Currently reading
Gabriela, Cravo e Canela
Progress:
157/358 pages
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (The Authorized Doubleday/Doran Edition)
Progress:
189/672 pages
The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
Progress:
41/608 pages
Peter the Great
Progress:
472/934 pages
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty
A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge
Progress:
191/712 pages
The German Army 1933-1945
Progress:
198/598 pages
Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914-1918: The List Regiment
Progress:
22/238 pages
I first became aware of Susan Sontag the public intellectual/essayist/activist roughly 20 years ago. She intrigued me because, given the incipient strain of anti-intellectualism in the U.S., I didn't think we Americans had any publicly acknowledged (and accepted) public intellectuals. This book, in which the author details her relationship with Sontag, was both eye-opening and revelatory. Here was a woman who was fully aware of her wide-ranging literary and intellectual talents. Yet, she felt cheated and insecure because of what she said was "the lost decade" of her life. That is in reference to the decade before Sontag's first appearance in print, when she was a wife and mother. I was also surprised to learn, from the author, of Sontag's desire to be appreciated more for her fiction writing than as the superb essayist she was. Frankly, until Sontag's novel, "THE VOLCANO LOVER", I never thought she had ever dabbled in fiction.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. It has whetted my appetite to learn more about Susan Sontag, the writer and the person.