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Death Kit
First published in 1967, Death Kit--Susan Sontag's second novel--is a classic of modern fiction. Blending realism and dream, it offers a passionate exploration of the recesses of the American conscience.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
88 people are currently reading
2,051 people want to read
About the author
Susan Sontag
219books4,996followersSusan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers� organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers� organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
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December 24, 2019
synopsis: a man in the midst of a meltdown. his broken mind encounters two paths: a subway to death and a tunnel of love. which will he choose? are both paths the same?
poor Diddy! the man has led a hollow life. following a divorce and the recognition of said hollowness comes a suicide attempt. and then comes murder and passion. and then comes... what exactly? the answers are all there, sadly.
Sontag is sad herself, writing about this sad man. sad about the holes people dig for themselves, for the glossy veneers and brittle surfaces that pretend to be identities, purposes. but a sadness of the sort that a doctor can display. a clinical, professional sort of sadness. an understanding but removed sort of sad. but sad nonetheless! Sontag's sorrow is there, invisible footnotes within this assessment of what has made and continues to make Diddy and his so-called life so sad.
the author is of course famous for being the preeminent intellectual of her day. not admired for her fiction but adulated for her nonfiction essays. this feels unfair to me. Sontag is a writer of the first order and this book is brilliantly written. there are some set pieces in Death Kit that rank among the best I've read in any book: Diddy pretending to be an insurance investigator while visiting the crass widow of a man he thinks he's murdered; a meeting slash dick-measuring contest between corporate honchos and their yes-men; a sweet and real encounter between Diddy and a prostitute he picks up; the many scenes of Diddy and his new love, a preturnaturally self-assured blind woman; and my favorite of all, an exceedingly strange yet endearing dream that Diddy recounts (based on a novel he wrote and lost), all about the life story of a poor lonely outcast werewolf. a story about all humans.
as noted above, this is a clinical book and so it is with the prose. the writing has an emotionless and very dry quality to it, despite its brilliance. and yet, somehow, this quality only made the book more fascinating to read. this is a mesmerizing book. its hypnotic quality comes directly from the cold, purely interior way that the visceral narrative is presented. the prose does not parallel the often heated, often surreal sequences. (as I mention in the comments below,) I was reminded of the callous quality of Duras writing on love and emptiness and even more of Cronenberg's icy style in his films portraying various extremes of feeling and action, or non-action. there's just something about a distanced, weirdly "objective" voice describing scenes of intense emotion and/or bizarre hallucination that I respond to. and so I was fascinated from beginning to end.
in sum, the writing is as alienated from the subject as the subject is alienated from himself. soulfulness does come through, much to my relief. but parsed out, between the lines, implicit, almost hidden from view. in the end, Sontag does Sontag: she evaluates, she analyzes, she posits a thesis.
poor Diddy! the man has led a hollow life. following a divorce and the recognition of said hollowness comes a suicide attempt. and then comes murder and passion. and then comes... what exactly? the answers are all there, sadly.
Sontag is sad herself, writing about this sad man. sad about the holes people dig for themselves, for the glossy veneers and brittle surfaces that pretend to be identities, purposes. but a sadness of the sort that a doctor can display. a clinical, professional sort of sadness. an understanding but removed sort of sad. but sad nonetheless! Sontag's sorrow is there, invisible footnotes within this assessment of what has made and continues to make Diddy and his so-called life so sad.
the author is of course famous for being the preeminent intellectual of her day. not admired for her fiction but adulated for her nonfiction essays. this feels unfair to me. Sontag is a writer of the first order and this book is brilliantly written. there are some set pieces in Death Kit that rank among the best I've read in any book: Diddy pretending to be an insurance investigator while visiting the crass widow of a man he thinks he's murdered; a meeting slash dick-measuring contest between corporate honchos and their yes-men; a sweet and real encounter between Diddy and a prostitute he picks up; the many scenes of Diddy and his new love, a preturnaturally self-assured blind woman; and my favorite of all, an exceedingly strange yet endearing dream that Diddy recounts (based on a novel he wrote and lost), all about the life story of a poor lonely outcast werewolf. a story about all humans.
as noted above, this is a clinical book and so it is with the prose. the writing has an emotionless and very dry quality to it, despite its brilliance. and yet, somehow, this quality only made the book more fascinating to read. this is a mesmerizing book. its hypnotic quality comes directly from the cold, purely interior way that the visceral narrative is presented. the prose does not parallel the often heated, often surreal sequences. (as I mention in the comments below,) I was reminded of the callous quality of Duras writing on love and emptiness and even more of Cronenberg's icy style in his films portraying various extremes of feeling and action, or non-action. there's just something about a distanced, weirdly "objective" voice describing scenes of intense emotion and/or bizarre hallucination that I respond to. and so I was fascinated from beginning to end.
in sum, the writing is as alienated from the subject as the subject is alienated from himself. soulfulness does come through, much to my relief. but parsed out, between the lines, implicit, almost hidden from view. in the end, Sontag does Sontag: she evaluates, she analyzes, she posits a thesis.
March 16, 2009
Rachel the curious picks up Death Kit.
Rachel the eager begins to read Death Kit.
Rachel the approving reads a few pages and enjoys the verbiage.
Rachel the intrigued expects to be charmed with mysterious scenarios.
Rachel the expectant.
Rachel the impatient reads another book to satiate feeling of accomplishment.
Rachel the rebounding resolves to finish this damn book by the end of the week.
Rachel the inattentive continues this perfunctory reading.
Rachel the redundant is bored.
Rachel the relieved has finished this fucking book (now) after having read two books in between. Finally.
Rachel the eager begins to read Death Kit.
