Susan Sontag the Art of Fiction

8/12/2019 Susan Sontag the Art of Fiction

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Susan SontagThe rt of Fiction CXLIII

Susan Sontagwasinterviewed in her Manhattan apartmenton three blisteringly hot days in July 1994 . She had beentraveling back and forth toSarajevo she has now been therenine times and it was gracious of her to set aside time fortheinterview. Sontag is a prodigious talkercandid informallearned ardent andeachday at a wooden kitchen table heldforth for seven and eight-hour stretches. The kitchen is amixed-use room but the fax machine and the photocopierwere silent; the telephone seldom rang. The conversationranged o veravastarray of subjectslater the texts w ould bescoured and revisedbutalwaysreturned to the pleasures anddistinctions of literature. Sontag is interested in all thingsconcerning writing from the mechanism of the process tothe high nature of the calling. She has many missions butforemost among them is the vocation of the writer.

Sontag was bom in 1933 in New York City grew up inArizona and later Southern California. She graduated fromhigh school at fifteen attended Berkeley for a year graduatedfrom the UniversityofChicago 1951)and received two M.A.s


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178 SUSAN SON TAGfrom Harvard:one in English 1954), one in philosophy 1955). In 1950, she married PhilipRieff with whom she hada son, the writer DavidRieff; the marriagelasted nine years.Since 1957, when she spent a year in France, Sontag hasoftenlivedabroad though New York City has generally servedasher base. In the early sixties she taught philosophy and thehistory of religion at various universities, but since then haseschewed academic life. She has won m anyawardsand fellow-ships, including the National Book Critics Circle Aw ard forOn Photography and a five-year Mac Arthur Fellowship.

Sontag has published fifteen books, including the novelsThe Benefactor 1963), Death Kit 1967) and The VolcanoLover 1992), a collection of short stories, I etcetera 1978)and three collections of essays: Against Interpretation 1966),Styles of Radical Will 1969) andVndcT the Sign of Saturn 1980). On Photography a collection of related essays, waspublished in 1977.A Susan Sontag Readerappeared in 1982.Illness as Metaphor 1978) and its companion volume, AIDSand Its M etaphors 1989), anatom ize the putative uses of met-aphors for tuberculosis, cancer andAIDS in our culture. Herlatest workisa play employing elements from the life of AliceJames entitled Alice in Bed 1993). Sontag has also writtenand directed four filmsX^wti for Cannibals 1969), BrotherCarl 1971), Promised Lands 1974) and Unguided Tour1985) and edited and introduced writings by Antonin Ar-taud 1976), Roland Barthes 1981)and, most recently, DaniloKis 1995), as well as written prefaces to books by RobertWalser 1982), Marina Tsvetaeva 1983), Machado de Assis1990) and Juan Ru lfo 1995), among others.

Sontag lives inasparsely furnished five-room apartment onthe top fioor of a building in Chelsea on the west side o fManhattan. Booksasmany as fifteen thousand--and papersare everywhere. A lifetime could be spent browsing throughthe books onartand architecture, theater and dance, philoso-phy and psychiatry, the history of medicine and the historyof religion, photography and opera and so on. The variousEuropean literaturesFrench, Germ an, Italian, Spanish, Rus-sian, etc., as well as hundreds of books of Japanese literature


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THE ART OF FICTION 179and books on Japan are arranged by language in a looselychronological way. SoisAmerican literatureaswellasEnglishliterature, wh ich runs from Beowulf to, say, James Fenton.Sontag is an inveterate clipper, and the booksare filled withscrapsof paper ( eachbookismarked andfilleted, shesays),the bookcasesfestooned with notes scrawled with the namesof additional things toread.

Sontag usually writes by hand on a low marble table in theliving room. Small theme notebooks are filled with notes forher novel-in-progress. In America. An old book on Chopinsits atop a history of table manners. The roomislit byalovelyFortuny lamp, ora replicaof one. Piranesi prints decorate thewall architectural prints are one of her passions).Everything in Sontag 's apartm ent testifies to the range ofher interests, but it is the workitself, like her conversation,that demonstrates the passionate nature of her comm itments.She is eager to follow a subject wherever it leads,asfar asitwill go andbeyond. What shehassaid about Roland Barthesis true about heraswell: It was not a question of knowledge. . . but of alertness, a fastidious transcription of what couldbe thought about something, once it swam into the streamof attention.

INTERVIEWERWhen did you begin writing?SUSAN SONTAGI m not su re. B ut I know I was self-publishing when I wasabou t nin e: I started a four-page m onthly n ewspaper, whichI hectographed (a very primitive method of duplication) inabout twenty copies and sold for five cents to the neighbors.The paper, which I kept going for several yeare, was filledwith imitations of things I was reading. There were stories,poem s and two plays that rem em ber, one inspired by Capek s

R.U.R., the other by Edna St. Vincent MiXhys Aria de Capo.And accounts of battles Midway, Stalingrad and so on ; re-


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180 SUSAN SONTAGm em be r, th is was 1942, 194 3, 1944 dutifully cond ensedfrom articles in rea newspapers.

INTERVIEWERWe've had to postpone this interview several times because

of your freq ue nt trips to Sarajevo w hich, you've told m e , havebeen one of the most compelling experiences of your life. Iwas thinking how war recurs in your work and life.

SONTAGIt doe s. I m ade two trips to Nor th V ietnam un de r Am ericanbo m b ar dm en t, the first of which I recoun ted in "Trip to Ha-

no i . " and when the Yom Kippur War star ted in 1973 I wentto Israel to shoot a film. Promised Lands on the front lines.Bosnia is actually my third war.

INTERVIEWERThere 's the denunciation of mili tary metaphors in Illness

as M etaphor. And the narrative climax of The Volcano Lovera horrifying evocation of the viciousness of war. And when Iasked you to con tribu te to a book I was ed it ing , TransformingVision: Writers on Art the work you chose to write about wasGoya's The Disasters of War.

SONTAGI suppose it couid seem odd to travel to a war, and not justin on e's im agin ation even if I do com e from a family oftravelers. My father, who was a fur trader in northern China,died there du ring theja pa nes e invasion: I was f ive. I rem em berhearing about "world war" in September 1939, entering ele-m en tary scho ol, where my best friend in the class was a Sp anishCivil War refugee. I remember panicking on December 7,1941. And one of the first pieces of language I ever ponderedover was "for the duration" as in "there 's no butter for thedu ra tio n ." I recall savoring the oddity , and the op tim ism , ofthat phrase .


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THE ART OF FICTION 181INTERVIEWER

In Wri t ingItself, on Roland Barthes, you express surprisethat Barthes, whose father was ki l led in one of the batt les ofth e First W orld W ar {Barthes was an infa nt) a nd w ho , as ayoung man himself, l ived through the Second World Warthe Occupa t ion never once ment ions the word war in anyof h is wri t ings . But your work seems haunted by war .

SONTAGI could answer that a wri ter i s someone who pays a t tent ionto the world .

INTERVIEWERYo u once wro te of Promised Lands My subject is wa r, an d

anything about any war that does not show the appal l ingconcreteness of des t ru ct ion and de ath is a da ng ero us l i e .

