Sigrid Nunez on Susan Sontag from Sempre Susan“She was a feminist, but she was often critical of her feminist sisters and much of the rhetoric of feminism for being naive, sentimental, and anti-intellectual. And she could be hostile to those who complained about being underrepresented in the canon, urgently reminding them that the canon (or art, or genius, or talent, or literature) was not an equal opportunity employer.”
In fewer than 200 pages, Sempre Susan paints a portrait of Nunez’s friend and mentor not as this ominous figure in American literature, but as someone human, flawed, and at times deeply insecure. I wanted to highlight this quote because it briefly touches on Sontag’s sometimes contentious relationship with the feminism, even while being regarded as an one of its icons. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I’m somewhat disheartened, not because I think talent is doled out in equal amounts, but because the whole concept of having a “canon” means someone will invariably be excluded and it’s usually those who don’t fit the straight, white, male model. Just look at the outrage over Publisher’s Weekly’s best books of last year when not one woman made the cut, or any rock music critic’s desert island list where the sole requirement is to be a white man with a guitar.
I also found the comment about feminism being anti-intellectual and sentimental odd, but given that feminism has moved away from its grassroots beginnings and into the classroom, it probably made sense for its time, though I bristle when I hear anything derided as "anti-intellectual." Nunez later said that Sontag wasn't a snob, but an elitist.
If inadvertently, she briefly touched on something that's been very hard for feminism to reconcile: its inability to address the needs of all women, which is a very valid criticism
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