About book Against Interpretation And Other Essays (2001)
Ця книжка, здається, має амбівалентну назву. Адже інтерпретувати - означає витлумачувати, надавати словесної форми тому, що було сприйняте. Отже, будь-які судження критичного характеру так чи інакше можна сховати під парасолю інтерпретації. І важко повірити, що упродовж наступних сторінок сама Авторка не робитиме того, проти чого, власне проповідує з амвона титульної сторінки. Втім, С'юзен Зонтаґ виступає проти інтерпретації мистецтва як такого, проти розчленування жару чуттєвості кригою інтелекту. І спосіб, у який Авторка нищить спроби критика пояснити, що зображено на картині чи залізти в голову художника у пошуках мотивів чи намірів (критик не сумнівається, що він їх знайде - у своїй голові), не можна не визнати переконливим. Адже Сьюзен Зонтаґ захищає сам досвід сприймання художнього твору від руйнівного впливу раціональності: "Зводячи художній твір до його змісту, а потім його інтерпретуючи, ми приборкуємо художній твір. Інтерпретація робить мистецтво поступливим, зручним. <...> Інтерпретувати - це збіднювати, виснажувати світ, для того щоб утвердити примарний світ «значень»" Натомість Авторка закликає суб'єкта доторкнутись до твору мистецтва, їй ідеться про співпереживання, а не аналіз: "Зараз важливо відновити наші відчуття. Ми повинні навчитися бачити більше, чути більше, відчувати більше"Такий прямолінійний спосіб висловлюватись супроводжує чи не всі уміщені в томі есеї. Авторка не вдається до шляхетних чи дотепних евфемізмів, коли щось стверджує чи когось шпетить. Ніщо не стримує її назвати Сартрову книжку «Святий Жене» "раковою пухлиною" і (неперевершено) "невтомним актом літературного філософського вительбушення", критерії дослідження Дьердя Лукача - грубими, Ежена Йонеско - самовдоволеним, певний стереотип - недоумкуватим, а щодо однієї з недавніх п'єс - то узагалі "буде лиш краще, якщо ми поминемо її мовчаням". Можна собі подумати, ніби це така собі американська прямолінійність чи неприваблива безапеляційність, якби не той факт, що наведені мною шматки позбавлені контексту. Тож, аби враження про Авторку не хибувало на оті прикрі штуки, зазначу, що глибина спостережень і широта/підставовість роздумів Сьюзен Зонтаґ дає їй цілковите право говорити саме так, а не інакше. Бо, прочитавши півкнижки, уже знаєш, що Авторка докладно і переконливо (прямо?) обґрунтує, чому саме "Тупість серйозних американських критиків, які не помітили достоїнств [кінофільму] «Le Mepris», видається <...> особливо прикрою"Книга містить як концептуальні статті - про стиль, про явище кемпу, про феномен гепенінґу, про взаємозв'язок наукової фантастики й буденності, літератури й науки, - так і критику. Поле обізнаності Сьюзен Зонтаґ широченне і не обмежене спогляданням/відчитуванням сучасного їй культурного виднокола. Окремі есеї присвячені Сімоні Вейль, Альберові Камю, Мішелеві Лерісу, Клоду Леві-Стросу, Еженові Йонеско, окремим п'єсам і постановкам, цілий цикл - фільмам Робера Брессона, Жана-Люка Ґодара, Джека Сміта, Алена Рене. Усе це - в густому інтелектуальному ракурсі, де упізнаються як силуети Платона, Геґеля, Ніцше, Фройда, Беньяміна, так і низка імен зі світу культури загалом ХХ ст., багато з яких, признатися, я зустрів уперше. Афористичності у тексті також не бракує: "функція кліше - кастрація думки", "істини, які ми поважаємо, - це ті, що породжені нещастям", ось.Гадаю, навіть попри значний наголос на Франції та США, ця книга - чудовий спосіб влаштувати собі курс ознайомлення із культурою, якою вона була до 60-их. Зрештою, нині значно легше доступитись до розсипу згадуваних у книзі фільмів, ніж на момент її, власне, появи. Тому цей досвід може бути феєричним відкриванням заново півстолітнього коріння деяких речей, які у нас тутечки тільки-но стають модними.Наостанок скажу, що смаки смаками, але оформлення книги справило на мене гнітюче враження. Це той випадок, коли книгу приємно брати до рук виключно з огляду на її вміст. Розумію також, що ім'я Сьюзен Зонтаґ, можливо, й відоме у нас. Принаймні, книжка Тамари Гундорової "Кітч і література", щонайменше, не обійшлася без впливу міркувань Сьюзен Зонтаґ з приводу явища кемпу. Однак два слова про Авторку десь у перед- чи післямові додали б виданню цілісності. Однаково дякую: то є чотири зірочки.