SONTAGThat prescript ive voice rather makes me cringe. But . . .

yes.INTERVIEWER

A re you w rit ing ab o u t th e siege of Sarajevo? ,SONTAG

N o . I m ea n, n ot yet, an d prob ably no t for a long t im e.And almost certainly not in the form of an essay or report.DavidRieff, w ho is m y son, a nd w ho started go ing to Sarajevobefore I d id , has pu bl ish ed such an essay-report , a boo k calledSlaughterhouse and one book in the family on the Bosniangenocide is enough. So I 'm not spending t ime in Sara jevo towri te about i t . For the moment i t ' s enough for me jus t to bethere as much as I can: to witness, to lament, to offer a modelof non-co m pl ic i ty , to p i tch in . Th e du t ies o f a h u m an be in g ,one who believes in r ight act ion, not of a writer .

INTERVIEWER .D id you always w an t to be a writer? , . .


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182 SUSAN SO NT AGSONTAG

I read the b iography o f Madame Cut ie by he t daugh te r EveC ur ie wh en I was abo ut six, so at first I th o u g h t I was goin gto be a chemis t . Then fo r a long t ime , mos t o f my ch i ldhood ,I wa n te d to b e a p h y s i c ia n . Bu t l it e r a tu re sw a m p e d m e . W h a tI really w an te d was every k ind of l ife , a n d the w riter s l ifeseemed the mos t inc lus ive .

INTERVIEWERDid you have any ro le models as a wri ter?SONTAG

O f course I th o u g h t I was J o in little W omen Bu t I d id n tw an t to wr i te w ha t Jo w ro te . Th en in Martin Eden I foun d aw ri ter-pro tago nis t w i th wh ose w ri t in g I cou ld iden t i fy , so th enI w an t ed to be M ar t in E de n m in us , o f course , the d rea ryfate Jac k L on do n gives hi m . I saw m yself as, I guess I w as, aheroic autodidact . I looked forward to the s t ruggle of thewri t ing l i fe . I thought of be ing a wri ter as a heroic vocat ion .

INTERVIEWERAn y o th e r mo d e l s?

SONTAGLate r , when I was th i r teen , I read the journa ls o f Andre

Gide , which descr ibed a l i fe of grea t pr iv i lege and re lent lessav id i ty .

INTERVIEWERDo y o u r e me mb e r wh e n y o u s t a r t e d r e a d in g ?

SONTAGW h e n I wa s th r e e , I m to ld . A n y wa y . I r e m e m b e r r e a d in g

real books bio gra ph ies , t ravel boo ks w hen I was ab ou t s ix .A n d the n f ree fa ll in t o Poe an d Shak espea re an d D ickens an dth e Bro n te s a n d Vic to r Hu g o a n d S c h o p e n h a u e r a n d P a te r ,an d so on . I go t th ro ug h m y ch i ld ho od in a de l i r iu m of li te raryexa l ta t ions .


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You must have been very different from other children.SONT G

W as I? I was good at dissem bling, too. I d id n't thin k tha tmuch abou tmyself, i was so glad to be on to so m ething be tter.Bu t I so w ante d to b e elsewhere. An d reading pro du ced itsblissful, con firming alie na tion s. Because of readin gand m u-sicmy daily experience was of living in a world of peoplewho didn't give a hoot about the intensities to which I hadpledged myself. I felt as if I were from an oth er pla ne t afantasy borrowed from the innocent comic books of that era,to which I was also addicted. And of course I didn't reallyhave m uc h sense of how I was seen by oth ers . A ctually, I nevertho ug ht peop le were think ing of m e at a l l. I do rem em berI was ab ou t four a scene in a park , h earin g my Irish nan nysaying to an oth er gian t in a starched wh ite un iform , Susanis very hig h-s trun g. and thin kin g. Th at 's an interestingword. Is i t true?

INTERVIEWERTell me something about your educat ion.

SONTAGAll in public schools, qui te a number of them, each onemore lowering than the one before. But I was lucky to havestaned school before the era ofthe child psychologists. SinceI could read and write I was im m ediately p ut into the thirdgrade ,an d laterIwas skipped ano ther sem ester, soI wasgradu-ated from high school North Hollywood H igh School when I was still fifteen. After that, I had a splendid educationat Berkeley, then in the so-called Hutchins College of theUniversity of Chicago, and then as a graduate student in phi-losophy at Harvard and Oxford. I was a student for most ofthe 1950s and 1 never had a teacher from wh om I di dn 't learn.But at Chicago, the most important of my universit ies, therewere not just teachers I admired but three to whose influence


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184 SUSAN SONT AGI gratefu lly su bm i t ted : K en ne th B urke , Richard McKeon andLeo Strauss.

INTERVIEWERWhat was Burke like as a teacher?

SONTAGCompletely inside his own enthralling way of unpacking atext. He spent almost a year with the class reading Conrad'sVictoryword by word, image by image . It was from Burkethat I learned how to read. I still read the way he taught me.He took some interest in me. I had already read some of hisbooks before h e was my teacher in H um anities III; rem em ber,he wasn't well-known the n an d h e'd never met an und ergradu-ate who had read him while still in high school. He gave mea copy of his novel. owardsa Better Life and told me storiesabout sharing an apar tm en t m Greenwich Village in the 1920swith Hart Crane and Djuna Barnes you can imag ine whatthat did to m e. H e was the first person met who had writtenbooks that I owned. (I except an audience I was roped intowith Thomas Mann when I was fourteen years old, which Irecou nted in a story called Pilgrim age . ) Writers were as re-mote to me as movie stars.

INTERVIEWERYou had your B.A. from the University of Chicago at eigh-teen. Did you know by then you would become a writer?SONTAG

Yes, but I still went to graduate school. It never occurredto me that I could support myselfasa writer. was a grateful,militant student. I thought I would be happy teaching, andI was. Ofcourse, I had been careful to prepare myself to teachnot literature, but philosophy and the history of religion.INTERVIEWER

But you taught only through your twenties, and have re-fused countless invitations to return to university teaching. Is


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THE ART OF FICTION 85this because you came to feel that being an academic andbeing a creative writer are incompatible?

SONTAGYes. W orse tha n in co m patib le. I ve seen academ ic l ife de-

stroy the best writers of my generation.INTERVIEWER

Do you mind being called an intellectual?SONTAG

Well, one never l ikes to be called anything. And the wordm akes m ore sense to m e as an adjective th an as a no u n, th ou gh ,even so, I sup pos e the re will always be a pres um ptio n of grace-less od dity especially if on e is a w om an . W hich m akes m eeven more committed to my polemics against the ruling anti-intellectual cliches: heart versus head, feeling versus intellect,and so forth.

INTERVIEWERDo you think of yourself as a feminist?

SONTAGTh at s on e of the few labels I m con tent w ith. But even so. . . is it a noun? I do ub t i t.INTERVIEWER

What women wri ters have been important to you?SONTAGMany. Sei Shonagon, Austen, George El iot , Dickinson,Woolf , Tsvetayeva, Akhmatova, Elizabeth Bishop, ElizabethHardwick . . the l ist is m uch longer than th at . B ecause w om en

are, culturally speaking, a minority, with my minority con-sciousness I always rejoice in th e achiev em ent of w om en . W ithm y writer s consciousness, I rejoice in any w riter I can ad m ire ,women wri ters no more or less than men.


