by Susan Sontag
“Each thing pees on itself.”
“Being with others—intimately—I’m deprived of a certain spiritual nutriment which I need for the work.”
“The Other Land—language.”
[Undated]
Joseph re: Derek [the West Indian poet Derek Walcott]
[You] have to shove him a little to get him in focus; then he can think.
For him everything is phenomenal, not cultural
Like flowers, no soil
He doesn’t make connections
He can’t learn anything
He’s lazy
9/26/77
Conversation with [the American painter R. B.] Kitaj at Bob’s [Robert Silvers]. Spoke of “transcendent” art. Not possible if one doesn’t know how to draw (and that’s no longer taught in art schools). Last great painters were Picasso + Matisse. Best living painter(s): Bacon (+ Balthus). Only interested in depictive painting, figure painting. Whole 19th century French tradition referred itself to Ingres—Impressionism not possible without him. And who can draw like that now? Among contemporaries like Lucien Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney—in England; de Kooning only American painter he mentioned. “But what are we talking about if we think of Rembrandt? And that’s the standard against which we should be measuring contemporary painters.” Also: many painters did their best work when they were old—Michelangelo, Titian, Goya, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Turner, Monet, Matisse, maybe (despite current view) Picasso.
Painting as craft.
Don Barthelme: “I don’t need a rule to tell me that I musn’t strangle swans …” After watching the thief from the Jeans Store being caught—“I hope they’re not going to lynch him with tied-together jeans.”
10/11/77
Story Sonia Orwell told me today about the daughter of a very minor Politburo member—about to be married—“I don’t want another boring Moscow wedding!”—500 guests flown in gov[ernmen]t planes to a Caspian Sea villa where wedding was held—footmen in livery (breeches, stockings, etc.), a servant behind every guest’s chair, maids in white caps—the regalia of the ancien régime in 1977. Were the servants cynical, or were they enjoying themselves.
…
11/23/77 Houston
[SS was the houseguest of the art collector and patron Dominique de Menil. Some of the artworks mentioned in the following entry were in the de Menil house.]
At the beginning, there was no abstract art. If it seems abstract to us (e.g. violin shape which is a female idol), it’s because we are ignorant, + don’t know how to read the object.
Celtic head (wood, from Ireland)—6th century?—which looks Maori.
Gold coins from pre-Merovingian (?) Gaul—or earlier??—which provide basis for Romanesque art.
Face of Alexander; Pegasus, etc.
Désamorcelé [“taken apart”] like a Picasso.
Bones (animals) from 30,000 BC with animals incised in them—imagery like Lascaux.
S.W. [Simone Weil] is profound, not just extremely intelligent. Compassion was general, for classes of people.
[In the margin:] not [George] Orwell.
Unlike Van Gogh: neurosis prevented her from living out her passionate compassion with individuals. But then, Van Gogh didn’t have a mind anywhere as good as hers.
When the sun comes out, you don’t see the moon any longer. (You don’t solve the problem; it no longer exists.) I’m looking for the sun.
The letters of Van Gogh—like having the letters of Prince Mishkin
…
Promised Lands is a portrait of trauma …
[Evgeny] Baratinsky: Russian poet (“rather English,” according to Joseph), friend of Pushkin
12/4/77 Venice [SS had come to attend the Venice Biennale]
Clear day, cleansing cold—the night comes early—I’ve never seen Venice more beautiful.
[The Italian writer Alberto] Moravia met me at the airport; [the British poet and SS’s friend] Stephen Spender was just leaving. First dinner with [the French poet and essayist] Claude Roy + [the French actress and playwright] Loleh Bellon + Geörgy Konrád (Hungarian writer) in Do Pozzi Hotel, after an hour at Florian’s [café]. Joseph’s reading at the Teatro Ateneo from 9–11 p.m. I had shivers when he stood up and declaimed his poems. He chanted, he sobbed; he looked magnificent. Boris Godunov; Gregorian chant; Hebrew moan. After, 2nd dinner with Joseph and walk. Then to Hotel Europa for the first time, at 2 p.m. N[icole]’s call!
Nietzsche’s main subject (?) was genius. He knew what genius was; he understood its pride, its euphoric states, its megalomania, its purity, its ruthlessness. He made it into a theory of history. (Subsequently the Germans made it into a politics.) He thought he was a genius, but, unlike Shakespeare and Michelangelo, he never wrote the Great Work. Zarathustra is his worst book; it’s kitsch. The great N[ietzsche] is in the essays—mostly fragments.
Two kinds of writers. Those who think this life is all there is, and want to describe everything: the fall, the battle, the accouchement, the horse-race. That is, Tolstoy. And those who think this life is a kind of testing-ground (for what we don’t know—to see how much pleasure + pain we can bear or what pleasure + pain are?) and want to describe only the essentials. That is, Dostoyevsky. The two alternatives. How can one write like T. after D.? The task is to be as good as D.—as serious spiritually, + then go on from there.
