Susan Sontag: The Defacer of Books. Good for Her.

As the confinement of coronavirus continues into a fifth month, I have watched a great number of documentaries, the latest NetFlix's two parter on Sinatra. But just before that I watched one about a writer I knew of, but knew little about. She came of age about twenty years before I was born, and she was I probably knew vaguely, an intellectual force of the Counterculture as it developed and matured in the 1950s and 1960s. And, of course, she was a renowed activist. As all good activists do, she wrote about, among other things, sex, camp (not the Boy Scout kind, but rather the joys of things of bad taste and ironic vulgarity), human pain and the evils of the United States. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 71. 

At the program's conclusion, I was glad to have learned of her. I think I would like to read one or two of her essays or non-fiction, but it was clear she and I would be on opposite ends of the political divide, then, and now. Still, I went on line to read a little more about her, in particular, to indulge my curiosity about her relationship with her son, David Reiff, who was born when she was only 19 years old. In her countercultural pursuits she gave up her rights to him, but ultimately they had a relationship, and he was very much present for the difficult death she endured. It was, let's say, as most parent child relationships are, complicated. 

Then I ran across an article, the name of which I no longer remember by a critic or commentator whose name I no longer remember. In passing, the author said that he had learned Sontag underlined the books she read. He opined that this habit suggested the reader was not attentive. But then he absolved her, sort of because he noted that for her, it worked. 

Her intellectualism, thus, as I interpret the comment, was shall we say, marred, by this plebian habit. 

It is the only thing that I have in common with her. Since I am neither famous, nor an activist (unless one can be an activist on behalf of conservative values, but I am guessing that is forbidden), the fact that it works for me to underline the books I possess, is irrelevant. But that little thread of commonality between me and Ms. Sontag, made me like her, a lot. 

I would never underline a First Edition. I think I might have one, given to me by an aunt, and nobody is going to want it, "Gone With the Wind" and it is on the secular index of banned or soon to be banned books. But it wouldn't be the kind of book I'd underline anyway. It is fiction. When it came to disposing of books for a couple of people for whom I cleared out apartments, I found that nobody seemed to want them. I remember going to every bookstore in Los Angeles to try to sell the books, and you were lucky you would get one dollar for a tome purchased for 30 dollars. Even libraries didn't seem to want them. So what harm in underlining before they ended up in a garbage skiff? 

As for me, I underline non-fiction, biographies, philosophy, theology. Notwithstanding the opinion of the Sontag commentator, it makes me a more attentive reader. I make little notes. I know that for one reason or another, I will go back to the passage I found meaningful. Attentive though I am, I have not got a computer memory.

So probably a majority of the books you see in this dining room library have my mark. 

And since most of my books, if not all, will end up in a garbage truck after my demise, why is the habit of marking them an act of lese majeste in the minds of some thinkers, though of course, Ms. Sontag got a pass? 

As for me, since I do sometimes buy used books, I am happy to see markings, a name, some little note. It connects me to the person. I tend to feel about having underlined or notated books that belonged to others as did the writer of one of my favorite books (and it is fiction) and movies, 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff. She said:

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.”

It is kind of the feeling that I had when I was in Pompeii, or Jerusalem, where you can see the once used fountain, or once used item of ritual. It is why I like photographs of other people, even strangers. It is this incredible thread between the past and the present and the future, here on earth. 

So Ms. Sontag, you marked your books. Good for you!