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186 SUS N SONT GINTERVIEWER

Whateyer the models of a l i terary vocation that inspiredyou as a child, I have the impression that your adult idea ofa li terary vocation is m ore Europ ean th an A m erican.

SONTAGI'm not so sure. I think i t's my own p rivate bra nd . But w hatistrueisth a t, l iving in the second half of the tw entieth cen tury,I could indu lge m y Eu roph ile tastes w ithout actually expatriat-ingm yself,w hile still spe nd ing a lot of my a du lt life in Eu rop e.That 's been my way of being an American. As Gertrude Steinrem arke d, W ha t good are roots if you can' t take the m w ithyou? O ne m ig ht say tha t 's yeryJewish, bu t it's also very A m er-ican.

INTERVIEWERYour third novel . The Volcano Lover, seems to me a veryAmerican book, even though the story it tells takes place ineighteenth-century Europe.SONTAGIt is. Nobody but an American would have writ ten The

Volcano Lover.INTERVIEWER

A nd The Volcano Lover ssubt i tle : A Ro m ance . That 's areference to Hawthorne, r ight?SONTAGExactly. I was thin kin g of wh at H aw thorn e says in th epreface to The House of Seven Gables: W h e n a writer calls hiswork a romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishesto claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material,which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume hadhe been w riting a no vel. My im agina tion is very m arked bynineteenth-century American l i teraturefirstby Poe, whomI read at a precocious age an d w hose m ixtu re of specu lativeness,


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THE ART O F FICTION 187fantasy and gloominess enthral led nne. Poe ' s s tor ies s t i l l in-ha b i t my hea d . T he n by H aw tho r ne an d M elv i ll e . I love M el -vi l le 's obsessiven ess .Clarel.. Moby-Dick. A n d Z'/d-m? a n o th e rnovel about the t e r r ib le thwar t ing of a hero ic so l i t a ry wr i t e r .

INTERVIEWERYour f i r s t book was a novel . The Benefactor. S ince t h en

you've wri t ten essays, t ravel narrat ives , s tor ies , plays, as wellas two m ore nove l s . Have you ever s t a r t ed som eth in g in on ef o r m and t hen changed i t t o ano the r ?

SONTAGN o . F r om th e be g in n in g I a lways know wh a t s o m e th ing is

go ing to b e : every imp ulse to wr i t e is bo rn of an idea of fo rm ,for m e . To b eg in I hav e to have th e sh ap e , th e a rch i tec tu re .I can ' t say i t be t t e r th an N ab ok ov d id : T he pa t t e rn of thet h i n g p r e c e d e s t h e t h i n g .

INTERVIEWERH ow fluent are you as a w ri ter?

SONTAGI w ro te The BenefactorquicVXy almost effort lessly, on week-ends and du r ing two s ummer s ( I was t each ing i n t he Depa r t -

m en t o f R e l ig ion a t C o lu m bia C o l l ege ) ; I t h ou gh t I was t e ll i nga pleasurably s inis ter s tory that i l lus t ra ted the for tune of cer -t a in here t i ca l r e l ig ious ideas tha t go by the name of Gnos t i -cism . Th e early essays ca m e easi ly, to o . B ut w ri t in g is an act ivi tyth a t in m y expe r ience does n ' t ge t eas ie r w i th prac t i ce . O n thecon t r a r y .

INTERVIEWERHow does s ome th ing ge t s t a r t ed f o r you?

SONTAGIt s t a r ts w i th sen tences , wi th p hrases , and the n I kno w som e-

th in g is be ing t r an s m i t t ed . O f t en i t's an op en in g l i ne . B u tsom et im es I he ar the c losing l ine , ins te ad .


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188 SUSAN SO NT AGINTERVIEWER

How do you ac tua l ly wr i t e?SONTAG

I w r it e w i t h a f e l t - t ip p e n , o r s o m e t i m e s a p e n c i l , o n y e llo wor w h i t e l ega l pa ds , th a t fe t ish o f A m er ica n w r i t e r s . I l ike th es lo w n e s s o f w r i t i n g b y h a n d . T h e n I t y p e i t u p a n d s cra w la l l o v e r t h a t . A n d k e e p o n r e t y p i n g i t , e a c h t i m e m a k i n gc o r r e c t i o n s b o t h b y h a n d a n d d i r e c t l y o n t h e t y p e w r i t e r , u n t i lI d o n t see how to ma ke i t any b e t t e r . U p t o f ive yea rs ago ,t h a t w a s i t . S i n c e t h e n t h e r e is a c o m p u t e r i n m y l if e. A f t e rt h e s e c o n d o r t h i r d d r a ft it g o e s i n t o t h e c o m p u t e r , s o 1 d o n tr e t y p e t h e w h o l e m a n u s c r i p t a n y m o r e , b u t c o n t i n u e t o r e v i s eb y h a n d o n a s u cc e ss io n o f h a r d - c o p y d r a ft s fr o m t h e c o m p u t e r .

INTERVIEWERI s t h e r e a n y t h i n g t h a t h e l p s y o u g e t s t a r t e d w r i t i n g ?SONTAG

R e a d i n g w h i c h is r ar ely r e l a t e d t o w h a t I m w r i t i n g , o rh o p in g to w r i t e . I r ead a lo t o f a r t h i s to ry , a r ch i t ec tu ra l h i s to ry ,m u s i c o l o g y , a c a d e m i c b o o k s o n m a n y s u b j e c t s . A n d p o e t r y .G e t t in g s t a r t ed is pa r t ly s t a l l ing , s t a l l in g by way o f r ead inga n d o f l i s t e n i n g t o m u s i c , w h i c h e n e r g i z e s m e a n d a l s o m a k e sm e r e s t l e s s . F e e l i n g g u i l t y a b o u t ot w r i t i n g .

INTERVIEWERDo you wr i t e eve ry day?

SONTAGN o . I w r i t e in spu r t s . I w r i t e w he n I hav e to because th ep r e s s u re b u i l d s u p a n d I fe el e n o u g h c o n f id e n c e t h a t s o m e -t h i n g h a s m a t u r e d in m y h e a d a n d I c a n w r i te it d o w n . B u to n c e s o m e t h i n g is r ea ll y u n d e r w a y , I d o n t w a n t t o d o a n y -t h i n g e ls e , I d o n t g o o u t , m u c h o f t h e t i m e I f o rg e t t o e a t ,I s l eep ve ry l i t t l e . I t s a ve ry un d i sc ip l in ed way o f w ork ing an dm a k e s m e n o t y e ry p r o li fi c . B u t I m t o o i n t e r e s t e d i n m a n yo t h e r t h i n g s .


