Leave it to Sontag to destroy every scrap of fun and joy present in camp. In her hands camp is a withering husk lit by Tiffany lamps and patrolled by Staffordshire dogs. I know she is counted a genius, but as far as I can tell she is shallow pedantic and humorless and her observations range from tortured, to silly, to things that may be true but which I would rather not see and do not benefit from thankyouverymuch.

Notes on Camp - 4/5How Sontag could have thought that Camp is "depoliticized/apolitical" is honestly beyond me.One Culture and the New Sensibility - 5/5One of the most brilliant essays I've ever read in my life, to be honest. A cultural landmark.

Yeah, I didn’t really ‘get’ this one. It was just a bunch of pretentious essays that left a sour taste in my mouth. It was mostly nonsense, and when it wasn’t nonsense, I totally disagreed with it.

3.5 starsI was thrilled to find a hard copy of this essay for only £1 today as I've been meaning to read it for my dissertation anyway - can't argue with fate! I always enjoy Sontag's writing - she's so observant and articulate without ever getting bogged down in the jargon that plagues so many of my most-hated academics. I love so much of her take on camp, and she produces some incredible lines, like "The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance."But I can't help but be aware that cultura...

All of this went right over my head. I think I understood about one sentence in ten. Also, this really isn't an area of study I'm interested in at all. I got this simply because it was a theme for the Met Gala a few years ago and I thought it would be light-hearted and informative. It was not. I'm really not into philosophical debates on the merits of camp and it's aesthetic sensibility.

I still have very little grasp on what Camp is, but Sontag is a very interesting writer and both the included essays were rather enlightening nonetheless.

It's pretty fascinating how such a vague text that feverishly circles around a phenomenon that is admittedly hard or even impossible to define could become a key essay on postmodern culture by pointing out the changing nature of sophistication and the growing need for ambiguous concepts that encompass aspects of postmodernism (especially as the ability to deal with ambiguity seems to be in decline, maybe exactly because the postmodern world has become so overcomplex). Typically for Sontag, the m...

At this remove, the late critic/author Susan Sontag is probably best remembered for ILLNESS AS METAPHOR and AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS. However, this little essay had already put her on the map back in the Sixties, when it first appeared in book form as one chapter of AGAINST INTERPRETATION. Here's an inexpensive way to get Sontag's low-down on the emerging phenomenon known as "Camp," and why its artifacts can be viewed sympathetically, ironically, or dismissively. Since today's world is full of Cam...

I accidentally picked up this book at the library (mainly because I've read two essays by Sontag, and loved them ; and it was for 4dt). I had no idea what 'Camp' is, and I was delighted when reading these 'jottings' as the author put it. I love diving into new entities, especially that lately I've been reading a lot about aesthetics and artifice. However, I was disappointed with a chunk of the essay, when Sontag clearly took a general and stereotypical approach towards jews and homosexuals.For i...

not me reading all the books harry styles reccomended

Read this on my phone off georgetown.edu while also watching Beverly Hills 90210, the one where Steve gets detention and sits on a cupcake and then gets sucked into the world of drag racing on the streets of Beverly Hills 90210. A nice night here, they were calling for five inches of snow, but it’s too warm and we are just getting rain. I didn’t want to go to work tomorrow and thought I’d get off because of the snow but it looks like we’re not getting any. My wife is snoring gently here in bed,

It makes me laugh thinking about the outfits from last May’s gala. I loved notes on camp, the second essay a bit less, but certainly worth the read. I love Sontag

A MESS of an essay - stuffed with value judgements, hazy, and defining something even vaguer than what Sontag claims the purpose of the notes are- I love it with all my heart

‘'The ultimate camp statement: it's good because it's awful.'' To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up. - An Ideal HusbandI really wanted to buy this and I do not know why it took me so long to get it. The Met gala is kinda what pushed me to finally get it. I adore simple pleasures.- A Woman Of No ImportanceSo I loooove Camp, I looove trash, I loooove weird shit. I love grotesque and over the top shit okay? Garbage brings me joy. Camp movies spark joy.

Completely arbitrary, inconsistent, extravagant and a bit silly. Camp, in other words. I rather enjoyed it.

"Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy."

"Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be dandy in the age of mass culture."These two essays were a really great look at Camp as a concept and aesthetic, as well as the development and distinction between art and science in the modern world. Susan Sontag manages to say so much in so little words, and I flew through both of these essays and managed to get a lot out of them in just 55 pages. Definitely would recommend this one if you're interested!

Well, somehow I accidentally deleted my entire review because the Goodreads mobile app sucks, so here we go: take two."It's good because it's awful": After the 2019 Met Gala and its disastrous failure to represent camp (because a bunch of rich people will never be able to achieve camp on purpose), I found myself thinking about Susan Sontag's 1964 essay again. Even this brief text, which has been nigh-universally adopted as one of the most precise postmodern definitions of the word, skirts around...

This was interesting and kind of fun, but often also quite redundant.Overall, I liked it, but I didn't really enjoy it.I wish it was kind of less preachy, had less of a "we have a superior taste than you" type of voice.

Penguin 60s ‘Notes on Camp’ contains two evergreen and thought-provoking Sontag essays which provide a beautiful introduction to her writing. Exhilarating, probing and deeply contemplative, they remain a historical time capsule of ideas, references and interwoven histories.