None of us can ever retrieve that innocence before all theory when art knew no need to justify itself, when one did not ask of a work of art what it said because one knew what it did. From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art.I ended up finding 'Against Interpretation' useful. Its central claim is that there is a kind of interpretation that is anti-art in that it diminishes the possibilities for appreciating/enjoying/experiencing the art rather than increasing them, which is what criticism (I would still say interpretation*) should (probably) do. I have no longer any anxiety on behalf of the author, but I still generally dislike the kind of interpretation that Sontag seems to be talking about; the kind that says one thing is another in a text and tyrannically insists on this translation. She argues that even if the interpretation that A Streetcar Named Desire is about the decline of Western civilization rather than this encounter between two interesting characters is 'correct' in the sense of being intended and implicit, this is precisely what is weak and 'contrived' about it. In my review of To the Lighthouse I felt the need to criticise both of the introductions, which I suppose is me fighting on behalf of the text or of my experience of the text. I evidently feel that something I want to remain open is being closed down when a psychoanalytic interpretation (for instance) is advanced. However, I am eager to read interpretation and criticism - this is definitely part of my pleasure in the text (Sontag ends by saying 'we need an erotics of art rather than a hermeneutics'), not only a way to get more pleasure out of it. Considering Zadie Smith's introduction to Their Eyes were Watching God I can think of the text as a mountain, which has a nice easy path over it, and Smith's introduction as a kit which contains a map to find the hidden caves and a torch to illuminate their beautiful interiors. So Smith helps me to get more out of reading Hurston, but her intro is art in itself (it is aesthetic; Sontag says the aesthetic is 'that which needs no justification'). I'd say criticism/interpretation helps me rather than hinders/irritates me more than half of the time... I don't think the value of the critic is so low(((*I am very keen on the word 'interpretation'. The specific meaning it has in museums (phenomenology!) for me from my background (my mum is a heritage educator and I volunteered with her often for many years) is probably a reason for this; when I go to an exhibition I talk about the interpretation - the British Museum have a very high standard of interpretation; if you visited the Ice Age Art exhibition you will remember how much interpretation there was, and how much was needed, to enable such a coherent, pungent (can I say that? I could smell blood and salt in that exhibition...) experience out of a small collection of tiny objects which, the interpretation text repeatedly admitted, WE LACK THE ABILITY TO DECODE in terms of what they 'really' meant to the people who made and used them. Conversely, in many museums stuff is heaped up in glass cases with labels like 'brass, c.1500'. Unless an object has overwhelming aesthetic qualities, creative interpretation by people with learning and passion is a necessary bridge for most of us to experience more than a sort of obligatory, intimidated STUDIUM in its presence. Some people find the British Museum's approach overbearing, but I disagree; I think it's ableist and elitist and ethnocentric to insist that the objects should 'speak for themselves'. For most of us, they will remain silent.)))((I now have a better way to describe my resistance to The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Sontag describes Thomas Mann (who I haven't read) hilariously as 'overcooperative' in that he inserts intimations of the correct interpretation into his texts. This is exactly what Kundera does that I dislike!))The second essay ‘On Style’ is about the false dichotomy of form and content, and her prescription to critics to think more about the former, because our idea of content, especially as something hidden inside form or style is a hindrance. It makes us think of an art work as a statement somehow packaged. Sontag tries to explain why there is no distinction between ethics and aesthetics, but somehow I can’t get a handle on her treatment of this. Later on in another essay ‘One culture and the new sensibility’ she says most artists have abandoned the ‘Matthew Arnold idea of culture', which is ‘art as the criticism of life… understood as the propounding of moral, social and political ideas’. In Status Anxiety Alain de Botton explains the view that Arnold sets out in Culture and Anarchy like this: “art as a protest against the state of things, an effort to correct our insights or to educate us to perceive beauty, to help us understand pain or to reignite our sensitivities, to nurture our capacity for empathy or to rebalance our moral perspective.” I’m not sure who is making mush here, because Sontag argues in ‘On Style’ that art can teach us to be more ethical because the mode of being needed to contemplate art is a useful rehearsal for the mode required for ethical behaviour, which is just a ‘form of acting’ or ‘code of acts’, and goes on to say in many of these essays that art 'educates the feelings', 'nourishes' us, 'sends us out refreshed'. This seems close to de Botton’s notes on Arnold, to me at least. It suggests the difference is of degree and there is a sort of continuum between socialist realism at one end and Oscar Wilde at the other, but Sontag seems to be aiming for a more radical reassessment. I’m troubled by Sontag’s rejection of art-as-argument, as I’m not satisfied with her account of morality. It remains my obsession to see the political and ethical in everything. If someone can write that ‘being a feminist is passe’ then I can’t trust her.I enjoyed her comments on the ‘arbitrary and unjustifiable’ in works of art. She argues that what is inevitable in a work of art is its style, an expression of the author’s will. Her main purpose in 'On Style' is, I think, to advise critics to find form in content rather than the converse. The rest of the book is mainly criticism of theatre, film and other works in which she apparently tests her own medicine. It sounds good, if you don’t mind being told flatly and frequently that some work is brilliant or vile… I have seen/read little of the material she reviews; I’m unhappy with her negative critique of an exception to that: James Baldwin, and I was unable to get through some of the literature she recommends that I sought out! However, her ‘Notes on “Camp”’ is rightly famous I think; it shows great sensitivity and acuity that she can delineate it so gracefully.Writing in the sixties, she found nothing going on in literature. The novel is dead, she would have agreed. Innovations in form were the leading edge, and literature lagged. I wonder if she would say that now.Despite reservations, I feel a sharp, refreshing breeze blowing on my face; Sontag opened a window.