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THE ART OF FICTION 189INT RVI W R

Yeats said famously that one must choose between the lifeand the work. Do you think that is true?SONTAG

As you kno w , he actually said th at o ne mu st choose b etweenperfection ofthe l ife and perfection ofthe work. Well , writ ing a life a very pe culia r on e. O f cou rse, if by life you m ea nlife with othe r peo ple , Y eats s dictu m is tru e. W riting requireshug e am ou nts of sol i tude. W ha t I ve done to soften the harsh-ness of th at choice is tha t I do n t w rite all th e ti m e. I like togo ou t which includes traveling; I can t write w hen I travel.I like to talk. I like to listen. I like to look and to watch.M aybe I have an A tten tio n Surp lus Disorder. Th e easiest th ingin the world for me is to pay attention.

INTERVIEWERD o you revise as you go along or d o you wait until y ou havean entire draft and then revise the whole thing?

SONTAGI revise as I go alon g. A nd tha t s q uite a pleasurable task.

I do n t get im pa tien t and I m willing to go over and oversom ethin g u ntil i t works. I t s beg inning s th at are ha rd . I alwaysbegin with a great sense of dread and trepidation. Nietzschesays that the decision to start writing is like leaping into acold lake. Only w hen I m ab o ut a third of the way can I tellif it s good e no ug h, Th en I have my cards, and I can play myh a n d .

INT RVI W RIs there a difference between writing fiction and writing;savs?

SONT GW riting essays has always been laborious. T hey go thro ug hmany drafts, and the end result may bear l i t t le relation to the


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190 SUSAN SONTAGfirst draft: often I completely change my mind in the courseof w riting an essay. Fiction comes m uc h easier, in the sense tha tthe first draft contains the essentialstone, lexicon, velocity,passions of what I eventually end up w ith.

INT RVI W RDo you regret anything you've written?SONT GNothing in its entirety except two theater chronicles I didin the mid-1960s for Partisan Review and unfortunately in-clu ded in th e first collection of essays,Against InterpretationI'm not suited for that kind of pugnacious, impressionistictask. Obviously, I don't agree with everything in the earlyessays. I've cha ng ed, and I know m ore. A nd the cultural con-

text which inspired them has altogether changed. But therewo uld be no po int in mo difying them now . I think I wou ldlike to take a blue pencil to the first two novels, though.INT RVr W R

The Benefactor which you wrote in your late twenties, isnarrated in the voice of a Frenchman in his sixties. Did youfind it easy to im pe rso na te som eo ne so different from yourself?

SONTAGEasier than writing about myself But writing is imperson-ation. Even when I wrire about events in my own life, as Idid in Pilgrim age and Project for a Trip to C h in a, i t 's no treally me. But 1 admit that , with The Benefactor the differ-ence was as broad as I could m ake it. I w asn't celib ate, 1 wasn'ta recluse, I wasn't a man, I wasn't elderly, I wasn't French.

INTERVIEWERBut the novel seems very influenced by French literature.SONTAG

Is it? It seems many people think that it was influencedby the nouveau roman. But I do n't ag ree. Th ere were ironic


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THE ART OF FICTION 191al lus ions to two French books , hardly con tem pora ry one s: De s-cartes 'Meditations an d Vol ta i re 's Candide. But those weren ' tinfiuences. If there was an influence on The Benefactorth o ug h o n e I wa sn' t at all conscious of at the t im e , it wasKenne th Burke ' s Tow ards a Better Life. I reread Bu rke's novelrecently, af ter many decades (I may never have reread i t s incehe gave m e a copy wh en I was sixteen ), an d discovered ini ts programmatic preface what seems l ike a model for TheBenefactor. Th e novel as seq ue nc e of ar ias an d f ictive m oraliz -ing . The coque try of a p ro t a g o n i s t - B u rk e da red to ca ll hi sthe novel ' s heroso ingeniously se l f -absorbed that no readercould be tempted to iden t i fy wi th h im.

INTERVIEWERYour second nove l . Death Kit is q u it e different from The

Benefactor.SONTAG

Death Kit invites identif icat ion w ith i ts m iserab le pro tag o-nist I was in the la m en t ing m oo di t 's w ri t ten in th e sha dowof the Vietnam War. I t ' s a book of grief veils and all .

INTERVIEWERHardly a new emotion in your work. Wasn ' t your f i rs t pub-

l ished s tory en t i t led M an with a Pa in?SONTAG '

Juvenil ia . You won't f ind i t in / , etcetera.INTERVIEWER

How did you come to wri te those theater chronic les forPartisan Review}

SONTAGWell you have to unders tand that the l i terary world then

was def ined by so-called smal l m aga zines hard to im ag inebecause it 's so different now. My sense of li terary vocation had


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192 SUSAN SON TAGbeen shaped by reading l i terary magazinesiC^>'o Review,Sewanee Review, The Hudson Review, Partisan Review axth e en d o f t h e 1940s, wh ile s ti ll in hig h school in S ou the rnCalifornia. By th e t im e I cam e to N ew York in I960 , thosemagazines stil l existed. But it was already the end of an era.O f course , I cou ldn ' t have know n th at . My highe st a m bi t i onhad been and st i l l was to publish in one of these magazines,where f ive thousand people would read me. That seemed tome very heaven .

Soon after I m oved to Ne w Y ork, I saw W ill iam Phil l ipsat a party and got u p my nerve to go over an d ask him , H owdo es on e get to write forPartisan Review? H e answered . Youcom e dow n to the m ag az ine a nd I give you a book to reviewon spe c . I was there the next day. A nd he gave me a nove l .N ot o ne I was in teres ted in , bu t I wro te som eth ing dec ent ,and the review was pr in ted . And so the door was opened. Butthe n there was som e inap pr op ria te fantasy, which I t r ied tosquelch , tha t I was go ing to be the new Mary M cCarthy as Phil l ips made plain to me by asking me to do a theaterchronic le . You kn ow , Mary used to do i t , he said. I toldhim I d id n ' t wa nt to write the ate r reviews. H e insisted. A ndso ,m uc h agains t my bet ter ju dg m en t ( I cer ta in ly had no des ireto be the new Mary McCarthy, a wri ter who 'd never mat teredto m e) , I d id turn out two of th em . reviewed plays by Ar th urMil ler an d Jam es Baldwin and Edward Albee and sa id theywere bad and tr ied to be wit ty and hated myself for doing i t .After th e second ro un d I told Phil l ips I co uld n't go o n .

INTERVIEWERBut you did go on and write those famous essays, some ofwhich were publ ished in Partisan Review.

SONTAGYes, but those subjects were al l of my own choosing. I 've

hardly ever wri t ten anything on commiss ion. I am not a t a l lin teres ted in wri t ing abo ut work I do n ' t adm ire . An d evenam on g what I 've ad m ire d, by an d large I've wri t ten only a bo ut


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THE ART OF FICTION 193thin gs I fel t were neglected or relat ively u n k n o w n . I am nota cri tic , wh ich is so m eth ing else tha n an essayist; I th o ug h tof my essays as cultural work. They were written out of a senseof what nee e to be wr i t ten .

