The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Susan Sontag’s Bulletpointed Bodily Self-Portrait

After Edna St. Vincent Millay’s playfully lewd self-portrait, Italo Calvino’s poetic CV, and the 7-word autobiographies of cultural icons, here comes a fine piece of self-assessment by Susan Sontag.

From As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980 (public library) — which was among the best psychology and philosophy books of 2012 and which has previously given us Sontag’s wisdom on writing, boredom, censorship, and aphorisms, her radical vision for remixing education, her meditation on why lists appeal to us, and her illustrated insights on love and art — comes this bodily self-portrait from a diary entry dated August 20, 1964, when Sontag was thirty-one. Though it appears under the heading “Body type,” it also touches on psychological tendencies, bespeaking the inextricable link between mind and matter.

Susan Sontag by Peter Hujar, gelatin silver print, 1975
  • Tall
  • Low blood pressure
  • Need lots of sleep
  • Sudden craving for pure sugar (but dislike desserts — not a high enough concentration)
  • Intolerance for liquor
  • Heavy smoking
  • Tendency to anemia
  • Heavy protein craving
  • Asthma
  • Migraines
  • Very good stomach — no heartburn, constipation, etc.
  • Negligible menstrual cramps
  • Easily tired by standing
  • Like heights
  • Enjoy seeing deformed people (voyeuristic)
  • Nailbiting
  • Teeth grinding
  • Nearsighted, astigmatism
  • Frileuse (very sensitive to cold, like hot summers)
  • Not very sensitive to noise (high degree of selective auditory focus)

It was in the very same diary entry that Sontag also made her memorable remark about criticism and reflected that “words have their own firmness,” one of her essential insights on writing.

As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh is the sequel to the equally indispensable Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947–1963, which gave us Sontag’s wisdom on life, death, art and freedom, her list of “rules + duties for being 24”, her 10 rules for raising a child, and her beliefs at age 14 vs. 24.


Published July 16, 2013

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/07/16/susan-sontag-self-portrait/

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