Susan Sontag

 

For sheer intellectual range, there are few modern essayists who can rival Susan Sontag. She writes effectively on so many topics: literature, drama, painting, and photography. Together, these amount, roughly, to culture. Her most celebrated collection of essays, Against Interpretation, is emblematic of this range: Sontag displays an unusual command of intellectual life -- of everything from anthropological methods to theories of poetry. 

And yet, would it be disappointing if I were to admit a preference for Joan Didion? 

Reading Susan Sontag is, for me, an exercise in education. When I read her work, I learn. This isn't always a linear process, and I won't claim that I follow all of Sontag's arguments. But it's a near certainty that, after each chapter, I'll consider some topic anew, with a sharper eye. With Didion, it's different: that experience is nearly linear, because her writing -- her form -- is less exhaustive. Reading Didion is often a reaffirmation, a confirmation: it's the process by which you articulate existing knowledge differently, in a way that's more natural, more representative. This owes to Didion's insights. 

My goal here is not to compare Sontag with Didion, nor to declare one more effective than the other. It's clear that they were interested in different topics, and approached the art of the essay in different ways. Ultimately, though, both were essayists: Sontag pursued her subjects with bravery, even sometimes with defiance. Didion, meanwhile, pursued hers with a sort of solemnity. In this way, Sontag was truly a critic; Didion a poet, masked as a critic.