I was assuming that a principal task of art was to strengthenthe adversarial consciousness. And that led me to reach forrelat ively eccentric work. I took for granted that the l iberalconsen sus ab ou t c ultu re I was an d a m a great adm ire r ofLionel Trilling wo uld s tay in place , tha t th e t radi t ion al canonof great books could not be threatened by work that was moretransgressive or playful . But taste has become so debauchedin the thir ty years I ve bee n w rit ing tha t now sim ply to de fendth e idea of seriousne ss has bec om e an adversarial act. Ju st tobe serious or to care about things in an ardent, disinterestedway is becom ing incom prehen s ib le to mo s t peo ple . Perhapsonly thos e who w ere born in the 1950s and m ay be a fewstragglersare going to unders tand what i t means to ta lkab ou t art as op po sed to a n pro jects . O r art is ts as op po sed tocelebri t ies. As you see , I m chock-full of ind ign atio n a bo ut th ebarbarism and relentless vacuity of this culture. How tediousalways to be indignant .

INTERVIEWERIs i t o ld-fashione d to th i nk that the pu rpo se of l i tera tureis to educate us about l ife?

SONTAGW ell , i t does educa te us ab ou t l ife. I w ou ldn t be the person

I am , I w ould n t un de rs tan d what I un de rs tan d , were it no tfor cen ain book s. I m thin kin g of the great quest ion of nine-teenth-century Russian l i tera ture: how should one l ive? Anovel w orth re ading is an ed uca t ion of th e hea r t . I t enlargesyour sense of human possibi l i ty , of what human nature is , ofwhat h ap pe ns in the wo rld . I t s a creator of inw ardness .

INTERVIEWERDo writing an essay and writing a piece of fiction come fromdifferent parts of yourself?


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194 SUS N SONT GSONfT G

Yes. The essay is a constrained form. Fiction is freedom.Freedom to tell stories and freedom to be discursive, too.But essayistic discursiveness, in the context of fiction, has anentirely different meaning. It is always voiced.

INTERVIEWERIt seems as if you have pretty much stopped writing essays.

SONTAGI hav e. A nd m ost of the essays I ve succum bed to w ritingin the past fifteen years are requiems or tributes. The essayson C ane t t i , Barthes and B enjamin are ab ou t e lemen ts in theirwork an d sensibility th at I feel close to : Ca ne tti s cult of ad m i-

ration an d ha tred of cruelty, Barthes s version of the aesth ete ssensibility, B enjam in s poe tics of me lanc ho ly. I was very awareth at the re s m uch to be said ab ou t them which I di d n t say.INTERVIEWER

Yes, I can see that those essays are disguised self-portraits.But w eren t you do ing m uch th e same thin g in early essays,including some of those in Against Interpretation ?

SONTAGI supp ose it can t be helpe d tha t i t ail hangs tog eth er. Sti l l,

something else was going on in the essays that went into thelast collection . Under the Sign of Saturn. I was having a kindof slow-motion, asymptomatic nervous breakdown writ ing es-says. I was so full of feeling and ideas and fantasies that I wasstill trying to cram i nt o th e essay m o d e . In o the r w ords , I dcome to the end of what the essay form could do for me.M aybe the essays on B enjam in, C ane tti and Barthes wereselfportraits, but they were also really fictions. My volcano lover,th e Cava liere, is th e fully realize d fictional form of what I dbeen trying to say, in an impacted way, in the essay-portraitsof Canet t i and Benjamin.


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W r i t i n g f i c ti o n , i s y o u r e x p e r i e n c e o n e o f i n v e n t i n g o r fig ur-i n g o u t a p l o t ?SONTAG

O d d l y e n o u g h , t h e p l o t is w h a t s e e m s t o c o m e all o f ap iece l ike a g i f t. I t' s ve ry m ys te r io us . S o m et h in g I he a r o rsee o r r ead con ju res up a who le s to ry in a l l i t s conc re teness :s c e n e s, c h a r a c t e rs , l a n d s c a p e s , c a t a s t r o p h e s . W i t h Death Kiti t w a s h e a r i n g s o m e o n e u t t e r t h e c h i l d h o o d n i c k n a m e o f am u t u a l f rie n d n a m e d R i c h a rd ju st t h e h e a r in g of t h e n a m e :D i d d y . W i t h The Volcano Lover i t was b rows ing in a p r in ts h o p n e a r t h e B r it is h M u s e u m a n d c o m i n g a cro ss s o m e i m a g e so f v o l c a n i c l a n d sc a p e s t h a t t u r n e d o u t t o b e f r o m S i r W i l l i a mH a m i l t o n ' s CampiPhlegraei . Fo r t h e n e w n o v e l , it w a s r e a d i n gso m e t h i n g i n K a f k a 's d i a r i e s , a f a v o ri te b o o k , so I m u s t h a v ea l r e a d y r e a d t h i s p a r a g r a p h , w h i c h m a y b e a n a c c o u n t o f ad r e a m , m o r e t h a n o n c e . R e a d i n g i t t h i s t i m e t h e s t o r y o f aw h o l e n o v e l , l ik e a m o v i e I'd s e e n , l e a p e d i n t o m y h e a d .

INTERVIEWERT h e w h o l e s t o r y ?SONTAG

Y e s . t h e w h o l e s t o r y . T h e p l o t . B u t w h a t t h e s t o r y c a n c a r r yo r a c c u m u l a t e / ^ i / / I d i sc o v e r in t h e w r i t i n g . M The Volcanoi o p ^ r s t a r ts in a fle a m a r k e t a n d e n d s w i t h E l e o n o r a ' s b e y o n d -t h e - g r a v e m o n o l o g u e , i t i sn ' t a s i f I k n e w b e f o r e I s t a r t e dw r i t i n g a l l t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s o f t h a t j o u r n e y , w h i c h g o e s f r o ma n i ro n i c , d o w n - m a r k e t v i g n e t t e o f a c o l le c t o r o n t h e p r o w lt o E l e o n o r a ' s m o r a l w i d e - sh o t v i e w o f t h e w h o l e s t o r y t h a tt h e re a d e r h a s e x p e r i e n c e d . E n d i n g w i th E l e o n o r a , a n d h e rd e n u n c i a t i o n o f t h e p r o t a g o n i s t s , is a s fa r a s y o u c a n g e t f ro mt h e p o i n t o f v i e w w i t h w h i c h t h e n o v e l s t a r t s .

INTERVIEWERA t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f y o u r l e g e n d a r y es sa y N o t e s o n C a m p ,w h i c h a p p e a r e d i n 1 9 6 4 , y o u w r o t e t h a t y o u r a t t i t u d e w a s


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196 SUSAN SONT AGone of de ep sym pathy modif ied by revuls ion. This seems atypical at t i t u de of yours: bo th yes an d no to ca m p . Both yesan d n o to ph oto gra ph y. Both yes and n o to narrative . . .

SONTAGIt isn't th a t I l ike it an d I d o n 't l ike it: tha t 's too sim pl e.

O r, if you will , i t isn't bo th yes an d n o . It 's this b u t alsoth a t . I 'd love to set t le in on a stro ng feel ing or reac tion. B ut,hav ing seen wh atever I see , my m in d keeps on goin g and Isee something else. I t 's that I quickly see the l imitat ions ofwha tever I say o r wha tever jud gm en t I m ake ab ou t any th ing .There 's a wo nderful remark of Henry Ja m es : N ot h in g is mylast wo rd on an y th in g . The re 's a lways m ore to be sa id , m oreto be felt .