But, to give credit to Tolstoy, he knew something was wrong. Hence, he ended by repudiating his great novels. Couldn’t meet his own spiritual demands as an artist. So he renounced art for action (a spiritual life). D. never could have repudiated his art, for moral reasons, because he knew how to reach a higher spiritual level with his art.
Only thing that counts are ideas. Behind ideas are [moral] principles. Either one is serious or one is not. Must be prepared to make sacrifices. I’m not a liberal.
Something wrong with the idea of “dissident” art. It’s defined by the authorities. Abstract painting is dissident in the USSR, the art of large corporations in the US; in Poland it’s been tolerated, even fashionable for twenty years. Nothing contestataire in itself about any content (?) or any style, e.g. abstract or figurative.
No panel discussions or debates here at the Biennale. Just papers—not coordinated with each other, mimeographed copies of which are distributed the minute after the speaker stops.
Solzhenitsyn is a genuinely epic writer; also completely eclectic in style (uses 19th c. language, Party language, etc.). Mixes genres: soc[ialist] realist novel, essay, satire, tirade, Dostoyevskian philosophical novel. His greatness depends on that scope.
Joke about Fidel [Castro] addressing rally right after Revolution, urging everyone to get to work + build socialism. “Trabajo si, rumba no.” [“Work yes, rumba no.”] And the crowd roars back: “Trabajo si, rumba no. Tra-ba-jo si, rum-ba no. Tra-ba-jo-si, rum-ba-no.”
Joseph: “Censorship is good for writers. For three reasons. One, it unites the whole nation as (or into) readers. Two, it gives the writer limits, something to push against. Three, it increases metaphoric powers of the language (the greater the censorship, the more Aesopian the writing must become).”
The status of the Jews in one brief joke. A. They’re given an order to kill all the Jews + all the barbers. B. Why the barbers?
12/5/77
…
György Konrád looks so much like Jacob [Taubes]—as soon as I saw him yesterday afternoon, I was attracted + repelled; and this morning, late breakfast à deux at Florian’s later joined by Joseph—I discover that, of course, he was the man with whom Susan [Taubes] had an affair when she was in Budapest in August 1969.
At 2 a.m. walking from the Locanda Montin to the Accademia, across the bridge, through the Campo Santo Stefano, back to the hotel:—light snow, silence, the empty streets, the fog, thrilling cold—so much beauty. Like breathing pure oxygen.
…
Italian expression for being groped: “la mano morta” [“the dead hand”].
Influence of [the Russia
n-born French writer] Boris Souvarine on Simone Weil. Souvarine wrote a book denouncing Stalin in 1934—was rejected by Malraux, the reader at Gallimard, with these words: “Vous et vos amis avez raison, Souvarine, et je serai de vos côtes quand vous êtes les plus forts.” [“You and your friends are right, Souvarine, and I will be on your side when you’re the strongest.”] (Book not published in France until 1938.)
[In the margin:] The three evils—misogyny (sexism), anti-Semitism, and anti-intellectualism—against which I struggle.
Dissidence is a relationship (not relative) notion.
Joseph: “I feel like crying all the time.”
Prisoners in the camps [the Soviet Gulag] speak a lot about absolutes—futile absolutes. The greatest fuck in the world. The metal that can cut through any prison bars (strip of metal in the soles of shoes issued in the 1950s). The other side of powerlessness.
[Pavel] Filonov—Russian artist of the 20s (continued until 1950s) whom Joseph considers greater than Tatlin, El Lissitzky, etc.
Russian Constructivists of 20s: good … and yet. Industrial narcissism.
An artist should be professional enough to be able to do anything well.
The exiled writer from Eastern Europe. Here, in the West, nothing menaces but everything is hostile.
Joseph: “Then I realized what I am. I am somebody who took the idea of individuality literally.” His Eugene Onegin side again.
“Courage” is a word one can only use in the third person. Can’t say “I am brave / courageous.” Can say she or he is. It’s a word about actions, a way of interpreting behavior. It does not describe any subjective state. “Fear,” par contre, is a first person adjective. Can say / feel “I am afraid.”
Many Russians get out now by marrying Jews. In the Soviet Union Jews are a means of transport.
12/6/77
The smell of wet stones. The rain. The lapping of the water against the “fondamenta” [“a street parallel to a canal”]. The peaceful groan of the vaporetto as it starts up. The fog. The sound of footsteps. Seven gondolas like black crows; parked in the narrow canal, waddling, lolling.
Only negative ideas are useful. “Ideas are a means of transport. Only ideas which are a means of transport are my concern.”