Rachel the approving reads a few pages and enjoys the verbiage.
Rachel the intrigued expects to be charmed with mysterious scenarios.
Rachel the expectant.
Rachel the impatient reads another book to satiate feeling of accomplishment.
Rachel the rebounding resolves to finish this damn book by the end of the week.
Rachel the inattentive continues this perfunctory reading.
Rachel the redundant is bored.
Rachel the relieved has finished this fucking book (now) after having read two books in between. Finally.
January 11, 2024
Postmodern bir roman, gazeteci ve incelemeci olan Susan Sontag romancı olarak da başarılı. Aşk ve ölüme aynı hırs ve istekle, tutkuyla bağlanmış bir kişinin romanı. Kısmen cinayet öyküsü yer alsa da felsefi ve psikolojik ağırlığı fazla olan bir aşk romanı gibi kurgulanmış, ama aşk romanı değil. Peki ne? Cevabım yorumumun sonunda.
ŷ’te ülkemizden okuyucuların pek rağbet etmediği bir kitap. Halbuki ilginç ve güzel bir roman.Yazarın dili oldukça sade, buna karşın şaşırtıcı, ürkütücü, merak uyandırıp huzur kaçırıcı bir üslubu var. Devamlı sorgulama, zıtlıkları ard arda sıralama yazarın üslubunun bir başka yönü. Bu kitapta en ilginç olan husus anlatıcının (üçüncü tekil şahıs) bir şekilde ilk ağızdan (birici tekil şahıs) anlatıyor gibi gelmesi. Yazar bu tekniği çok zekice kullanıyor ki daha önce bu kadar açık olarak herhangi bir romanda rastlamamıştım. Örneğin; �... Dört arkadaş otelin önünde buluştu, arabaya bindiler, kongre merkezine doğru gidiyoruz�
Ayrıca Sontag deneysel bir teknik kullanıyor. Başlarda çok sık, kitap ilerledikçe sıklığı azalan bir uygulaması var. Parantez içinde “şimdi� yazıyor (şimdi), ancak bunu okusanız da okumasanız da cümlede anlam değişmiyor, okuyunca sizi o ana daha sıkı olarak götürüyor.
Roman kahramanı 33 yaşında, yakışıklı, iyi eğitimli, bir şirkette iyi bir işi olan, işinde çalışkan, köpeğini gezdiren, düzenli bir yaşamı olan, yumuşak başlı Dalton Harron ve onunla aynı vücudu paylaşan çoklu karakterli Diddy. Diddy’nin bu karakterleri iyi kalpli, kötü ruhlu, yaramaz, uslu, yardımsever, hırçın, sakin, tembel, şüpheci, komedyen, adil, kavgacı, kıskanç, meraklı, ilgisiz vb gibi onlarca zıtlığı taşıyorlar.
Dalton ailevi sorunları olan, eşi tarafından terkedilen, annesini sevmeyen, başarılı ve ünlü piyanist kardeşinin gölgesinde kalan, intihara teşebbüs eden, çocukluğunda oynadığı bebeğini ikizi sayan ve onu ateşe atıp yakan kısaca psişik olarak dolu bir insan. Özellikle erkek kardeşi Paul ile ilgili düşünceleri çok karışık. Erkekliğinden şüphe eden ve benlik nefreti içinde olan bir adam. Diddy lakabını ona kardeşi vermiş. Bu nedenle Diddy’nin romandaki seyrüseferi hep kardeşi ile ilişkili, hep gel-gitli, hep arayış içinde.
Diddy’nin rüya mı gerçek mi birbirinden ayıramadığı ve devamlı sorguladığı olayların başında işlediğini düşündüğü cinayet hikayesi ile roman başlıyor, sonradan kör olmuş genç ve güzel bir kadın olan Hester ile arasındaki aşk örgüsüyle devam ediyor. Diddy kendi ölümünü inceliyor bir başka deyişle. Roman Donald’� mı, Diddy’i mi anlatıyor ancak romanın sonunda anlaşılıyor.
Sağlam bir kurgu, mekan ve olay tanımlarında olağanüstü gözlemlerin ortaya çıkardığı cümleler, Hester ile Diddy arasındaki heyecanlı diyaloglar, modern çağı lanetliyor adeta. Kitabın sonuna doğru Diddy ölüler arasında dolaşırken Amerikan toplumunun bir resmini çekiyor.
Postmodern bir roman olduğundan benim için okuması güç bir roman oldu, bir o kadar da öğretici. Sonucu okuyucuya bırakan yazar (bence) şizoid karakterli yani şizofren Dalton’un gördüğü kabusları ikincil karakter Diddy üzerinden anlatıyor. Hem de çok başarılı bir şekilde. Bu haliyle romanı psikolojik romanlar kategorisine dahil ediyorum.
ŷ’te ülkemizden okuyucuların pek rağbet etmediği bir kitap. Halbuki ilginç ve güzel bir roman.Yazarın dili oldukça sade, buna karşın şaşırtıcı, ürkütücü, merak uyandırıp huzur kaçırıcı bir üslubu var. Devamlı sorgulama, zıtlıkları ard arda sıralama yazarın üslubunun bir başka yönü. Bu kitapta en ilginç olan husus anlatıcının (üçüncü tekil şahıs) bir şekilde ilk ağızdan (birici tekil şahıs) anlatıyor gibi gelmesi. Yazar bu tekniği çok zekice kullanıyor ki daha önce bu kadar açık olarak herhangi bir romanda rastlamamıştım. Örneğin; �... Dört arkadaş otelin önünde buluştu, arabaya bindiler, kongre merkezine doğru gidiyoruz�
Ayrıca Sontag deneysel bir teknik kullanıyor. Başlarda çok sık, kitap ilerledikçe sıklığı azalan bir uygulaması var. Parantez içinde “şimdi� yazıyor (şimdi), ancak bunu okusanız da okumasanız da cümlede anlam değişmiyor, okuyunca sizi o ana daha sıkı olarak götürüyor.