INTERVIEWER1 th ink m os t peop le m igh t im agin e tha t you br ing some

theoretical agenda to fiction if not as a writer of novels, atleast as a reader of them.

SONTAGBut I do n ' t . I ne ed to care ab ou t an d be touch ed by w hatI read. I can ' t care ab ou t a boo k tha t has no thin g to co ntr i bu teto the wisd om projec t, A nd I 'm a sucker for a fancy prosestyle. To put it less giddily, my model for prose is poet 's prose:many of the wri ters I most admire were poets when young orcould have been poers . Nothing theore t ica l in a l l tha t . Infact, m y taste is i rrepressibly catholic . I sh ou ld n' t care to b epreven ted f rom do t ing on Dtciscfsjennie Gerhardt and D id i -on 's Democracy Glenway Wesco t t ' s The Pilgrim Hawk a n dDona ld Ba r the lme ' s The Dead Father.

INTERVIEWERYou ' r e men t ion ing a number o f con tempora r i e s you ad -m ire . W o ul d you a lso say you 've been inf luenced by them ?


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THE ART OF FICTION 197SONTAG

W hen eve r I avow to b eing influenced, I m never sure I mtelling the truth. But here goes. I think I learned a lot aboutpunctuation and speed from Donald Barthelme, about adjec-tives and sentence rh ythm s from Elizab eth H ardwick. I do n tknow if I learned from Na bokov and Th om as Bernh ard, bu ttheir incom parab le books help m e keep my standards for my-self as severe as they oug ht to be. A nd G oda rd Godard hasbeen a major nou rishm ent to my sensibili ty and therefore,inevitably, to my w riting. A nd I ve certainly learned som e-thing as a writer from the way Schnabel plays Beethoven,Glenn Gould plays Bach, and Mitsuko Uchida plays Mozart .

INT RVI W RDo you read the reviews of your work?

SONT GN o . N ot even those I m told a re entirely favo rable. All re-views upset me. But friends give me a certain thumbs-up,thumbs-down sense of what they are.

INT RVI W RAfter eath Kit you di d n t w rite m uc h for a few years.

SONTAGI d bee n very active in the anti-wa r m ov em en t since 1964,wh en it co uld n t yet be called a m ov em en t. And tha t tooku p m ore and m ore t im e. I got depressed. I w aited. I read. Ilived in E ur op e. I fell in love. My ad m irati on s evolved. I ma desome movies. I had a crisis of confidence of how to writebecause I ve always th o ug ht that a book should be som eth ingnecessary, and that each book by me should be better thanthe one before. Pun ishing s tanda rds, but I m qu ite loyal tot h e m .

INT RVI W RHow did you come to write On Photography}


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198 SUSAN SON TA GSONTAG

I was having lunch with Barbara Epstein of The New YorkReview of Books in ear ly 1972 and going on about the DianeArbus show at the Museum of Modern Art , which I 'd jus tseen, an d she sa id , W hy do n ' t you wri te a p iece ab ou t theshow? I tho ug ht tha t ma ybe I cou ld . An d then w he n I beganwrit ing i t I thought that i t should start with a few paragraphsabout pho tography in genera l and then move to Arbus . Andsoon there was a lot mo re tha n a few para gra ph s , an d I co uld n ' textr icate myself. T h e essays m ul tip lie d I felt often like thehapless sorcerer 's apprentice and they got harder and harderto wri te , I m ea n, to get r ight . But I 'm s tu bb or n I was onthe th i rd essay before I m an ag ed to p lace som e para grap hsab ou t Arbus and the show and . fee ling I 'd com m it ted my-self wouldn't give up. It took five years to write the six essaystha t make up On Photography.

INTERVIEWERBut you to ld me that you wrote your next book. Illness as

Metaphor very fast.SONTAG

W ell , i t' ssh or te r . On e long essay, the non-f ic t ion equ ivale ntof a no ve lla. A nd be ing ill wh ile w ritin g it I was a canc erpa t ien t wi th a g loom y prognosis was certainly very focusing.I t gave me energy to th ink I was w rit ing a book th at w ouldbe helpful to o ther cancer pat ients and those c lose to them.

INTERVIEWERAll along you'd been writ ing stories . . .

SONTAGRevving up for a novel .

INTERVIEWERSoon after finishing The Volcano Lover you s ta r ted ano ther

novel . Does that mean that you 're more drawn to longer ,rather than shorter, forms of fiction?


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TH E ART OFFICTION 199SONT G

Yes . There are a few of my stories which 1 like a lot from/, etcetera De br ie f ing an d Un guided T our , and T heW ay W e Live N ow , which I wrote in 1987. But I feel m oredrawn ro polyp hon ic narratives, w hich ne ed to be long orlongish.INTERVIEWER

H ow m uc h t im e did it take you to write The Volcano Lover?SONT G

From t h e first sentence of the first draft to thegalleys, tw oand a half years. For me tha t 's fast .

INTERVIEWERWhere were you?

SONTAGI started The Volcano Lover in S e p t e m b e r 1989 in Berl in ,

whe re I had gone to h a n g o u t th ink ing tha t I wasgo ing to aplace that was both very isolated and t h eBerkeley of Cen t ra lEurope . Al though on ly tw om on ths afte r I arrived Berlin h a ds tar ted to become a very different place, it sti l l retained itsmain advan tages fo r me : I wasn ' t in my a p a r t m e n t in N e wYork, with all my books, and Iwasn ' t in thep lace tha t I waswrit ing about e i ther . That sor t of do ub le d i s tancing worksvery well for me .

About ha l f of 7* 1? Volcano Lover v/zswri t ten be twe en late1989 a nd th e end of 1990 in Berl in . T h e second half waswrit ten in m ya p a r t m e n t in N e wY ork , excep t for two cha pterstha t I wrote in a hote l room in Milan (a two-week esca pade)and another chapter which Iwro te in the Mayflower Hotel inNew York . Tha t was th eC aval ie re 's de a th be d in te r io r mo no -logue, which It h o u g h t I ha d to write in on e go , in comple t eisolation, a n dknewIdo n ' t know how Iknewtha t I coulddo in three days . So I left m y a p a r t m e n t an d checked in tothe hote l with m y typewri ter a n d legal-sized pads a n d fe l t - t ipp e n s , a n d o rde red u p BLTs until I was d o n e .


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200 SUSAN SONTAGINTERVIEWER

Did you write the novel in sequence?SONTAG

Yes. I write cha pter by chap ter and I do n't go on to thenext chapter until the one I 'm working on is in final form.Th at was frustrating at first because from the b eg in nin g Iknew m uc h of what I w an ted the characters to say in th efinal monologues, but I feared that if I wrote them early onI wouldn't be able to go back to the middle. I was also afraidtha t m ayb e by the tim e I got to it I w ould have forgo ttensome o ft h e ideas or no longer be conn ected to those feelings.The first chapter, which is about fourteen typewritten pages,took me four months to write. The last five chapters, someon e hun dre d typewritten pag es, took me two weeks.

