Who's this Sontag woman anyway?

I didn't get to sleep from last night since I had to finish my report for my 240 class today. I reported on Susan Sontag's essay, Against Interpretation. I've been working on that report since Monday. Actually, I began working on the report since a week ago. But I only got to finally finish it this morning. Its not because I've been working on it too hard. I probably just have a thing for running after things. My mind is usually more effective under pressure. One has to admit, when its only 2 hours away from your deadline and you're only half way through with what you're supposed to do. The mind cannot help but intervene. "Finish the damn thing. Or else."

I pulled it off though. Thank god! Demi was a sunshine, "You somehow pull it off anyway," as we were texting this morning before class and as I was cramming away to finish my report and as the bright morning light imposes its own inconvenience for me today. Well, I guess I do pull it off most of the time but it's always better to really have enough time for studying and researching-if one goes around to actually doing it with ample time at hand.

Who's this Sontag woman anyway?

Susan Sontag was a blast! I was actually more interested in her than her essay. Well, her essay is...how should I put it. Well, let's go on to that later.

Sontag was born of a Jewish American couple, Jack Rosenblatt and Mildred Jacobsen. Jack was a fur trader in China but died of tuberculosis when Sontag was only five years old. From there, both her and her sister, Judith stayed with their grandmother at Tucson, Arizona while her mother finds another husband. Her mother came back to fetch them when she was 14 with their new stepfather, Nathan Sontag. The sisters took on their stepfather's last name from there and moved to LA where Sontag studied her high school education. Sontag didn't seem to like childhood nor her mother very much. In an interview, she would openly say, "my mother was a selfish young woman," and would talk of childhood as "a waste of time."

Sontag was a brilliant student. She began her BA at the University of California, Berkley at the age of 15. (To think that at this age, I can only think about how cute David Aguirre of Razorback is. That was then though, he's not that cute anymore. ) She didn't finish at Berkley since she married Philip Reiff (28), a sociologist instructor in her sophomore year after a ten-day courtship. (She was 17 at this point.) They moved to Chicago, that's why she had to finish her college degree at the University of Chicago and had her son David. A run-away bride with the groom. Its more of a "come, let's run away, groom" thing.

From there, she went on to study her MA in English Literature, Philosophy and Theology at the not so famous Harvard University and then her PhD, (dig this) in 4 years to be exact. (Shit, I can't even finish this damn report in two days!) From there, she got a scholarship at St. Anne's College, Oxford but decided that she was too good for St. Anne's so she moved to Paris and studied at the University of Paris. Paris or the French thought and aesthetics for that matter will be greatly influencing her mold for the works that she will be producing soon enough. Even after Paris, she would spent half of each year there throughout her life.

Sontag was "fabulous" intellectual. She always made her way by saying the right things and attracting people's attention both from the popular culture and the intellectuals of NY. She has a way with formulating apocarypthic statements that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Her writings caused tensions from left to right. Gaining applause from the popular bourgesie and stirring tensions among the intellectuals. She knows how to say things-juxtapose words and pose for a photograph.

To be continued...