Roman kahramanı 33 yaşında, yakışıklı, iyi eğitimli, bir şirkette iyi bir işi olan, işinde çalışkan, köpeğini gezdiren, düzenli bir yaşamı olan, yumuşak başlı Dalton Harron ve onunla aynı vücudu paylaşan çoklu karakterli Diddy. Diddy’nin bu karakterleri iyi kalpli, kötü ruhlu, yaramaz, uslu, yardımsever, hırçın, sakin, tembel, şüpheci, komedyen, adil, kavgacı, kıskanç, meraklı, ilgisiz vb gibi onlarca zıtlığı taşıyorlar.
Dalton ailevi sorunları olan, eşi tarafından terkedilen, annesini sevmeyen, başarılı ve ünlü piyanist kardeşinin gölgesinde kalan, intihara teşebbüs eden, çocukluğunda oynadığı bebeğini ikizi sayan ve onu ateşe atıp yakan kısaca psişik olarak dolu bir insan. Özellikle erkek kardeşi Paul ile ilgili düşünceleri çok karışık. Erkekliğinden şüphe eden ve benlik nefreti içinde olan bir adam. Diddy lakabını ona kardeşi vermiş. Bu nedenle Diddy’nin romandaki seyrüseferi hep kardeşi ile ilişkili, hep gel-gitli, hep arayış içinde.
Diddy’nin rüya mı gerçek mi birbirinden ayıramadığı ve devamlı sorguladığı olayların başında işlediğini düşündüğü cinayet hikayesi ile roman başlıyor, sonradan kör olmuş genç ve güzel bir kadın olan Hester ile arasındaki aşk örgüsüyle devam ediyor. Diddy kendi ölümünü inceliyor bir başka deyişle. Roman Donald’� mı, Diddy’i mi anlatıyor ancak romanın sonunda anlaşılıyor.
Sağlam bir kurgu, mekan ve olay tanımlarında olağanüstü gözlemlerin ortaya çıkardığı cümleler, Hester ile Diddy arasındaki heyecanlı diyaloglar, modern çağı lanetliyor adeta. Kitabın sonuna doğru Diddy ölüler arasında dolaşırken Amerikan toplumunun bir resmini çekiyor.
Postmodern bir roman olduğundan benim için okuması güç bir roman oldu, bir o kadar da öğretici. Sonucu okuyucuya bırakan yazar (bence) şizoid karakterli yani şizofren Dalton’un gördüğü kabusları ikincil karakter Diddy üzerinden anlatıyor. Hem de çok başarılı bir şekilde. Bu haliyle romanı psikolojik romanlar kategorisine dahil ediyorum.
September 26, 2014
Susan Sontag was more of a figure than a person. Intimidatingly intelligent and self-assured, she was an embodiment of an intellectual. Suffice to say there is only one woman Hitchens talks in any length about in his memoir (other than his mother) and it’s Susan Sontag. Even Hitchens, the notorious woman-ignorer (if not necessarily a woman-hater) couldn’t ignore Sontag.
It felt good to be reading Susan Sontag. Also I sure looked good reading Sontag, walking around with black and white Penguin Modern Classic that just spelled class. I milked it, taking the Circle line and going in circles for hours basking in my intellectual superiority, looking down on my fellow commuters reading Fifty Shades of Horsecrap or some hyped thriller of the day. (I didn’t really do that. That would be crazy. I’m not crazy.) I even took a photo, so that I could post it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and let everyone know just how smart I was. (But for some reason I decided against brushing my hair that day - you can see it on my )
Of course, if I were taking this intellectual adventure seriously, I’d be reading Sontag’s essays, not novels, and they obviously are on my four or five thousand items strong to-read list but meanwhile let’s have a quick look at this (post)modernist trip.
Sontag was not a great novelist, mostly because she was a great critic and it seems you can’t be both. (I really hope that means I will be a great novelist). But that is not to say that this ‘Death Kit� is completely without its merit � even though the book seems too calculated and self-aware, there passages of unexceptional brilliance.
Diddy, the protagonist, barely deserves to be called the hero of the novel because he is just so unmemorable and pedestrian. If I were to compare him to a famous figure, it would be Nick Clegg. I don’t know about you but I have to Google him every time to remind myself what his face looks like (I just did it again).
So we have Diddy: "Diddy, not really alive, had a life. Hardly the same. Some people are their lives. Others, like Diddy, merely inhabit their lives." Diddy, who tried to take his non-life but failed and after having been released from hospital embarks on a non-adventure, where things might or might have not happened. He might have killed a railway worker and might have started an affair with a blind girl. But of course the air of ‘is this all a dream� pervades the novel and causes a mild frustration to the reader (or at least it did to this particular reader). It’s all very Kafkaesque, and now that I’ve actually read Kafka, I can say it with some authority.
As many critics writing novels Sontag uses this rather poor excuse of a plot to continue writing essays about art and philosophy and what’s real and what’s not real, and how real is real anyway, but really these ruminations should have never happened in the mind of her ‘Diddy the bland� protagonist. He’s just really not that kind of guy. As a result we have embryos here � an embryo of a novel and an embryo of a collection of essays. And they could potentially grow into something fabulous but they just never have the chance. So sad.
