Susan Sontag, R.I.P.(Obituary)(Obituary)

SUSAN SONTAG burst on the New York intellectual scene in the early 1960s like a breath of fresh air. She saw all the subtitled movies and read all the untranslated novels--that's what intellectuals do--but she also wrote about them in sprightly epigrams. Some of her essays were striking and useful: "Against Interpretation" reminded us that art is supposed to give pleasure, an insight resurrected in the present debates about critical theory. Others essays were striking and pernicious. "Notes on Camp" enthroned gay in-jokes and dreck of all sexual orientations; the long march to Paul Rudnick and reality shows had begun. It helped that Sontag looked like Natalie Wood. Compared with the aged Lionel Trilling and the never-young Irving Howe, wasn't she better?

But American intellectuals felt compelled to offer their views on politics. Like those of most of her peers, Sontag's were dreadful. She toured Cuba and North Vietnam and came backed stuffed with lies. She hailed Cubans for their sensuality, as if this had anything to do with the dictator who throttled them, and she said the North Vietnamese gave extra rations to captured American pilots, so virtuous were they. Years later, she had a seeming change of heart, telling a rally of ...