Horrors from ‘overchoice’

Press, 16 June 1979, Page 17

Horrors from ‘overchoice’

I Etcetera. By Susan Sontag. Gollancz, 1979. 246 pp. $11.95. (Reviewed by Diane Prout) This is the first collection of short stories by Susan Sontag who has been acclaimed by American literati as one of the most imaginative and original writers of our time. She has received many awards and fellowships in the United States, and further to her credit are two novels and three films which she also directed. The social sweep and scope of these stories confirms her reputation as a formidable literary lady. The stories are thoroughly contemporary. The men and women in them are all suffering the horrors of full awareness in an age of ’‘overchoice.” Many are told in the first person since external personae are irrelevant to the dilemmas of the human soul. Narrative frequently consists of interior monologues or dialogue, either within the author’s consciousness or within the tortured mind of an unidentified character. Black comedy is a strong element in many of the stories. In “American Spirits,” “Baby,” and “The Dummy” the schizophrenic division between Illusion and Reality is brilliantly contrived. Miss Flatface’s encounters with Mr Obscenity is a kind of futuristic nightmare, symbolising Everywoman's desire for sexual emancipation. “Old Complaints Revisited” is a Kafkaesque parody

depicting Man’s imprisonment in an amorphous structure known as “The Organisation.” Reading these stories, one is reminded of Robert Frost’s line: “there is a cool web of language winds us in.” Susan Sontag spins a glittering web.