In her Paris Review interview Sontag says:
“Oddly enough, the plot is what seems to come all of a piece—like a gift. It’s very mysterious. Something I hear or see or read conjures up a whole story in all its concreteness—scenes, characters, landscapes, catastrophes. With Death Kit, it was hearing someone utter the childhood nickname of a mutual friend named Richard—just the hearing of the name Diddy.�
I know we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth but, Susan, some gifts are just not that great.
However, having read this entire interview with Sontag ( (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1505/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag), I am now convinced she is my spirit animal. (Although you can see how she is better at talking about her novels than writing them.)
It felt good to be reading Susan Sontag. Also I sure looked good reading Sontag, walking around with black and white Penguin Modern Classic that just spelled class. I milked it, taking the Circle line and going in circles for hours basking in my intellectual superiority, looking down on my fellow commuters reading Fifty Shades of Horsecrap or some hyped thriller of the day. (I didn’t really do that. That would be crazy. I’m not crazy.) I even took a photo, so that I could post it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and let everyone know just how smart I was. (But for some reason I decided against brushing my hair that day - you can see it on my )
Of course, if I were taking this intellectual adventure seriously, I’d be reading Sontag’s essays, not novels, and they obviously are on my four or five thousand items strong to-read list but meanwhile let’s have a quick look at this (post)modernist trip.
Sontag was not a great novelist, mostly because she was a great critic and it seems you can’t be both. (I really hope that means I will be a great novelist). But that is not to say that this ‘Death Kit� is completely without its merit � even though the book seems too calculated and self-aware, there passages of unexceptional brilliance.
Diddy, the protagonist, barely deserves to be called the hero of the novel because he is just so unmemorable and pedestrian. If I were to compare him to a famous figure, it would be Nick Clegg. I don’t know about you but I have to Google him every time to remind myself what his face looks like (I just did it again).
So we have Diddy: "Diddy, not really alive, had a life. Hardly the same. Some people are their lives. Others, like Diddy, merely inhabit their lives." Diddy, who tried to take his non-life but failed and after having been released from hospital embarks on a non-adventure, where things might or might have not happened. He might have killed a railway worker and might have started an affair with a blind girl. But of course the air of ‘is this all a dream� pervades the novel and causes a mild frustration to the reader (or at least it did to this particular reader). It’s all very Kafkaesque, and now that I’ve actually read Kafka, I can say it with some authority.
As many critics writing novels Sontag uses this rather poor excuse of a plot to continue writing essays about art and philosophy and what’s real and what’s not real, and how real is real anyway, but really these ruminations should have never happened in the mind of her ‘Diddy the bland� protagonist. He’s just really not that kind of guy. As a result we have embryos here � an embryo of a novel and an embryo of a collection of essays. And they could potentially grow into something fabulous but they just never have the chance. So sad.
In her Paris Review interview Sontag says:
“Oddly enough, the plot is what seems to come all of a piece—like a gift. It’s very mysterious. Something I hear or see or read conjures up a whole story in all its concreteness—scenes, characters, landscapes, catastrophes. With Death Kit, it was hearing someone utter the childhood nickname of a mutual friend named Richard—just the hearing of the name Diddy.�
I know we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth but, Susan, some gifts are just not that great.
However, having read this entire interview with Sontag ( (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1505/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag), I am now convinced she is my spirit animal. (Although you can see how she is better at talking about her novels than writing them.)
March 13, 2024
Dikkatin, aklın okuma yaparken kaymasına imkan vermeyen bir kitap. Tekinsizliği hissettiğiniz büyük bir sessizlik içinde psikolojik rahatsızlığı olan karakterle savruluyoruz. Cümle aralarında parantez içinde bazen büyük harf bazen küçük harfle yazılı artık, şimdi, şu an gibi nerede olduğunuzu hatta ne yaptığınızı hatırlatan yönlendirmeler bile var. Şimdiki zamandan bir anda geçmiş zamana, çoğul anlatımdan karakter anlatımına savrulurken hiç yadırgamamak şahane bir okuma deneyimi yaşatıyor.
Susan Sontag zor bir kurgu ama kolay okunan metin yazıyor. Kitap boyu her şeyi didik dildik açıklıyor gibi gözüken bir yazar olsa bile pek çok şeyi okuyucuya kalıyor. Ana karakter Diddy’nin şimdiki zamanda yaşamadığı sorgulamaları, izlemleri, ilişkileri, ölümü, yaşamı derken gerçekten çok sağlam bir kurgusu var. Felsefe ile iç içe olan bir kurgu ve sonunda ne olacağına dair merak uyandıran bir kitap.
Susan Sontag zor bir kurgu ama kolay okunan metin yazıyor. Kitap boyu her şeyi didik dildik açıklıyor gibi gözüken bir yazar olsa bile pek çok şeyi okuyucuya kalıyor. Ana karakter Diddy’nin şimdiki zamanda yaşamadığı sorgulamaları, izlemleri, ilişkileri, ölümü, yaşamı derken gerçekten çok sağlam bir kurgusu var. Felsefe ile iç içe olan bir kurgu ve sonunda ne olacağına dair merak uyandıran bir kitap.
September 13, 2019
Dalton Harron, aka Diddy, is a mild-mannered advertising man who is not doing well at all. This book is about him not doing well and maybe trying to find love or just trying to finally die. We are mostly in Diddy's mind through close third-person POV, with some occasional intrusion of the first-person plural, the significance of which I never did figure out. This is realism washed with a deathly oneiric hue. Long detailed transcripts of Diddy's dreams appear, wherein he seems to be grappling with the nature of his conscious anxieties. There is a lot of mystery here. It is a very unique work, and Sontag sure shows she has the chops for fiction writing, despite her reputation generally shining brighter in other realms.
