HOW TO LIVE LIKE SUSAN SONTAG

HOW TO LIVE LIKE SUSAN SONTAG

A LIST OF THE LISTS OF A GREAT THINKER

January 16, 2019  By Emily Temple Share:

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)More

Free self-improvement idea for 2019: become Susan Sontag. Listen, it's not as hard as it sounds. If you watch all of her favorite films, indulge in all of her likes, avoid all of her dislikes, subscribe to her belief systems, adhere to her reading list, and follow her instructions for life, well, you'll basically have done it. And either way, you might have a very interesting year.

The easiest way to start such an undertaking is, of course, with Sontag's lists. She was a famously prodigious listmaker; her journals are full of them (though her son, who edited Sontag's journals before they were published, cuts some longer lists off partway through). In a journal entry dated August 9, 1967, she explains her affinity for the bulleted form:

I perceive value, I confer value, I create value, I even create—or guarantee—existence. Hence, my compulsion to make "lists." The things (Beethoven's music, movies, business firms) won't exist unless I signify my interest in them by at least noting down their names.

Nothing exists unless I maintain it (by my interest, or my potential interest). This is an ultimate, mostly subliminal anxiety. Hence, I must remain always, both in principle + actively, interested in everything. Taking all of knowledge as my province.

Relatable! If you too want to take all of knowledge as your province, or just want to know how much smarter than you Sontag was as a teenager, you can start here. Let me know how it goes.

Beliefs

This is the very first entry in Sontag's earliest published journal, dated November 23, 1947

I believe:

(a) That there is no personal god or life after death

(b) That the most desirable thing in the world is freedom to be true to oneself, i.e., Honesty

(c) That the only difference between human beings is intelligence

(d) That the only criterion of an action is its ultimate effect on making the individual happy or unhappy

(e) That it is wrong to deprive any man of life

[Entries "f" and "g" are missing.]

(h) I believe, further more, that an ideal state (besides "g") should be a strong centralized one with government control of pulic utilities, banks, mines + transportation and subsidy of the arts, a comfortable minimum wage, support of disabled and age. State care of pregnant women with no distinction such as legitimate + illegitimate children.

To Read

from Sontag's journals, December 19, 1948 (NB: she's 15)

There are so many books and plays and stories I have to read—Here are just a few:

The Counterfeiters—Gide

The Immoralist—"

Lafcadio's Adventures—"

Corydon—Gide

Tar—Sherwood Anderson

The Island Within—Ludwig Lewisohn

Sanctuary—William Faulkner

Esther Waters—George Moore

Diary of a Writer—Dostoyevsky

Against the Grain—Husmans

The Disciple—Paul Bourget

Sanin—Mikhail Artsybashev

Johnny Got His Gun—Dalton Trumbo

The Forsyte Saga—Galsworthy

The Egoist—George Meredith

Diana of the Crossways—"

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel—"

poems of Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Tibullus, Heine, Pushkin, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Apollinaire

plays of Synge, O'Neill, Calderón, Shaw, Hellman . . .

[This list goes on for another five pages, and more than a hundred titles are mentioned.]

On Interpretation

from Sontag's journals, December 31, 1956

1. Nothing is uninterpreted.

2. To interpret is to determine, restrict; or to exfoliate, read meaning into.

3. Interpretation is the medium by which we justify context.

4. To interpret a word is different from defining it; it means to specify a range of contexts (not equivalents)

Rules + duties for being 24

from Sontag's journals, January 15, 1957 (the day before her 24th birthday)

1. Have better posture.

2. Write Mother 3 times a week.

3. Eat less.

4. Write two hours a day minimally

5. Never complain publicly about Brandeis or money.

6. Teach David to read.

Later, undated but "most likely late February or early March 1957":

DON'T

1. Criticize publicly anyone at Harvard—

2. Allude to your age (boastfully, mock-respectfully, or otherwise)

3. Talk about money

4. Talk about Brandeis

DO

1. Shower every other night

2. Write Mother every other day

Self-assessments

from Sontag's journals, 1957

What do I believe?

In the private life

In holding up culture

In music, Shakespeare, old buildings

What do I enjoy?

Music

Being in love

Children

Sleeping

Meat

My faults

Never on time

Lying, talking too much

Laziness

No volition for refusal

Parenting Rules

from Sontag's journals, 1958

1. Be consistent.

2. Don't speak about him to others (e.g. tell funny things) in his presence. (Don't make him self-conscious.)

3. Don't praise him for something I wouldn't always accept as good.

4. Don't reprimand him harshly for something he's been allowed to do.

5. Daily routine: eating, homework, bath, teeth, room, story, bed.

6. Don't allow him to monopolize me when I am with other people.

7. Always speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impatience, etc.)

8. Do not discourage childish fantasies.

9. Make him aware that there is a grown-up world that's none of his business.

10. Don't assume that what I don't like to do (bath, hairwash) he won't like either.

Rules for Being a Writer

from Sontag's journals, December 3, 1961

The writer must be four people:

1. The nut, the obsédé

2. The moron

3. The stylist

4. The critic

1 supplies the material; 2 lets it come out; 3 is taste; 4 is intelligence.

