Transcripts For CSPAN2 Benjamin Moser Sontag 20240713 : vima

CSPAN2 Benjamin Moser Sontag July 13, 2024

Is this live . Can everyone hear me . Welcome. My name is kyle byrd im the executive director of the leon leavy center for biography. Over the past 12 years the leavy center has awarded 44 major fellowships to working biographers. Each of these fellowships is not worth 72,000 so its not chump change. To date some 20 biographies have been published including ruth franklins biography of Shirley Jackson which won the Prestigious National book critics circle award biography. I also want to spread the news about our brandnew holy unique Masters Program in biography and memoir is just started this autumn with at least 17 students enrolled which is phenomenal. Brenda is actually both former director of the leon leavy center and teaches the core courses in new Masters Program. Our next program is next wednesday, september 25 at 6 30 p. M. With david netzel giving the annual leon leavy lecture on biography. Tonight im very delighted to have Benjamin Moser in conversation with brenda one apple. As i said, brenda is the former director of the leon leavy center and shes the author most recently of the end teachers. The trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation very widely reviewed and timely book for our times. Then mosers book why this world a biography of a finalist of the National Book critics circle award. Bens new books on sontag was just published two days ago and already an amazon bestseller and has garnered long and really quite interesting reviews in the New York Times, the new yorker and elsewhere. For instance, in todays New York Times, abdescribed it as a book as handsome, provocative, and troubled as its subjects. Clearly this is a biography not to be ignored. Brenda will interrogate ben for about 40 minutes. [laughter] i always say that. Its an interrogation of the author. Then they will take some questions at the end. Afterwards both ben and brenda will be signing their respective books sold by books oncall of new york city. Brenda and ben, please tell us about Susan Sontags life. [applause] thank you. First of all, thank you hi, ben, its wonderful to be here with you and your wonderful new book, its a book for our times. Its going to be i think already the definitive word on susan sontag. You did an enormous amount of work for this book and one of the thing that is stunning about it is the material you had to go through the archives and the share at mahogany interviews there were. I think its been said i think you told me this ive known ben i should confess, for a while so its not really an interrogation im a great admirer of your coterie specter. And of course this book and consider myself an honored friend. I understand i guess theres been unauthorized book. If you could talk about what that means for an audience. What are the advantages and maybe even addition a disadvantages to the authorizations. Then we will get to susan sontag. Thats an interesting question because its very hard to explain even though it doesnt seem like a hard concept to me. I was the biographer, but this book was not the authorized biography. When you say authorized biography it sounds like you got a seal of approval from somebody or that it had to be signed off on. I dont think i wouldve done it i think i wouldve had as a writer i have to be independent to draw my own conclusions knowing that sontag was incredibly political person. Often correct or incorrect i was actually in rio doing my last event ever for clarice i thought i was finally off the hook and i can go to the beach or something. Not really go to the beach that much just to be honest. I got an email, guess what we appointed you. Appointed but some people including her agent and her son and her publisher head who read a bunch of books and thought why this world was something that showed that i could take on sontag. Then i had an agreement that meant that the state could look at the book comments on the book and if theres any legal issues they could talk about that. They can make suggestions and those were helpful. But i couldnt have written the book. Of course not. Did that give you access to the enormous numbers of people or maybe inhibited some of those people . I would say it definitely gave access to some. Following sontags death there was a risk between her son david and her partner in elizabeth. The people in their world split into these two camps for all sorts of reasons i go into in the book. That didnt go well postmortem. So annie and her friends didnt like it because they thought i was davids little errand boy or something. Whatever access i think it gave me it also took away. And he did eventually speak to me but i did get access the really exciting thing about access to with archives that were restricted. Thats kind of. Its very exciting because you make tremendous use of journals in the book. You have a very strong voice and i want to talk about that. I mean that in all complete positive sense. Sontag herself has a strong voice. One of the most heaps in the book is that theres a difference between sontags inner voice or personal voice whatever you want to call it interior voice and the voice she cultivated for the public. I was wondering in coming to book the book together when did you start to think about the motives you use to understand sontags life . Let me quote you there was one quote that was really very interesting. It might give us a way to understand that. You say at one point you say, a mines process is narratives to the writers lives. So one of the things thats wonderful about bens book and we want to talk about is that the mines progress gives narrative to the writers life. So that you are looking for the way she thinks. But you have to have a way to develop that for the reader and make that explicit. When did you begin to feel you have an understanding of sontag in the terms that you present her to us . I think it comes back to the question of how political she was and how many opinions were affixed to her. From the time she was very young, already in her 20s the first time she was featured as a character in a novel she was somebody that really was quite fictional seeming to people. They say