Under the Sign of Saturn
Susan Sontag
A collection of essays on the relationship between moral and aesthetic ideas. The book brings together some of Sontag's best critical writing of the 1970s, on subjects ranging from Walter Benjamin to Antonin Artuad, Elias Canetti and Leni Reifenstahl.
Posted by billyfisher1977 (1 year ago ) This contains Susan Sontag's essay 'Fascinating Fascism' that spiked Leni Reifenstahl's critical reappraisal by pointing out the persistent thread of Nazi thinking in her work and, decisively, questions the eagerness of the critical world to rehabilitate a woman so uniquely involved in the aesthetic project of Nazi Germany.
Sontag belives that the wanton historical amnesia shown by critics, publishers and curators, in their failure to reference Reifenstahl's past, is an attempt to avoid examining the meaning and implications of the allure of the collective dream of the Third Reich, trying to make a world where Art is just Art, regardless of the actual historical truth.
Reifenstahl nursed a long-standing hatred of Sontag, suggesting that at least some of the impact of the essay was felt by her personally.
The title essay 'Under The Sign of Saturn' is a love letter to, and great overview of, the work of Walter Benjamin, and is a corking read.
Read this, if for no other reason than it's an enriching experience being in the company of someone who is more clever than you or I will ever be.
Cheers,
Billy
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technical book, not my style but... said Bookworm225