A great writer has all 4—but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2; they're most important.

To Do

from Sontag's journals, February 20, 1977

Two experiences yesterday—lunch with Naipaul and reading Eikhenbaum's The Young Tolstoy—remind me of how undisciplined and demoralized I am.

Starting tomorrow—if not today:

I will get up every morning no later than eight.

(Can break this rule once a week.)

I will have lunch only with Roger.

("No, I don't go out for lunch." Can break this rule once every two weeks.)

I will write in the Notebook every day.

(Model: Lichtenberg's Waste Books.)

I will tell people not to call in the morning, or not answer the phone.

I will try to confine my reading to the evening.

(I read too much—as an escape from writing.)

I will answer letters once a week.

(Friday?—I have to go to the hospital anyway.)

Likes and Dislikes

from Sontag's journals, February 21, 1977

Things I like: fires, Venice, tequila, sunsets, babies, silent films, heights, coarse salt, top hats, large long-haired dogs, ship models, cinnamon, goose down quilts, pocket watches, the smell of newly mown grass, linen, Bach, Louis XIII furniture, sushi, microscopes, large rooms, ups, boots, drinking water, maple sugar candy.

Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, mustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food.

Things I like: ivory, sweaters, architectural drawings, urinating, pizza (the Roman bread), staying in hotels, paper clips, the color blue, leather belts, making lists, Wagon-Lits, paying bills, caves, watching ice-skating, asking questions, taking taxis, Benin art, green apples, office furniture, Jews, eucalyptus trees, pen knives, aphorisms, hands.

Things I dislike: Television, baked beans, hirsute men, paperback books, standing, card games, dirty or disorderly apartments, flat pillows, being in the sun, Ezra Pound, freckles, violence in movies, having drops put in my eyes, meatloaf, painted nails, suicide, licking envelopes, ketchup, traversins ["bolsters"], nose drops, Coca-Cola, alcoholics, taking photographs.

Things I like: drums, carnations, socks, raw peas, chewing on sugar cane, bridges, Dürer, escalators, hot weather, sturgeon, tall people, deserts, white walls, horses, electric typewriters, cherries, wicker / rattan furniture, sitting cross-legged, stripes, large windows, fresh dill, reading aloud, going to bookstores, under-furnished rooms, dancing, Ariadne auf Naxos.

Best Films (not in order)

from Sontag's journals, 1977

1. Bresson, Pickpocket

2. Kubrick, 2001

3. Vidor, The Big Parade

4. Visconti, Ossessione

5. Kurosawa, High and Low

6. [Hans-Jürgen] Syberberg, Hitler

7. Godard, 2 ou 3 Choses . . .

8. Rossellini, Louis XIV

9. Renoir, La Règle du Jeu

10. Ozu, Tokyo Story

11. Dreyer, Gertrud

12. Eisenstein, Potemkin

13. Von Sternberg, The Blue Angel

14. Lang, Dr. Mabuse

15. Antonioni, L'Eclisse

16. Bresson, Un Condamné à Mort . . .

17. Gance, Napoléon

18. Vertov, The Man with the [Movie] Camera

19. [Louis] Feuillade, Judex

20. Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome

21. Godard, Vivre Sa Vie

22. Bellocchio, Pugni in Tasca

23. [Marcel] Carné, Les Enfants du Paradis

24. Kurosawa, The Seven Samurai

25. [Jacques] Tati, Playtime

26. Truffaut, L'Enfant Sauvage

27. [Jacques] Rivette, L'Amour Fou

28. Eisenstein, Strike

29. Von Stroheim, Greed

30. Straub, . . . Anna Magdalena Bach

31. Taviani bro[ther]s, Padre Padrone

32. Resnais, Muriel

33. [Jacques] Becker, Le Trou

34. Cocteau, La Belle et la Bête

35. Bergman, Persona

36. [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder, . . . Petra von Kant

37. Griffith, Intolerance

38. Godard, Contempt

39. [Chris] Marker, La Jetée

40. Conner, Crossroads

41. Fassbinder, Chinese Roulette

42. Renoir, La Grande Illusion

43. [Max] Ophüls, The Earrings of Madame de . . .

44. [Iosif] Kheifits, The Lady with the Little Dog

45. Godard, Les Carabiniers

46. Bresson, Lancelot du Lac

47. Ford, The Searchers

48. Bertolucci, Prima della Rivoluzione

49. Pasolini, Teorema

50. [Leontine] Sagan, Mädchen in Uniform

[The list continues up to 228, where SS abandons it.]

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.