Ying Ke: Susan Sontag: The best mind on both sides of the Atlantic

2.1 Objective, comprehensive and well-organized narration

The book is divided into 10 chapters that follow the chronology of Susan Sontag’s life from birth to death and the progress of her literary career. The first four chapters recount Sontag’s experience from childhood to youth, the next four deal with her middle age, and the last two describe her old age. The timeline of the whole book is very clear. In addition, memorabilia of Susan Sontag’s life and a bibliography of Susan Sontag’s works are attached at the end of the book, which will help readers quickly gain an overview of Susan Sontag’s life story and literary creation.

The title of the first chapter is “The big prisoner in a small body (1933–1944).”^[1] This chapter briefly describes how Sontag was inspired by the scientist Madame Curie (her early idol) and writers such as Richard Halliburton and Edgar Allan Poe (her first literary father) through her extensive reading in her childhood. Sontag fell in love with reading when she was a child, and began to write from the age of six or seven in a variety of genres such as short stories, poems, and plays. That was when the seed of literature was planted in little Susan’s heart.

The second chapter is titled “The reborn girl (1945–1950).” Young as she was, Sontag not only read a number of articles in Partisan Review, a journal which would have a profound influence on her in the future, but also read a lot of works by European writers such as Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, and Andre Gide, and revealed her feelings as a public intellectual in the future in her diary. This chapter also records that Sontag, at the age of just 16, went from North Hollywood Middle School to the University of California at Berkeley, and met her first homosexual partner, Harriet Sohmers. Later, she went to the University of Chicago and met Philip Rieff, a sociology lecturer there. They got married in a hurry on the 12th day of their acquaintance.

The title of the third chapter is “The passerby lost in Boston (1951–1957).” This chapter recounts that after graduating from the University of Chicago, Sontag went to Boston with her husband. After entering Harvard University, she met a number of famous scholars such as Herbert Marcuse, Jacob Taubes, and Susan Taubes, from whom she learned a great deal. When she obtained her master’s degree at Harvard, her relationship with Rieff was declining.

Chapter Four, titled “The literary beauty in Europe (1957–1958),” reveals how Sontag came to Paris via Oxford University and started her dream journey in Europe. In Paris, she was influenced by existentialist writers represented by Sartre, and even went to Paris University to attend Beauvoir’s classes. So far, Sontag had completed the preliminary accumulation of her literary writing, and the next moment was the explosion of her literary power.

The title of the fifth chapter is “The Queen of Camp in New York (1959–1969).” After returning to Boston from Paris, Sontag divorced Rieff and went to New York with her son, David. She made up her mind not to settle for being an academic, but to set up her own tent outside the seductive, stony safety of the university world (Sontag 2001: 308). After a long period of accumulation, Sontag began to write at that time. Following the chronology of the published works, this chapter introduces and interprets Sontag’s early novels and essay collections in detail, including The Benefactor, Death Kit, Against interpretation, and Styles of radical will. In particular, it introduces “Notes on camp,” one of Sontag’s articles that most typically represents her style.

The sixth chapter is titled “Novice on the screen of light and shadow (1969–1974).” The opening sentence of this chapter is “Film is the art Sontag loved all her life” (Ke 2020: 178). She evolved from a loyal film viewer and a tireless film critic into an alternative film director. In this chapter, Ke introduces in detail the two films Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), written and directed by Sontag, and also mentions several important essays that would be included in the essay collection Under the sign of Saturn (1980).

The seventh chapter is titled “The anti-cancer fighter thinking about images (1975–1978).” At this time, Sontag had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. However, while actively seeking treatment, she still completed a masterpiece that was later regarded as the “Bible” of the photography field – On photography (1977). Driven by her reflections during her cancer treatment, she also wrote Illness as metaphor (1978), which was selected by the Women’s National Book Association as one of the “75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World”.^[2]

The eighth chapter, “The short story writer with a Saturn temperament (1978–1989),” focuses on Sontag’s collection of short stories I, etcetera published in 1978 (re-edited and re-published by her son David in 2017 and renamed Debriefing: Collected stories) and her essay collection Under the sign of Saturn published in 1980.