July 25, 2012
(As of summer 2012, a first-edition copy of this book is being sold through the rare-book service at the arts organization I own, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography []. Here below is the description I wrote for its listing.)
Known affectionately by her fans as "The Dark Lady of American Letters," like many writers the late Susan Sontag is almost equally known for her personality, celebrity and controversial views as for her varied body of work itself. A serious academe even at an early age, who had logged in time at the University of Chicago, University of Paris and Oxford all by 25, Sontag was known as a distinctly European-style intellectual who spent her life championing the challenging countercultural writers of that continent; celebrated mostly for her heady critical essays, among other achievements she was the person to coin the word "camp" as a positive term for "so bad it's good," a virtual pillar of the entire Postmodern era, plus came up with an entirely new way for us to envision the relationship between photography and us as its subjects and viewers, an obsession that even bled into Sontag's personal life, in that this notorious bisexual was romantically involved with famed photographer Annie Liebowitz for the entire last decade of her life.
But despite all this, interestingly Sontag primarily considered herself a novelist, odd to realize given that she only wrote four of them in her long career, two near the beginning and two near the end. 1967's experimental Death Kit was the second, and only the third book of her career overall, after 1963's similarly groundbreaking The Benefactor and the essay collection Against Interpretation in 1966, considered one of her most famous books because of containing the aforementioned "camp" essay. And indeed, there's a lot to be said for one online reviewer's sum-up of Death Kit as "what Kafka would've written if he had been a '60s hippie;" after all, Sontag always saw her formative years in continental Europe as the most important period of her life, the years when she first fell in love with Kafka himself and other cutting-edge Modernist European artists, a love that would not just stay with her the rest of her life but in many ways help define her in the eyes of American audiences. A sometimes nonsensical, dreamlike tale just dripping with symbolism throughout, it is perhaps the story of a pissy corporate executive who loses his temper one evening on a delayed commuter train, manages to sneak off the stopped train, in a fit of rage kills the wisecracking employee trying to clear the tracks, and sneaks back on board without anyone noticing, spending the rest of the story in an existential cloud of guilt and deep thoughts; or maybe none of this actually happened, and what we're really watching is our unreliable narrator experience a complete snap from reality "American Psycho" style. In any case, there is also Diddy's sexual obsession with an easy blind girl to contend with, the travails of his microscope-manufacturing job, and all kinds of tangents to be had about the nature of humanity, the slippery definition of "truth," and all kinds of other Big Issues. A book almost guaranteed to go up in value as the years continue, this a must-have for those interested in the history of countercultural intellectual thought, as well as Postmodernist literary history in general.
Known affectionately by her fans as "The Dark Lady of American Letters," like many writers the late Susan Sontag is almost equally known for her personality, celebrity and controversial views as for her varied body of work itself. A serious academe even at an early age, who had logged in time at the University of Chicago, University of Paris and Oxford all by 25, Sontag was known as a distinctly European-style intellectual who spent her life championing the challenging countercultural writers of that continent; celebrated mostly for her heady critical essays, among other achievements she was the person to coin the word "camp" as a positive term for "so bad it's good," a virtual pillar of the entire Postmodern era, plus came up with an entirely new way for us to envision the relationship between photography and us as its subjects and viewers, an obsession that even bled into Sontag's personal life, in that this notorious bisexual was romantically involved with famed photographer Annie Liebowitz for the entire last decade of her life.
But despite all this, interestingly Sontag primarily considered herself a novelist, odd to realize given that she only wrote four of them in her long career, two near the beginning and two near the end. 1967's experimental Death Kit was the second, and only the third book of her career overall, after 1963's similarly groundbreaking The Benefactor and the essay collection Against Interpretation in 1966, considered one of her most famous books because of containing the aforementioned "camp" essay. And indeed, there's a lot to be said for one online reviewer's sum-up of Death Kit as "what Kafka would've written if he had been a '60s hippie;" after all, Sontag always saw her formative years in continental Europe as the most important period of her life, the years when she first fell in love with Kafka himself and other cutting-edge Modernist European artists, a love that would not just stay with her the rest of her life but in many ways help define her in the eyes of American audiences. A sometimes nonsensical, dreamlike tale just dripping with symbolism throughout, it is perhaps the story of a pissy corporate executive who loses his temper one evening on a delayed commuter train, manages to sneak off the stopped train, in a fit of rage kills the wisecracking employee trying to clear the tracks, and sneaks back on board without anyone noticing, spending the rest of the story in an existential cloud of guilt and deep thoughts; or maybe none of this actually happened, and what we're really watching is our unreliable narrator experience a complete snap from reality "American Psycho" style. In any case, there is also Diddy's sexual obsession with an easy blind girl to contend with, the travails of his microscope-manufacturing job, and all kinds of tangents to be had about the nature of humanity, the slippery definition of "truth," and all kinds of other Big Issues. A book almost guaranteed to go up in value as the years continue, this a must-have for those interested in the history of countercultural intellectual thought, as well as Postmodernist literary history in general.
December 16, 2010
Susan Sontag’s Death Kit opens as the story of a man who, in the course of a train journey, becomes convinced he has recently killed someone. The fact that he tried to kill himself only a short time ago gives the reader a clue; perhaps Diddy’s version of events is not entirely reliable. And as the story progresses, the varied characters flitting in and out of his life begin to a take on an image more symbolic than personal. The dead railwayman, the blind lover, the jovial fellow employee�
As Diddy drifts into dreams and memories, the feeling of unreality grows. How much of this is present, how much past, how much just dreamed? But the truth has a way of revealing itself. Even as Diddy grows more unhinged, the reader begins to grasp where his tale will end up.