things about her that are not true. Objectively obviously not true if you know the facts. One of the things that happens with her peoples opinions are very negative about her work. To give an example she wrote four novels its very common for people to say she wrote all these essays she was so smart how did she write all these horrible novels . Theres two ways. First of all i dont agree. I think some of the essays fall short. As a biographer since were the biographical setting. Im not the person judging that in a way that book critic looking at this is one book saying three stars or four stars, whats interesting about sontag shes in constant revolution. Its the evolution of the mind thats the story of biography. We understand it in life i think or hope but understanding it in a book very often we get a kind of set piece a set piece of a person and then we just exemplify that over time. You cant do that with sontag because she really is evolving. There were certain life motifs that are very interesting. Maybe we should go back for people who dont know much about her life i want to get to those motifs. One of the things im going to talk more about with you about her life and then i will talk about the motifs just for people who dont know, she is actually from the west which many people dont know and she lived in so many different places. She lived in california, she lived in arizona, do you want to talk about that a little bit . Give us a thats really important not only that she is from the west but that she had a peripatetic childhood. Her father died in china of all places when he was 33. Her mother was an alcoholic who was from new jersey, from Montclair Verona grew up there and then moved very young to los angeles. At the Time Los Angeles was still a little city before the First World War. Her mother was grew up as hollywood grew up. Its a former jewish neighborhood east of downtown. It was ruined by all sorts of typical urban disasters in the 20th century. Her mother and her grandmother from eastern poland came to los angeles because they love the movies. They loved this thing that was just coming up from the beginning of the First World War, to the end of the First World War became one of the most Famous Industries in the country and hollywood became famous, certainly was famous in brazil, the first books about hollywood and brazil came out about 1913a914. Already its gone all around the world and in europe the same. The mother loses her mother at age 33. The grandmother is 33 and then the father died and then the mother is an unhappy woman is very beautiful and dedicated to appearances shes always kind of looking for a place to be happier. They moved to florida, new york, new jersey, arizona, they moved to los angeles and then finally they moved to hawaii. They, the parents, not susan herself. This is really an isolating experience for children i think if you know people in the army or not only does she not have a father, she doesnt really have a mother and she doesnt really have friends because shes being moved around every couple years. So she does have an this sounds like a cliffhanger but its not because we know where this is going. But she has her books. She has a world that is in her mind and her imagination and that becomes extremely important. It sustains itself throughout her life. Through a very tough life. Absolutely. Sort of when one thinks of susan sontag one doesnt think of even though necessarily even though she wrote eloquently about illness, somebody whos really suffered terribly and especially when she had Breast Cancer the kinds of chemotherapy that was available and the kinds of surgery. It just really grueling. Even when she had an abortion when she was very young, the way it was illegal and the only thing you did the only anesthesia you had was to turn up the radio lots of people wouldnt hear you scream. Theres a lot of that that people didnt see behind this iconic figure. And pain. Terrible pain that becomes an interesting phenomenon that there is an iconic figure but theres a human being thats living and suffering behind the very often. And in point of fact, she is evolving, shes changing, one of the interesting things and i think its made much of and i think its a real contribution being very clear about the fact that when she got married, she got married very young and then she barely knew the man she married. They got engaged after a week. And he was her teacher, she was the student. But beyond that, this is really astonishing to read about in 2019 if he was assigned reviews or things to do, she read the books and wrote the reviews. And she was excited about that. Shes like, great. Thats what women did. It wasnt like some big eminence with all these grad students. Too much time to time management problems. But beyond that, beyond the reviews, as i started to say can you make it very clear, she was the writer of the book that he became known for which is freud the mind of the morrow. In that in private i think she was very clear about thats what she had done. But it wasnt publicly known. No. I think one of the fascinating things about this book and about the life is that susan sontag seemed if you look at her on the cover she seemed like a very contemporary figure. The picture is 50 years old almost. She looks like shes on sixth avenue or something. She probably is walking down sixth avenue. A lot of the categories have changed so much that its hard to think back to the times. She does write this book and Everybody Knows she writes the book. I saw her sister couple days ago and she was quoted in the times and of course eroded we all knew that. But that wasnt something you could really say and it was funny when there is a piece in the guardian they got a copy of it and break this big news to everyone shed actually written freud, mind of the moralist. A lot of the older women i interview during this process all emailed me liquid is so but just like everybody so surprised about this happens to everybody. Everybodys forgotten what its like we all wrote our husbands book back in fort 1948. One thinks of his susan sontag in the 20th century. Not that she was born in 1933, two weeks after hitler came to power. But lately it was funny to see outrage among younger