Joe Sobran on Susan Sontag

I'm never quite sure what to make of Joe Sobran. He's usually very critical of something or other, in biting prose that's fun to read. He's also usually provocative. Witness his thoughts on the passing of Susan Sontag:

Miss Sontag had a beauty all her own: arresting dark eyes, perfect mouth, flowing hair. Even when she aged, her looks remained absolutely distinctive. ... I dwell on her looks because I think they were the real reason people -- men, for instance -- paid attention to her. And I think she knew it. She had a feminine knack for getting noticed and saying provocative things. In her seemingly abstruse writing, I always sensed an element of flirtation. As with many lovely women, you listened in fascination even when she made no sense at all. Was she talking nonsense, or deepening her mystery?

Roger Kimball of The New Criterion, in a testy obituary, quotes her early essay in praise of Communist Cuba. She urged her American readers to "love the Cuban revolution." American culture, she said, was "inorganic, dead, coercive, authoritarian." Whereas "the Cubans know a lot about spontaneity, gaiety, sensuality, and freaking out. They are not linear, dessicated creatures of print culture." To which the only rational reply is: Say what? ...

I may as well say it: I'm tired of intellectuals, Left and Right. Every week I buy a handful of highbrow magazines from New York and London, and after reading them I plunge into depression. I hardly know what they're talking about.

Susan Sontag was a feast for the eye, if not for the mind. That's more than you can say of most intellectuals.

Ann Coulter, anyone?