*Maestros and Monsters*

The author is Robert Boyers and the subtitle is Days & Nights with Susan Sontag & George Steiner, and the book appears to be an account of their friendship, and also rivalry.  Here is one early passage:

Still, it ought to have been obvious that what made Susan authentically cool was not principally her image or her beauty but her demeanor, the almost impossibly self-possession stamped on everything she wrote and in her every utterance.  She was, after all, rigorous even about pleasure.  She had little or no patience with those who wanted to relax.  She wanted her pleasures rare and immoderate.  In her presence, I felt my own impulses quicken.  I felt smarter, more alert, poised to be contradicted, even undermined.  I never doubted the force and ferocity of her will, never minded that to be in her company was to revolve around her.  She was cool because she knew how to make conversation dangerous.  There was no inclination in Susan towards the obvious or self-evident.  Though she could be down to earth, even somewhat vulnerable, with those who were permitted to come close, she rarely let down her determination to be demanding.  Cool was in her a perfect, unstudied resistance to banality and incoherence.  Responsive to enigma and sublimity, she had no feeling for child’s play or frivolity.  She had her chosen masters but was always also masterful in the exercise of her own seductive powers.

I will keep reading…