NT RV W RHow much of the book did you have in mind before you

s t aned?SONTAGI had the ti t le; Ican't write som ethin g unless I already knowits t i t le. I had the dedication; I knew I would dedicate it tomy son. I had the Co st fan tutte ep igra ph . And of course Ihad the story in some sense, and the span of the book. Andw hat was m ost he lpfu l, I had a very strong idea ofastructure.I took it from a piece of music, H in de m ith 's The Four Temper

aments2. work I know very well, since it's the music of oneof B alanch ine's mo st sub lim e ballets, w hich I've seen countlesst imes.T he H in d em ith starts with a triple prolo gu e, three veryshort pieces. Then come four movements: melancholic, san-gu inic, p hle gm atic, choleric. In tha t order. I knew I was goingto have a triple pro log ue an d the n four sections or parts corre-spo ndin g to the four tem pe ram en ts though I saw n o reasonto belab or th e idea by actually labelin g Parts I to IV m elan -cholic , san gu inic , etc. I knew all of th at , plus the novel 'slast sentence: D am n them all . Of course, I did n' t know who


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THE ART OF FICTION 201was going to utter it . In a sense, the whole work of writingthe novel consisted of making something that would justifythat sentence.

INTERVIEWERThat sounds l ike a lot to know before beginning.

SONTAGYes.b ut for all th at Iknew ab ou t i t , I sti ll di dn 't un ders tand

all that it could be. I started off thinking that The VolcanoLover ^^LSthe story of th e volcano lover. Sir W illiam H am ilton ,the m an I call the C avaliere; th at th e book wou ld stay centeredon h im . A nd I was going to develop th e character of th eself-effacing first Lady Hamilton, Catherine, at the expenseofthe story of his second wife, which everyone knows. I knewher story and the relation with Nelson had to figure in thenovel, but I intended to keep i t in the background. The tripleprologue and Part I , with i ts many variations on the themeof m elancho ly (or dep ressio n, as we call it) the m elancho lyo ft h e collector, the ecstatic sub lim ation of that melancholyall that went as planned. Part I never leaves the Cavaliere,But the n , when I started my Part II which w as to have varia-t ions on the theme of blood, from the sanguinic Emma, thisperson bursting with energy and vitality, to the literal bloodof the Neapol i tan revolu t ionEmma kidnapped the book.An d tha t perm itted the novel to open ou t (the chapters gotlonger and long er) intoafuror of story telling a nd of reflectionsabo ut justice, war and cruelty. Th at was th e end o f th e m ainnarrative, told in the third person. The rest ofthe novel wasto be in the first person . A very short Part I II: the C avaliere delirious, ph leg m atic enacts, in wo rds, his dyin g. Thatwent exactly as I 'd imagined it, but then I was back in theCavaliere-centered world of Part I. There were more surprisesfor me wh en I cam e to write the m ono logu es of Part IV, cho-leric : w om en, angry w om en , speaking from beyon d thegrave.


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202 SUSAN SON TAGINTERVIEWER

W h y b e y o n d t h e g r a v e ?SONTAG

A s u p p l e m e n t a r y fic tio n, m a k i n g it m o r e p l a u s i b l e t h a tt h e y a r e s p e a k i n g w i t h s uc h i n s i s t e n t , h e a r t f e l t , h e a r t b r e a k i n gt r u t h f u l n e s s . M y e q u i v a l e n t o f t h e u n m e d i a t e d , a c u te l y r u e fu ld i r ec tne ss o f an ope ra t i c a r i a . A n d how co u ld I r es is t t he cha l -l e n g e o f e n d i n g e a c h m o n o l o g u e w i t h t h e c h a r a c t e r d e s c r i b i n gh e r o w n d e a t h ?

INTERVIEWERW e r e t h e y a l w a y s g o i n g t o b e a i l w o m e n ?

SONTAGY e s . d e f in i t e ly . I a lways kne w the boo k wo u ld e nd w i thw o m e n s v oic e s, t h e v oic es o f s o m e o f t h e w o m e n c h a ra c te r s

in the book , who wou ld f ina l ly have the i r say .INTERVIEWER

A n d g iv e t h e w o m a n s p o i n t o f v ie w .

SONTAGW el l , you re a s s u m i n g t h a t t h e r e is a w o m a n s , o r f e m a l e ,p o i n t o f v ie w . I d o n t . Y o u r q u e s t i o n r e m i n d s m e t h a t , w h a t -e v e r t h e i r n u m b e r s , w o m e n a r e a l w a y s r e g a r d e d , a r e c u l t u r a l l yc o n s t r u c t e d , a s a m i n o r i t y . I t s to m i n o r i t ie s t h a t w e i m p u t eh a v i n g a u n i t a r y p o i n t o f v i e w . L o r d w h a t d o w o m e n w a n t ?e t c . H a d I e n d e d t h e n o v e l w i th t h e vo ic es o f f o u r m e n , n oo n e w o u l d s u p p o s e I w a s g i v i n g t h e m a l e p o i n t o f v ie w ; t h ed i f f e r ences among the fou r vo ices wou ld be too s t r ik ing , Thesew om en a r e a s d i f f e ren t f rom each o th e r as any o f fou r m encha rac te r s in the nove l I m ig h t h ave cho sen . Each re t e ll s th es to ry (o r pa r t o f i t ) a l r eady known to the r eade r f rom he r ownpo in t o f v i ew. Each has a truth to te l l .

INTERVIEWERD o t h e y h a v e a n y t h i n g i n c o m m o n ?


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THE ART OF FICTION 205SONTAG

I su pp os e i t 's t ru e tha t if you s t run g to ge th er a ll th e pa ssagesabou t co l l ec t ing in The Volcano Loperyoud h av e a d i sco n t i n u -o u s , aphor is t ic essay that might wel l s tand on i t s own. S t i l l ,th e degre e of essayis tic spe cu la t ion in The Volcano Lover seemsr es t r a ined i f com par ed w i th a cen t r a l t r ad i t io n o f the Eu rop ea nnove l . Th ink o f Ba lzac and To l s toy and Prous t , who go onfor pages and pages tha t could rea l ly be excerpted as essays .O r The Magic Mountain perhaps the th ink ies t g rea t nove l o fal l . Bu t sp ecu l a t i o n , r u m i n a t i o n , d i r ec t ad d r e s s t o t h e r ead e ra re en t i r e ly ind igenous to the nove l fo rm. The nove l i s a b igbo at . I t ' s no t so m u ch th at I was ab le to sa lvage th e ba nis he dessayist inmyself. I t 's th a t th e essayist in m e was on ly pa r t ofthe novel ist I 've f inal ly given myself permission to be.

INTERVIEWERDid you have to do a lo t of research?SONTAG

Y o u m ean r ead i n g ? Y es , so m e , T h e m e w h o is a selfdefrock ed aca dem ic fo un d tha t pa r t of w r i t ing a nov el se t inthe pas t ve ry p leasurab le .

INTERVIEWERWhy se t a nove l in the pas t?

