Confronting the Bear
“One is confronted with pretentious language and a great deal of pathos.” -Daniel Schrieber on Susan Sontag’s play Alice in Bed (1991)
Presented with an interesting thought experiment in the form of an assignment: to write a blog post in which I provide Susan Sontag with constructive criticism on her famed “essay” “Notes On “Camp,¹’” I am confronted with a conundrum.
How can I, a mere dilettante, a plebeian, a troglodyte, in other words a filthy casual, provide constructive criticism to the late, (once) great Susan Sontag on her groundbreaking (to-do-list) structured essay.
I have no idea but I must try. I promise this will be as painful for you to read as it is for me to write. To the task!
The essay, primarily structured as a series of numbered notes each varying in length, made for a very choppy reading experience. As a reader it made me stop and start, lose focus and take long breaks (of course this could simply be my “A.D.D”). Moreover, the bulletpointesque arrangement made it more difficult for me to retain the information being provided and at times it made it difficult to keep a running dialogue in my head. Coupled with esoteric references, pretentious language and an ironic air of elitism, the essay did not seem user friendly.
Take this passage from note 25 of her essay, “Camp is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l’oeil insects and cracks in the masonry. Camp is the outrageous aestheticism of Steinberg’s six American movies with Dietrich, all six, but especially the last, The Devil Is a Woman. . . . In Camp there is often something démesuré in the quality of the ambition, not only in the style of the work itself. Gaudí’s lurid and beautiful buildings in Barcelona are Camp not only because of their style but because they reveal — most notably in the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia — the ambition on the part of one man to do what it takes a generation, a whole culture to accomplish.” How many readers would either be intimidated or roll their eyes at someone who used, “trompe-l’oeil”, or “démesuré” unironically? Moreover, how many people would understand, however vaguely any of the references in this passage?
Of course I wouldn’t tell Susan or Sue that (if I were providing her with constructive criticism I figure I’d be calling her by her first name); firstly because it’s rude and also because I’m a coward. What I would do is ask her a series of questions to try and understand her thought process and approach toward the piece. As such, I would begin by asking why she choose to structure her essay in such away, I mean besides what she mentions explicitly in the essay². Once I had a good sense for what she was trying to do I would go from there.
“One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.”
— Susan Sontag
Generally however, I would let Sue know that the structure interrupted the flow of the work for me as a reader. Additionally, I would ask her, why not use bullet points or spaces instead? Is there a difference? And if so does it really add to the piece and its aesthetic, it’s “artifice?”
In regards to the language and references she uses, I would ask her who her intended audience is. Depending on the answer her word choice could be perfectly suitable, if say she were writing for an art journal. If however, her piece is intended for a general audience I would suggest simpler, more straightforward language and references (but of course not too straightforward).
More positively, I would say that I greatly enjoyed some of Sue’s insights, including her brief discussion on taste and how it permeates into many aspects of our being. I can also appreciate the way she “can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.” And for the most part, I also agree with much of what she says in the piece, when it doesn’t drone on, or smack of condescension (never say these last two things to a workshop partner)³.
To conclude as honestly and generously as I am inclined to, I refer to Daniel Schriebers comments regarding Sontag’s play Alice in Bed (1991) in part to sum up how I feel about her essay. “One is confronted with pretentious language and a great deal of pathos.”
[1] The assignment is actually more straightforward in that we are supposed to “write a short 300–500 word piece on [Sontag’s Essay] what worked well for you and what, if anything, didn’t.” But I have taken the liberty of tweaking the original assignment a bit.
[2] Her justification for using the numbered note structure is as follows, “Any sensibility which can be crammed into the mold of a system, or handled with the rough tools of proof, is no longer a sensibility at all. It has hardened into an idea . . .To snare a sensibility in words, especially one that is alive and powerful,¹ one must be tentative and nimble. The form of jottings, rather than an essay (with its claim to a linear, consecutive argument), seemed more appropriate for getting down something of this particular fugitive sensibility. ”
[3] The tone of this piece may come off as mean or spiteful. That is not my intention. I have tried to come off as playful while also providing constant examples of what not to do while providing constructive criticism but I understand that I may have missed the mark. If so, I will do my best to correct any mistakes or misunderstandings.
