Susan Sontag's Pleasure Lists
On Pleasure through listmaking
In 1961, Susan Sontag wrote: “Writing is a beautiful act. It is making something that will give pleasure to others later.”
Making lists is something that appeals to anyone, regardless of intellectual standing. Even the esteemed critic Susan Sontag wrote in her journals about her love of listmaking. In the reissued collection of her diary entries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980, a few of Sontag’s musings come to the fore.
On August 9, 1967, a 34-year-old Susan Sontag wrote:
I perceive value, I confer value, I create value, I even create — or guarantee — existence. Hence, my compulsion to make “lists.” The things (Beethoven’s music, movies, business firms) won’t exist unless I signify my interest in them by at least noting down their names.
Then, on February 21, 1977, Sontag wrote out her list of likes and dislikes. Reading like a stream of consciousness diary entry, there’s almost an urgent need to get them all down before they escape her. These likes and dislikes are a way of demarcating time; of documenting the things that one values at that specific moment.
Things I like: fires, Venice, tequila, sunsets, babies, silent films, heights, coarse salt, top hats, large long-haired dogs, ship models, cinnamon, goose down quilts, pocket watches, the smell of newly mown grass, linen, Bach, Louis XIII furniture, sushi, microscopes, large rooms, ups, boots, drinking water, maple sugar candy.
Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, mustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food.
Things I like: ivory, sweaters, architectural drawings, urinating, pizza (the Roman bread), staying in hotels, paper clips, the color blue, leather belts, making lists, Wagon-Lits, paying bills, caves, watching ice-skating, asking questions, taking taxis, Benin art, green apples, office furniture, Jews, eucalyptus trees, pen knives, aphorisms, hands.
Things I dislike: Television, baked beans, hirsute men, paperback books, standing, card games, dirty or disorderly apartments, flat pillows, being in the sun, Ezra Pound, freckles, violence in movies, having drops put in my eyes, meatloaf, painted nails, suicide, licking envelopes, ketchup, traversins [“bolsters”], nose drops, Coca-Cola, alcoholics, taking photographs.
Things I like: drums, carnations, socks, raw peas, chewing on sugar cane, bridges, Dürer, escalators, hot weather, sturgeon, tall people, deserts, white walls, horses, electric typewriters, cherries, wicker / rattan furniture, sitting cross-legged, stripes, large windows, fresh dill, reading aloud, going to bookstores, under-furnished rooms, dancing, Ariadne auf Naxos.
Writer
says, “in the list, there are clues to the person — a person who likes babies but dislikes couples, who likes the smell of mowed grass and dislikes the cold. (A fellow vernal equinox partisan, perhaps?) Absent any explanation, the meaning of the list is malleable.”Kirsch continues: “One’s likes and dislikes are forever changing, too, which permits a person to be complicated and fickle and to change their mind… I like super-subjective lists of likes and dislikes that may reveal bits of who people really are.”
What do you glean from Susan Sontag’s list? I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways.
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Why submit a list?
Pleasure Lists are a summary of what you need, want, or have, or see at a particular moment in time. They are a survey, an overview, a summary of the crucial facts of the state of one aspect of your life. It’s a kind of blueprint that can be a guide to the future.
Mull it over and if you’re moved to, send me a list.
Questions? Comments? Please send any recommendations or suggestions for what you’d like to see in these newsletters my way. I’d love to hear more about what you’re currently finding pleasure in.
Future posts may include Q&A's with pleasure-seekers, things that have brought me pleasure, and other deep-dives into pleasurable research.
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