietzschean elation. It’s tonic. I roar with laughter. I want to denounce everybody, tell everybody off. I go to my typewriter as I might go to my machine gun. But I’m safe. I don’t have to face the consequences of “real” aggressivity. I’m sending out colis piégés [“booby-trapped packages”] to the world.”
Codependency, Paternalism
It felt rather impersonal. The content is a myriad of cited works and lists accompanied by clipped jottings interspersed throughout. However, much of Sontag's character is lost and, the editor's choices towards the end felt too abrupt and lacking.
“I’m now writing out of rage—and I feel a kind of Nietzschean elation. It’s tonic. I roar with laughter. I want to denounce everybody, tell everybody off. I go to my typewriter as I might go to my machine gun. But I’m safe. I don’t have to face the consequences of “real” aggressivity. I’m sending out colis piégés [“booby-trapped packages”] to the world.”
Codependency, Paternalism
It felt rather impersonal. The content is a myriad of cited works and lists accompanied by clipped jottings interspersed throughout. However, much of Sontag's character is lost and, the editor's choices towards the end felt too abrupt and lacking.
jenlowe's review against another edition
I've never been so happy to finish a book. Or maybe—this is the closest I've ever come to not finishing a book, but then I finished. Sontag's been an inspiration for me. (She grew up in In Tucson, which is my hometown.) But these journals, sheesh. Her constant striving, and competing and comparing herself to other writers, is exhausting and depressing to read. Inspirational as an example of what I do not want to be; somewhat excruciating to read.