Death Kit is an oddly intriguing, absorbing tale, not entirely satisfying or dissatisfying, but hard to put down, with some beautiful images and haunting turns of phrase. It’s a long, slow, sad, literary read, and an interesting introduction to the concept of the unreliable narrator.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from a friend.
As Diddy drifts into dreams and memories, the feeling of unreality grows. How much of this is present, how much past, how much just dreamed? But the truth has a way of revealing itself. Even as Diddy grows more unhinged, the reader begins to grasp where his tale will end up.
Death Kit is an oddly intriguing, absorbing tale, not entirely satisfying or dissatisfying, but hard to put down, with some beautiful images and haunting turns of phrase. It’s a long, slow, sad, literary read, and an interesting introduction to the concept of the unreliable narrator.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from a friend.
March 3, 2024
Yazarın üslubunun kendine güvenli hali klostrofobik havanın kasvetini kırıyor. Amerikalı yazarların en duygusal diyaloglarda bile yaratabildiği mizahi ögeler burada çok işe yaramış. İçinde yaşadığımız toplumda gerçek görsek dahi gerçek gelmiyor . Burada da rüya neredeyse gerçekten daha deneyimlenmiş geliyor .
Diddy , bir anti karakter mi ? Diddy her birimiz olabiliriz. Onun kaygıları hatta rüyaları kendisinden daha gerçek. Çünkü modern insanın gerçeği emin olamadıklarında gizleniyor.
Susan Sontag'dan ilk kitabımdı ve çok sevdim.
Diddy , bir anti karakter mi ? Diddy her birimiz olabiliriz. Onun kaygıları hatta rüyaları kendisinden daha gerçek. Çünkü modern insanın gerçeği emin olamadıklarında gizleniyor.
Susan Sontag'dan ilk kitabımdı ve çok sevdim.
December 15, 2014
I would have to say that one of the most interesting aspects of Sontag’s novel is her persistent use of the third person personal. Very rarely does she employ a third person pronoun and so we achieve a level with her main character (Diddy) that is close to being analogous to the relationship he holds to himself. That is, one of detachment. The present is always second guessed in her repetition of the �(now)� which, though seemingly tired after the first quarter, continues its significance throughout, with its culmination coinciding with Diddy himself in the end.
I will say that her ‘surreal� surrenders of her character begin to lose focus towards the end. But, they are also what bring the ‘plot� together. The denouement in and of itself becomes as mundane as the revelation we have of Diddy himself. In this sense one can consider Sontag’s style in this novel as equally lackluster as inevitable. The end is virtually prefigured in the beginning, and one is only duped by succumbing to the standard conception of plot narrative. Her ability to ply that without being overt thus places her in an uncomfortable position between the modernist and postmodernist text. The modern is used, with only minor hints toward the contrary, all the way towards the end in which the reader, not just the character, is thwarted. Most distaste towards this novel I image will come from just that.
All I can say is that what captivated me the most is her being able to create a first person narrative through a third person narration. It was downright hypnotizing, dare be it, mesmerizing. One can hardly help but relate more to Diddy (however one may actually differ from him) than most intimate first person narratives such as the Kafka which she is compared to. The first person alienates as much as it communes with the reader; as opposed to her communal use of the one step removed for both reader and character alike but separate. Granted, very few characters can exist in the way that Sontag’s Diddy does, but she uncovers in an extended way another intimacy between reader and narrator. That of the readers detachment from the character, and the character’s equal detachment from him/herself. Which at time speaks an honesty hitherto unexplored at such a level.
I will say that her ‘surreal� surrenders of her character begin to lose focus towards the end. But, they are also what bring the ‘plot� together. The denouement in and of itself becomes as mundane as the revelation we have of Diddy himself. In this sense one can consider Sontag’s style in this novel as equally lackluster as inevitable. The end is virtually prefigured in the beginning, and one is only duped by succumbing to the standard conception of plot narrative. Her ability to ply that without being overt thus places her in an uncomfortable position between the modernist and postmodernist text. The modern is used, with only minor hints toward the contrary, all the way towards the end in which the reader, not just the character, is thwarted. Most distaste towards this novel I image will come from just that.
All I can say is that what captivated me the most is her being able to create a first person narrative through a third person narration. It was downright hypnotizing, dare be it, mesmerizing. One can hardly help but relate more to Diddy (however one may actually differ from him) than most intimate first person narratives such as the Kafka which she is compared to. The first person alienates as much as it communes with the reader; as opposed to her communal use of the one step removed for both reader and character alike but separate. Granted, very few characters can exist in the way that Sontag’s Diddy does, but she uncovers in an extended way another intimacy between reader and narrator. That of the readers detachment from the character, and the character’s equal detachment from him/herself. Which at time speaks an honesty hitherto unexplored at such a level.
May 7, 2010
El the Victorious finished this book (now).
It's becoming very evident to me that Susan Sontag is one of those authors that is meant to be experienced, not discussed. But that's really pretentious, so let's see what happens as I try to review this completely cerebral book.
Very similar to Sontag's first book, , in that the protagonist (Dalton "Diddy" Harron in this book) has trouble discerning between dream and reality. During a train trip he vividly recalls killing a railroad worker, though the woman in the cabin with him (albeit she's blind) is adamant that he never left the room the entire trip. It begins there, and then there's a crazy relationship between Diddy and the blind woman, Hester. He becomes obsessed with her visual disability, and sight becomes symbol and metaphor throughout the story for so much more.
