Against Interpretation: And Other Essays
Includes the essay "Notes on Camp," the inspiration for the 2019 exhibition Notes on Fashion: Camp at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag's first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the groundbreaking essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation," as well as her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought.
This edition has a new afterword, "Thirty Years Later," in which Sontag restates the terms of her battle against philistinism and against ethical shallowness and indifference.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
So sharp and gripping. Her writing is rife with insight but is never pedantic; in fact it’s one of the seminal works against philistine academism that I’ve read. As someone who has long thought about art’s pivotal role in shaping our consciousness not through didacticism, but through sensorial and inward experience, I cannot stress enough how perfectly the titular essay captured my own views on art. It doesn’t surprise me that this collection from 1966 has never gone out of print because the point is arguably more essential now: in this overthought and underfelt world, we must regain our senses, and art is possibly the best catalyst to do so. The essay on camp is a blast and perfectly explains a concept I never thought could be satisfactorily explained. I’m also just itching to know what she thought of late-stage Bresson. I think his last four films could easily be argued to be his best work, but I wonder if she actually disliked them given her stance towards The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962). Anyways, so up my alley it’s not even funny.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.