[Leica] Suddenly Susan?

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

All this about Sontag (which I never could get through) reminds of an
article I read years ago.  

The author had gone back to school to get a masters to teach and make
some money while continuing to work on his writing career.  He took a
class called Science Fiction and since he had written several SF novels
that had been published he felt he would fly through the course.  And
when he got into the class he discovered that one of the books to be
cover was one of his own, written under a pen name.  Wow, he thought.  

So he didn't say anything to the teacher.  But then came a final exam
and the teach wanted students to write an essay analyzing what the
author (him) was trying to say, what was the underlying message, plus
the social and political position of the author and how he had used that
to develop his plot and so on.  Well, the hero of this story did his
best but barely got a C on the essay.

The irony is that he had written it at the kitchen table in two weeks
right after his wife had left him and he needed the money desparately,
and had not a single such thought as the professor assumed authors had.

Elliot Erwitt summed up the key underlying message that almost all
photographer espose, in the instant they frame and compose, select the
decisive moment from the continuum of history, shading for political,
psychological and social bias:

"I like to take pictures, and I particularily like to take pictures of
things I like to take pictures of."

Sontag's book, as is most criticism, is written BY someone who will
never be able to do the art FOR those who will never be able to do the
art, but want to pretend they can imagine what it would be like if they
could, without ever getting their hands (and souls) dirty, whereby you
REALLY discover what it is like.

donal
__________
Donal Philby
San Diego
www.donalphilby.com