Better than The Benefactor as far as I'm concerned but, like I said, similar in structure. We see Sontag begin to flex her writing muscles a bit more here, and in some way manages to ground her nightmarish world - drawing focus where The Benefactor lacked. It's not easy to sit down and plow through either of these books - for an easier read one might want to consider Kafka (this would be like his brain on drugs).
It's becoming very evident to me that Susan Sontag is one of those authors that is meant to be experienced, not discussed. But that's really pretentious, so let's see what happens as I try to review this completely cerebral book.
Very similar to Sontag's first book, , in that the protagonist (Dalton "Diddy" Harron in this book) has trouble discerning between dream and reality. During a train trip he vividly recalls killing a railroad worker, though the woman in the cabin with him (albeit she's blind) is adamant that he never left the room the entire trip. It begins there, and then there's a crazy relationship between Diddy and the blind woman, Hester. He becomes obsessed with her visual disability, and sight becomes symbol and metaphor throughout the story for so much more.
Better than The Benefactor as far as I'm concerned but, like I said, similar in structure. We see Sontag begin to flex her writing muscles a bit more here, and in some way manages to ground her nightmarish world - drawing focus where The Benefactor lacked. It's not easy to sit down and plow through either of these books - for an easier read one might want to consider Kafka (this would be like his brain on drugs).
April 19, 2024
حقیقتا تصویر کافکایی جالبی داده بود
داستان واضح و مشخص بود و گم نمیشد همین هم خواندنش رو لذت بخش میکرد. یه «من» معاصری از همه «ما» رو روایت میکن�. «دیدی» اولا خود سانتاگه دوما جهانیه که سانتاگ بهش باور داره و در جفت این موارد به شدت طبیعی و اصیله
به نظرم به همین خاطره که از دیدی خسته نمیشیم.
داستان واضح و مشخص بود و گم نمیشد همین هم خواندنش رو لذت بخش میکرد. یه «من» معاصری از همه «ما» رو روایت میکن�. «دیدی» اولا خود سانتاگه دوما جهانیه که سانتاگ بهش باور داره و در جفت این موارد به شدت طبیعی و اصیله
به نظرم به همین خاطره که از دیدی خسته نمیشیم.
February 19, 2022
Susan, I know you're dead and wouldn't give a damn even if you weren't. I know that you wrote this in your early 30s and that the 1960s were a weird time in America and that by the time you died, you'd gone on to write lovely and meaningful books that were accessible to the masses as well as the literati and fellow critics. But this "novel" is f√€×ing garbage. The fact that I've had it in the back of my head since I was 16--when I did an author project about you and your writing in Honors English--that I just needed to grow up a little in order to "get" this book now fills me with regret, because 23 years later I finally took the time to get it out of the library and read its whole horrific length and that was time I could have spent enjoying myself. I don't know what to make of it and I don't want to know. I'm sure it's supposed to be all philosophical and crap, and I'm sure my 18-year-old self would have been interested in a close reading, but no thanks.
Highly recommend to those who love inexplicable weirdness, unnecessary books within books, and pretentious, irredeemable main characters.
Highly recommend to those who love inexplicable weirdness, unnecessary books within books, and pretentious, irredeemable main characters.
March 19, 2014
I started out thinking I was really going to like this, finding the writing excitingly unusual:
"Diddy, not really alive, had a life. Hadly the same. Some people are their lives. Others, like Diddy, merely inhabit their lives. ... Eventually, for such a person, everything is bound to run down. The walls sag. Empty spaces bulge between objects. The surfaces of objects sweat, thin out, buckle. The hysterical fluids of fear deposited at the core of objects ooze out along the seams."
But as it progressed it became more normal and very slow for large stretches, and I found the end utterly unrewarding.
I folded down the corners of three pages for later reference, but having gone back to them now I don't feel that they make this experience worthwhile. I'm looking forward to hearing what the other members of my book club think.
"Diddy, not really alive, had a life. Hadly the same. Some people are their lives. Others, like Diddy, merely inhabit their lives. ... Eventually, for such a person, everything is bound to run down. The walls sag. Empty spaces bulge between objects. The surfaces of objects sweat, thin out, buckle. The hysterical fluids of fear deposited at the core of objects ooze out along the seams."
But as it progressed it became more normal and very slow for large stretches, and I found the end utterly unrewarding.
I folded down the corners of three pages for later reference, but having gone back to them now I don't feel that they make this experience worthwhile. I'm looking forward to hearing what the other members of my book club think.
June 23, 2014
started out amazing, then went downhill very fast unfortunately. i read the german version, so i'm not sure if this was simply a huge translation error or an actual stylistic choice, but the seemingly random mixture of present and past tense drove me insane. also, conversations dragged out over pages and pages, yet the actual conflict still had to be pointed out. especially the "philosophical" problems the two main characters were having in their relationship didn't make any sense to me.
i love susan sontag's nonfiction, but i have to say that this really disappointed me.
i love susan sontag's nonfiction, but i have to say that this really disappointed me.
December 7, 2015
The darkness.
It's beautiful in its stillness, in it's silence.
This book holds that darkness, it spoke to me, not the writer, the darkness.
I did let it, though. So, I would guess, it needs a receiver.
Someone who is in desperate need of stories just like this.
Please, let there be more stories like this.
More darkness.
It's beautiful in its stillness, in it's silence.
This book holds that darkness, it spoke to me, not the writer, the darkness.
I did let it, though. So, I would guess, it needs a receiver.
Someone who is in desperate need of stories just like this.
Please, let there be more stories like this.
More darkness.
October 10, 2007
is it just me or was reading this book a total fucking chore?
Currently reading
February 28, 2009this book has no division and that is fucking hard to take some times.
