Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]This is the most eloquent description of criticism I have read/heard - applies perfectly to Sontag. All the best! Raimo photos at http://personal.inet.fi/private/raimo.korhonen - -----Alkuperäinen viesti----- Lähettäjä: Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net> Vastaanottaja: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Kopio: leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Päivä: 08. syyskuuta 2000 20:18 Aihe: [Leica] Suddenly Susan? >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 >