In the ninth chapter, “The novelist who regained her creative passion (1989–2000),” Ke introduces in detail a play and two novels created by Sontag during this period. In 1990, after Sontag completed her only full-length play Alice in Bed in two weeks, she once again devoted herself to novel writing, her favorite form of literary creation. It had been 25 years since she published her last novel, and at last she contributed to the world two successful novels, The Volcano Lover: A Romance and In America, the latter winning her the 2000 National Book Award of the United States.

The last chapter, “The silent who will never be silent (2001–2004),” unveils Sontag’s life and deeds in her final years, including the article she wrote about the 9/11 attacks in the United States, her last essay collection Where the stress falls, published in 2001, and the third cancer that eventually took her life away. Sontag’s life came to an end.

Ke takes Sontag’s literary writing as the main line, objectively and comprehensively showing readers the stories and literary achievements of Sontag’s entire life.

2.2 Detailed biographical notes and appropriate critical comments

The second feature of this book is its “duality” in that it is not only an excellent biography, but also a wonderful critical work. Its brilliance lies in the objective restoration of some important life stories of Sontag, and in the detailed interpretation and comments on some of her important works, which cannot be done by anyone who has not studied Sontag in depth.

Ying Ke uses an omniscient perspective when recounting Sontag’s life stories, also paying attention to the social background and some important historical events at that time. When talking about Jacob Taubes, a Jewish scholar who had a profound influence on Sontag while she was studying at Harvard University, Ke mentions Taubes’ familiarity with Gnosticism. Inspired by Taubes, Sontag described a religious organization which was very similar to Gnosticism in her short story “Doctor Jekyll” (1974). This may inspire Sontag researchers to study her literary thought and literary writing from the perspective of Gnosticism.

When tracing the period of Sontag’s studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, Ke observes that Sontag, who had been so concerned about the fate of human beings at the age of 14, did not mention in her diary the Audin^[3] affair which was causing such strong social responses at that time, nor did she comment on the tense situation in France. In order to restore the historical environment and background at that time, Ke provides this information in the book. Many similar detailed descriptions can be found throughout.

As the first critical biography of Sontag in China, this book by Ying Ke not only records Sontag’s life and deeds, but also interprets and comments on her important works, which is different from other biographies. As for Sontag’s two early novels – The Benefactor and Death Kit, Ke categorizes them into dream narrative; when it comes to Sontag’s most acclaimed essay collection – Against interpretation and other essays – Ke observes it from the perspective of the theory presented in the Society of the Spectacle by the French thinker Guy Debord. She believes that Sontag’s critical thought on interpretation in Against interpretation is consistent with Guy Debord’s. This observation has a certain degree of originality. In addition, Ke has made introductions and commentaries of varying lengths on Sontag’s other works, including her two less-known screenplays, Duet for Cannibals and Brother Carl, which have been rarely studied by Chinese scholars. For readers who want to gain a comprehensive understanding of Sontag and her works, this book serves as a good guide.

2.3 Beautiful language and strong readability

The language of this book is beautiful and graceful. It tells about Sontag’s life and deeds like a novel, making it an accessible read. Ying Ke vividly relates Sontag’s life stories while interpreting her works, thus making this book narratively interesting, academically thought-provoking, and highly readable. For example, one of the passages reads:

Oxford University was not the ideal place for Sontag to study after all, or more precisely, it was not the ideal place for her to resume her ‘single’ life. When Christmas came, she packed up and rushed to Paris, where she later enrolled at the Sorbonne. In fact, this was not the first time she had been to Paris. Paris had also been one of the destinations during her European honeymoon trip with Rieff. Obviously, she liked Paris far more than London. (Ke 2020: 59, my translation)

What’s more, the book provides readers with insight into the demeanor and style of some other literary figures who were associated with Sontag. The list includes Thomas Mann, Jacob and Susan Taubes, Simone de Beauvoir, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, and Joseph Brodsky. Reading this book is equivalent to having all-round contact and communication with these great writers and thinkers, which makes the reading experience more delightful and fruitful.