In this collection, Sontag masters all she chooses to survey. She is a noble appreciator. Integrity, wholeness, large-sighted vision are intrinsic to Sontag's care for the intellectual life....Under the Sign of Saturn includes two long articles that belong together: the famed, polemical, whipping of Leni Riefenstahl's laundered reputation and camp cult of fascist art, and her stunning analysis of Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler, a Film from Germany.... After this feast, I am eager for her thoughts on anything.” —Chicago Sun-Times
“A self-described ‘besotted aesthete' and ‘obsessed moralist,' Sontag, more than most writers of her generation, views the everyday business of thinking and feeling as dialectical aspects of one another. Refining that sensibility while attending to the more provocative issues of the day, Sontag has created a body of work of exemplary merit.” —The Boston Globe
“No one has written more passionately about Antonin Artaud....Nor has anyone before Sontag taken the pains to demolish so thoroughly Hitler's favorite moviemaker, Leni Riefenstahl. This is one of the crack essays in the book.” —Chicago Tribune
“We were doing all of this for people we did not know and could not imagine. And as is the case, too, like, when you’re planting trees, you hope that they’re gonna outlive you. And the trees that were planted have outlived some of the people who are deeply involved in that project. Which is, […]