February 20, 2012
All her novels are dreams, illusion, and despair! It's a dying dream of an overdosed man named Dalton. Those cliche Freudian family issues are actually Susan Sontag's own reflection from her rootless Childhood. I don't agree with those critics that Death Kit is not a successful novel. It's an experimental novel, some parts it went too freer, and readers just way too impatient to digest it and feel it. Sontag suggests "we need to see more, to hear more, to feel more" in Against Interpretation essay, but in the reception of Death Kit, people don't feel it.
Against Interpretation is not a slogan to prevent novel from being deeply dug, instead, it is a gesture to keep critics from over-interpreting any novel in political, moral or social meanings. Even without too much interpretation, we could understand that Death Kit is a conduit of French thoughts and German psychological theories which Sontag was too familiar with.
Death Kit might be a little bit like Kafka's Das Schloß, esp. Sontag herself is a big fan of Kafka. Also more important is, it is about Death, we only can try to feel it.
Against Interpretation is not a slogan to prevent novel from being deeply dug, instead, it is a gesture to keep critics from over-interpreting any novel in political, moral or social meanings. Even without too much interpretation, we could understand that Death Kit is a conduit of French thoughts and German psychological theories which Sontag was too familiar with.
Death Kit might be a little bit like Kafka's Das Schloß, esp. Sontag herself is a big fan of Kafka. Also more important is, it is about Death, we only can try to feel it.
September 14, 2012
Death Kit by Sontag.
Not to be read by people like me - clinically depressed and have a difficult time fitting in or getting some love in life.
Uh, I think I may have enjoyed this if I had been on some sort of mood stabilizing meds or a somewhat "normal" person - who could look into Diddy's world as if it were "strange", "new", or "titillating" even.
It's pretty somber read.
Diddy (the main character) is always banging this scrawny, pale, blind chick. He is - if I remember - a handsome, well-dressed university student or young professional who turns his back on everything except this blind girl who he sleeps with all of the time. His clean bachelor pad becomes a segment of Hoarders within no time. He could careless about anything but this blind girl. It's pretty sad and twisted.
I smelled the end of the book before I got to the end of chapter one.
Death Kit is well written but will take you into the toilet if you are already a sad sack to begin with and lonely for "company".
Not to be read by people like me - clinically depressed and have a difficult time fitting in or getting some love in life.
Uh, I think I may have enjoyed this if I had been on some sort of mood stabilizing meds or a somewhat "normal" person - who could look into Diddy's world as if it were "strange", "new", or "titillating" even.
It's pretty somber read.
Diddy (the main character) is always banging this scrawny, pale, blind chick. He is - if I remember - a handsome, well-dressed university student or young professional who turns his back on everything except this blind girl who he sleeps with all of the time. His clean bachelor pad becomes a segment of Hoarders within no time. He could careless about anything but this blind girl. It's pretty sad and twisted.
I smelled the end of the book before I got to the end of chapter one.
Death Kit is well written but will take you into the toilet if you are already a sad sack to begin with and lonely for "company".
May 8, 2012
Not an enjoyable novel, perhaps, but a thought-provoking one. Sontag is known for her criticism and philosophy, and it would probably be fair to say that she has a certain cult appeal among adolescent literature students that’s based more on a love of precocious grey-bestreaked intellectuals with exciting love lives as it is an interest in her actual criticism. I guess that probably includes me. Until picking this up in a charity shop over New Year I didn’t even realise she had written novels, and the idea of something as potentially pulpy as a thriller (as this edition was classifying itself) was pretty intriguing. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t your average high-octane Michael Crichton.
See the full review .
See the full review .
July 26, 2015
I honestly have no idea what I thought of this. It focuses on hapless 33-year-old Diddy, who seems to be sleepwalking through his life until the point the novel begins. Susan Sontag attempts to place the reader into the action almost, with her insistence of using (now) repeatedly - something that I believe was actually a distraction, rather than a pull into the narrative. My confusion stems from whether the novel is based in reality or the surreal? From the point that Diddy takes Incardona's life, do we witness and experience his journey into psychosis? I don't know. But I do know that I really wasn't a fan.
April 27, 2019
Really thought this was rubbish. Read it cause it was Susan Sontag. Could hardly pay attention. At every turn you’re like “Does Sontag know what character motivation is?� Like no one’s words or decisions make any sense. This was hard to read because it was so disengaging. Even if the premise had potential.
October 26, 2023
dismal and tedious, i.e., succeeds? thanks a million, Sontag. harrowing: what if even your pre-death reverie is boring, despicable, random, loveless, perverse. what if there's two worlds, what if there's only the one.
April 27, 2014
Not quite as brilliant as Susan Sontag's later novels, Death Kit is more experimental writing, more concerned with mood lighting then a message. This was a dark, confusing mixing of dream and reality and with far fewer striking observations and aphorisms as in her later writing.
October 22, 2014
Started reading it with curiosity, was really intrigued,
then kinda uninterested. In the past I would have powered through, but I knew it wasn't in the cards. It's a bit dated (though racy for its time), and although I know I could learn something from reading it, I just couldn't keep going.
then kinda uninterested. In the past I would have powered through, but I knew it wasn't in the cards. It's a bit dated (though racy for its time), and although I know I could learn something from reading it, I just couldn't keep going.
September 28, 2022
dnf this was wank
April 22, 2023
Bardzo bardzo
August 17, 2024
İnişli çıkışlı� Kuvvetli bir metin ancak çoğu zaman kitaptan kopuyorsunuz� çok sıkılarak okudum�
February 12, 2023
Love ya, Suz, but this novel was ass. No payoff in the end (now) just glad it’s over.
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