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I wanted to like this, I thought I would like this, and I did like parts of it, but ultimately it fell flatter than a sad pancake at some alternative to IHOP (I don't know where people get their sad pancakes these days).Sontag has this whole "war on philistinism" thing, and I get that, and I think it's vaguely a worthy cause, but you can't help the philistines see the light if you keep using references to artists/writers/movies/anything no one's heard of, and making judgmental remarks in passing without clarification. I don't KNOW that some Eastern European play from the 1960s is "obviously" like this or like that. I don't know what we're even talking about. I'm over it.Plus, while reading her essays I couldn't help but remark that if someone idiot undergrad at some liberal arts school somewhere had written the exact same essay, it would be torn apart for its platitudes, lack of evidence, tangents, and ultimately not being that convincing. The essay "Against Interpretation" is a good example: I already agree with Sontag on this one. I am 100% there with her. So I was nodding along, waiting for her to say something I felt would convince other people of this, and then I turned the page and the essay was over. It feels too much like she's so convinced of her own greatness and intelligence (and to be fair, she is certainly a smart, educated person with interesting ideas) that she assumes you're convinced of it, too, and don't need more proof. And this leads to some pretty, pretty, pretty weak essays.
—Morgane
SUSAN. this is always my ultimate reaction to things i read by susan sontag no matter my level of energy during the actual reading process, i go all-caps and familiar and mindlessly enthusiastic in a way that susan sontag would most definitely not appreciate. and it's funny because i really don't love everything susan sontag does, and i actually think as an essayist she has one major weakness, which is that (to me, at least) she's pretty bad at drawing in a reader when writing about something they're not necessarily interested in—she cannot communicate what's behind her interest. the exception i think are her major home-run classics—on camp, against interpretation, on style, etc.—which are interesting by virtue of their pure (contemporary) novelty. it's a weakness though because i think she was very consciously not interested in coaxing, persuading, courting a reader. simultaneously it's one of her powers. get with susan's program or feel left behind! and no one wants to feel left behind. unrelatedly, i resisted reading this for a long time because the only copy i could find anywhere was this outrageously, offensively, nauseatingly ugly picador edition. its cover is a total failure of graphic design, both fonts (especially the title font) are a travesty, the color is closest to vomit, etc. i finally gave in only one day when i was stalking carrie brownstein's instagram and there was a photo of her current reading, aka this edition of against interpretation. and i thought, well, if it's good enough for carrie brownstein, it's good enough for me. still, it's in dire need of a redesign (which is to say, that redesign better not happen soon because then i will feel like a sad fool for owning this loathsome edition).
—Julia
OK. I picked this up because I really wanted to read "Notes on 'Camp.'" Because I love camp. Duh. And I loved "Notes on 'Camp'" and I loved a few other essays, the ones I understood. A lot of these essays are reviews and/or critiques of French films and philosophical treatises that I had not even heard of, let alone read. Sontag is brilliant obviously and I'm sure all the essays were good--they were readable and I felt like I got something out of them, even if I literally didn't know what she was talking about. But unless you, like me, feel extreme reluctance at book abandoning, you could probably just read "Notes on 'Camp'" online somewhere and not read reviews of a bunch of foreign films from the '60s. Unless you like foreign films from the '60s, in which case, pick this up immediately.
—Renata