women compared to the eye rolling blasc big deal for older women because academic women were very rare in her generation. Very few role models. Since were in a biographical setting i will feel free to mention karen hellmans ab says that girls i guess shes younger than sontag by a bit. Not by too much she said that growing up if you are an intellectual girl who wanted to write or wanted to be an artist or she was only one figure you could really look to and that was madame curie whose biography by her daughter who is the only member of the family not to macwin a nobel prize. ab that was the only thing that girls had to look to so now we are so used to a woman professor woman writer, woman journalist. She was the first journalist ever in brazil in the 40s. It calls itself short and makes us think time to do change. One of the things that i dont think you mentioned this or if you did i dont remember, was the title her title or do you think he was his . I dont know but its very her. Thats why i wanted to ask that because the mind of the moralist and the reason i thought that was so interesting is theres this kind of tension abtheres sontag as moralist and sontag as aesthetician. She talked about early on in interpretation about the erotic support and that we understand artists as purely aesthetic. We think of her later work especially when she revisits photography she becomes she becomes herself so clearly a moralist. I think that was always there in a way. Its interesting that that would be the title whether hers or his. She was always interested in the moral response of the artists and you make much of this representation which becomes interesting. What. Which is very problematic and fun to talk about if anyone will indulge me i can go on and on about that for a long time. We are here to indulge you. [laughter] its funny because her moralism she says, im puritans twice over american. Thats right. You think of god, so are we, right . We know what thats like. Its not the easiest heritage always because youre always sort of an ideal of moral perfection is held up to you. In america particularly if you come to the west this is important. a its similar because i think you can find that already in massachusetts in the 17th century. God has given you this place the richest country in the world and you are a little slog, not quite measuring up. Sontag felt that very keenly and she finds it in the creeks, and socrates and the greek moralists come back to moralism. She really does feel very strongly that morality and aesthetics are the same thing. And this is something that she resists in a certain way because shes intellectual. Shes trying to get away. This is another thing thats changed so much. Shes basically trying to get away from freud on the one hand and marks on the other hand. Thats right. They were quite oppressive to people i think in those generations. They were so dominant and overarching and collocated. They did offer you the key to culture. If you could really master freud, for example, or marks, you could understand understand how the world works. But then already by her generation those are sort of starting the cracks are starting to show. She chooses something that was not natural for her at all which is essential approach to art. Enjoying film, enjoying sex, enjoying people, its not a natural thing for her, its not really her natural mode i think when she get back into moralism shes on more solid ground. I dont know what you mean it was a natural. The something very exciting about this that she was thrilled by that. I dont want to put words in your mouth. You know so much more. But it seems like over time she became less comfortable with that. These things were time bound. Against interpretation is very much product not just of her and her age but the age she is living in and by the time for example shes going to bosnia or even before that, there is more problematic before that is her trip you talk about very well to vietnam she broke the right stripped of annoy, she herself may be is realizing that she needs to rethink some of this pleasure or that she wants to reintroduce a point of view. I think that when you look at this its really important to realize how much change has changed but also how much did change between her interpretation to trip to hanoi. What really changed. And how many years is that . Five years. Four years, five years 63 to 68. But what happens and something i found really touching that i didnt realize and maybe its wrong emma correct me if im wrong but somebody said to me and it made sense that the literature of postwar america right after until the 50s, what it is about the personal struggle. Even if you are living in a country thats won the war they have all these problems yet its also the time of the black Civil Rights Movement its the time of resurgent feminism and all this new exciting american freud he is him that seems to be exerting people to live more free lives and so you have books like Jack Kerouacs on the road like lets head out into the desert. With brown. Norman o brown absolutely. Even Allen Ginsberg would be part of that. Definitely. But its kind of about you its not really about society. It has society in it but its about exploring yourself. Then you have the great triumph of the new generation ab spoiler alert, not to give anything away but she was killed in 1963, im sorry, its in the book. I should say that. Just to get people curious. But the death of kennedy, which is something that is close to a lot of people, its close to me because my mother almost saw it happen she was from dallas she saw him right before it happened downtown dallas. I know exactly the street and the time and its a really specific time and you can trace it to the minute where america kind of snaps and what happens almost immediately after that indeed immediately after that Lyndon Johnson becomes president and continues to escalate the war in vietnam which is something that my father always says is the biggest difference between my generation and his is that when he was in college and when he was a young man all he thought about was getting drafted and going to vietnam. Theres a darkness that settles over america

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