SONTAGTo escape the inh ib i t ions connec ted wi th my sense o f the

co n t em p o r a r y , m y sen se o f h o w d eg r ad ed an d d eb ased t h eway we l ive and fee l and th ink i s now. The past i s b igger thanthe p re sen t . O f cour se , th e p res en t is a lways the re , too . T henar ra t ing voice of The Volcano Lover is very m u c h of the latet w en t i e t h cen t u r y , d r i v en b y l a t e t w en t i e t h - cen t u r y co n ce r n s .I t was nev er m y idea to wr i te a yo u are th er e h is tor ica l nove l ,even whi le i t was a mat ter of honor to make the h is tor ica lsu bs tan ce of th e novel as de ns e and acc ura te as I co ul d . I t fe lteven m or e spac ious tha t way . Bu t hav ing dec ided to g ive myse l f


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206 SUSAN SO NT AGo n e m o r e r o m p in t h e p a s t w i th In America t he nove l I 'mw r i t in g n o w I 'm n o t s u r e i t w i ll w o r k o u t t h e s a m e w a y t h i st i m e .

INTERVIEWERW h e n is i t s e t?

SONTAGF r o m t h e m i d - 1 8 7 0 s a h n o s t t o t h e e n d o f t h e n i n e t e e n t h

c e n tu ry . A n d , l ike 7* 1? Volcano Lover i t ' s based on a rea ls to ry , t h a t o f a ce l e b ra t ed Po l i sh ac tr e s s an d he r en tou ra gew h o le ft P o l a n d a n d w e n t t o S o u t h e r n C a l i f o r n ia t o c r e a t e aU t o p i a n c o m m u n i t y . T h e a t t i tu d e s o f m y p r i n c i p a l c h a r a c te r sa r e w ond e r fu l ly exo t i c to m e V ic to r ian , if you w i l l. Bu t theA m er ica they a rr ive in is n o t so exo t i c , t h ou gh I 'd th o u g h tt h a t t o s e t a b o o k i n l a t e n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y A m e r i c a w o u l dfe el a l m o s t as r e m o t e as l a te e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y N a p l e s a n dL o n d o n . I t 's n o t . T h e r e is a n a s t o n i s h i n g c o n t i n u i t y o f c u l t u r a la t t i t ud es in ou r cou n t ry . I neve r cease to be su rp r i sed tha t t h eAmer ica Tocquev i l l e obse rved in the ea r ly 1830s i s , i n mos tr e s p e c t s , r e c o g n i z a b l y t h e A m e r i c a o f t h e e n d o f t h e t w e n t i e t hc e n t u ry e ve n t h o u g h t h e d e m o g r a p h i c a n d e t h n o g r a p h i ccompos i t ion o f the coun t ry has to t a l ly changec i . I t ' s a s i f youh a d c h a n g e d b o t h t h e b l a d e a n d h a n d l e of a k n i f e a n d it iss t i l l t he same kn i f e .

INTERVIEWERY o u r p l a y , Alice in Bed is a ls o a b o u t a l a t e n i n e t e e n t h -

c e n t u r y s e n s i b i l i t y .SONTAG

Y e s A l ic e J a m e s p l u s t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y 's m o s t fa -m o u s A l ic e , L ew is C a r r o l l 's . I w a s d i r e c t i n g a p r o d u c t i o n o fP i r a n d e l l o ' s As You D esire Me i n I t a l y , a n d o n e d a y A d r i a n aA s t i , w ho p laye d th e l ead , sa id to m e dare I say it ? play-f u ll y: P l e a se w r i t e a p l a y fo r m e . A n d r e m e m b e r , I h a v e t ob e o n st ag e a ll t h e t i m e . A n d t h e n A l ic e J a m e s , t h w a r t e d


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THE ART OF FICTION 207wri ter and profess ional inval id , fe l l in to my head, and I madeu p the p lay on th e spo t and to ld it to A dr ia na . B ut I d id n twr i te i t for another ten years .

INTERVIEWERAre you goin g to wr i te m ore p lays? Y ou ve a lways be en very

involved w i th the a te r .SONTAGYes . I he ar voices . Th at s why I l ike to wri te p lays. A nd I ve

l ived in th e wo r ld of the ate r ar ti s ts for m u c h of m y l ife . W h e nI was very yo un g, a ct ing w as th e only way I kn ew ho w to inser tmyse lf in to what ha pp en s on a s t age : s t a r t ing a t t en , I wastaken on for some kiddie roles in Broadway plays put on bya co m m un i ty the a te r ( th i s was in Tucs on ) ; I was ac tive ins tud en t t h ea t e r Sophoc l es , Shak es pea r e at the Univers i tyof Chicago; and in my ear ly twent ies d id a b i t o f summers tock . T he n I s to pp ed . I d m uc h ra ther d i rec t plays ( th ou g hnot my own) . And make f i lms ( I hope to make be t t e r onesth an th e four I w rote an d di rec ted in Sw ed en , Is rael an d I ta lyin the 1970s and ear ly 1980s) . And di rect operas , which Ihav en t d o n e ye t . I m very drawn to ope ra the a r t fo rm tha tmost regular ly and predict ib ly produces ecs tasy (a t leas t in th isop era love r) . O p er a i s on e of th e inspi ra t ions of The VolcanoLover s to r ies f rom operas and opera t i c emot ions .

INTERVIEWERDoes l i t e ra ture p roduce ecs tasy?

SONTAGSure , bu t l ess r e li ab ly tha n m us ic and da nc e : l i t e ra ture has

m or e on i ts m in d . O n e m us t be s tr ic t w i th boo ks . I w ant toread only w hat I l l w an t to reread the def ini t ion of a boo kw o r t h r e a d i n g o n c e .

INTERVIEWERDo you ever go back and reread your work?


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208 SUSAN SON TAGSONTAG

Except to check t r ans la t ion s , n o . D ef in i te ly no . I m notc u r i o u s . I m no t a t t ac he d to th e work I ve a l ready d o n e . Also ,pe rha ps I do n t w an t to see how i t s all the s am e. M aybe I malways re luc ta n t to r e read an yth ing I w ro te m ore th an t enyears ago because i t would des t roy my i l lus ion of endless newbe g in n in gs . T h a t s t he m os t A m er i can p a r t o f m e : I feel t ha ti t s a lways a new s t a n .

INTERVIEWERBut your work is so diverse .

SONTAGW el l i t s sup po sed to be d iver se , th o u g h of course ther e is

a u n i t y of t e m p er am en t , o f p r eo ccu p a t i on cer ta in p r ed i ca -m e n t s , c e r t a in emot ions t ha t r ecu r : a r do r and me lancho ly .A n d an obs es sive conce r n wi th h u m a n c r u e l t y , w he the r c r u e l tyin personal re la t ions or the cruel ty of war .

INTERVIEWERD o you th in k your b es t work is s t il l to co m e?

SONTAG1 h o p e s o. O r . . . y es.INTERVIEWER

Do you t h ink mu ch abou t t he au d i ence f o r you r books ?SONTAG

D on t da r e . D on t w an t t o . B u t , anyway , I do n t wr i t e be -cause there s an a ud ien ce . I w r i te b ecause th ere is li t e ra tu re . E dwar d Hi r s ch

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Susan Sontag the Art of Fiction