One feels “I wrote a bad story” but not “I wrote a good story.” The latter is for the others. At most one feels, I didn’t write a bad book … The same for courage. One doesn’t feel “I was brave.” One feels “I wasn’t afraid.” Or, at least it didn’t show. I didn’t act on my fear.
He [Claude Roy] is tired. He’s known everybody.
The poet-in-exile [Brodsky], born in Leningrad, walking alone on the wet empty streets at two in the morning. It reminds him, “a little bit,” of Leningrad.
Even though I feel like one, I’m not an only child. So my mother’s narcissism, absences, inability to nurture was less damaging than it might have been. I saw she did it even more to my sister. I didn’t take it “personally.” I could say: I have this kind of mother. Not: she treats me badly, she doesn’t love me because I’m not / don’t have (these qualities). From an early age I learned to be “objective.”
When I understand something completely, it goes dead. Hence, I am drawn to “exile.” Being at home means knowing at each step what is possible. Events have an underpinning, a cushion of the possible. You turn the corner and you are not surprised.
Instead of “dissident” art, “non-authorized” or “unauthorized” art?
All political language is alienated. Political language as such is the enemy. (Joseph’s position)
A world in which there are dissidents everywhere + they are free. Or a world in which dissidence is no longer necessary (i.e. a good society). These are the two ideals presumed here—entirely opposite.
…
12/7/77
What we call nihilism (now) I simply thought. What thinking doesn’t lead to nihilism?
Everyone talks of rights (human rights, etc) …
… There is only social thinking (accepting “society”) or individualism—a profoundly asocial view of the world.
The lonely figures everywhere—many of whom wouldn’t have liked each other—who uphold the asocial position. Oscar Wilde. Benjamin. Adorno. Cioran.
True that Benjamin used a communist language in the last years of his life, so he looks different to us now. But that’s because he died in 1940. Those last years were the ones in which communist language regained authority—seen as necessary to fight fascism (identified as The Enemy). Had Benjamin lived as long as Adorno [he] w[oul]d have become as a-social, as disillusioned with left as Adorno did.
(Dinner with Joseph + Roberto Calasso, head of Adelphi Publishers in Milan. Lunch was with [the Polish theater critic] Jan Kott + [the scholar of Russian Literature] Victor Erlich. Breakfast was with [the Swiss journalist] François + [his wife] Lillian Bondy.)
Roberto Calasso’s story about John Cage’s recent performance in Milan—21/2 hours of nonsense syllables drawn from a Thoreau text—before an audience of 2000 people in the Lirico, biggest theater in Milan. Almost a lynching. It started after 20 minutes. At one point there were a hundred people on the stage—someone put a blindfold on Cage then took it off. No one left. And throughout Cage never moved, went on reading at the table on the stage. Everyone cheered. It was a triumph.
Cage wants to put some emptiness in the middle of all the sense. [In the margin, SS repeats “the sense” and adds an exclamation point.] He’s not a musician but a genial destroyer. The empty cage.
When there is no censorship the writer has no importance.
So it’s not so simple to be against censorship.
A lateral idea
The rhetorics of communism + nihilism. People who want to be good + [people] who want to be bad are both going in the same direction.
Both Marx + Freud were wrong. The one who was right is Malthus. Whatever happens, what’s in front is a more repressive society … The 19th century wouldn’t recognize the society we live in.
…
The fog. Standing in front of Museo Correr, looking across the Piazza San Marco and not seeing the Basilica. A new, surreal Venice in the fog: cut in segments, and then reassembled with the “far” parts missing (some of the parts missing).
12/8/77
Spiritual exercises: lowering the ideas into the body. Making it part of one’s instincts. Can’t be a Buddhist or Hindu without changing one’s physiology.
The high water. Planks in the Piazza San Marco. The water is greener, more transparent in the canals. Staircases under water. The water tilts, rolls, laps, sways, slaps the stone.
Difference between cruelty and oppression. Nazis institutionalized cruelty—proclaimed evil (the SS death’s-head insignia) —maimed and tortured bodies, killed as a matter of policy / principle. Nothing was ever as cruel, as heartless as Auschwitz. But a Stalinist regime is more oppressive because more politicized. Less space for the private. A rhetoric of the good rather than of evil.
“aria fritta” = fried air (confusion)
T. S. Eliot: to judge an art by religious standards + a religion by aesthetic standards may well be applying the best criteria we have
[In the margin:] “They become metaphors.”
…
The sacred nature of the word
[The Russian poet and writer Osip] Mandelstam one of the great prose writers of the 20th century—w[ould] be one of the century’s greatest writers even if he’d never written any poetry.
“Neither from the left nor from the right but from some extra-terrestrial place …”
[Inserted in the pages from the entries for 12/8/77.]
