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Reborn
- Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Art & Literature
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As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh
- Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This, the second of three volumes of Susan Sontag’s journals and notebooks, begins where the first volume left off, in the middle of the 1960s. It traces and documents Sontag’s evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world of New York City to world-renowned critic and dominant force in the world of ideas with the publication of the groundbreaking Against Interpretation in 1966.
-
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Thirty-five years after her first collection, the classic Against Interpretation, America's most important essayist chose more than 40 longer and shorter pieces from the previous 20 years. "Reading", the first of three sections, includes ardent pieces on writers from Sontag's own private canon - Machado de Assis, Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Borges, Tsvetaeva, and Elizabeth Hardwick.
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A predecessor to such monumental works such as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Notes From Underground represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky's writing towards the more political side.
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wow that was pretty darn good.
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Being and Time was published in 1927 during the Weimar period in Germany, a time of political, social and economic turmoil. Heidegger himself did not escape the pressures and his nationalism, and undeniable anti-Semitism in the following decades cast a shadow over the man, but not the work. Being and Time is not coloured by expressions of his later views (unlike other writings) and remains an outstanding document.
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Summary
"I intend to do everything...I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!" This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence through to when Sontag was in her early 30s. It is an astonishingly affecting and honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.
What listeners say about Reborn
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- HampshireUK
- 22-06-14
Susan Sontag Deserves Better
What would have made Reborn better?
I love Susan Sontag's work, and I was looking forward to something that showed the progression of her early thinking - so much so that I listened to over eight hours of Reborn: Journals and Notebooks. The books and authors Sontag might have been reading (she often listed future authors to read as well as past) have no record of any kind of engaged dialogue, nor even what triggered her interest. I sat wondering where the writing/essays/work where that accompanied her journal record. With regards to the personal struggles, she didn't explore them, completely appropriate to a personal journal, she simply dumped her anger and frustrations. The preface explains the decision to print the journals by her son, as a statement she made near her death - "you know where the journals are". That may just have well meant - please find them before someone else does. There are works in this genre that are important pieces of literature. In order to be important however, they should help us to understand, more deeply, the ouevre the author has left behind. There is no developmental narrative in these journals. I strongly believe one of the great women intellectuals of our times deserves much better.
Would you ever listen to anything by Susan Sontag again?
Yes
What didn’t you like about Jennifer Van Dyck’s performance?
Her tone was relentlessly caustic which made it difficult to feel any kind of empathy for Sontag.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Reborn?
I would not have published it. If they had not been Susan Sontags, and posthumous, I don't think they would have been.
1 person found this helpful
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- S. BAKER
- 17-05-15
Performed well. But...
As with any journal, not every day is full of gender bending and social revelations. If you want a glimpse into her life this is it. But it's not going to change your life.
1 person found this helpful
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- Andruka
- 07-08-18
You are in the right place
Fantastic effort. One of the few diaries I can listen to in audio form. I sometimes listen to it while following the written version.