SONTAG: HER LIFE AND WORK

New York City, NY: Ecco Press, 2019. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Ecco Press, 2019. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 832 pages. Definitive Biography. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. Presents Benjamin Moser's "Sontag: Her Life And Work". A fair-minded yet hard-hitting account on the greatest American writer-intellectual of our time. Moser recounts The Life of an insecure, arrogant, and cruel genius, who made life for everyone close to her a living hell. Although Moser never uses the word, Sontag could be monstrous; her relationship with Annie Leibovitz was pure sado-masochism (in the relational sense). Leibovitz supported Sontag to the tune of "at least" eight million dollars, giving her a $15000 weekly allowance, among other largesse-favors, a generosity that Sontag resented rather than felt grateful for: How can a hard-working, high-achieving writer like her make next to nothing compared to a crassly commercial - and in her view, minimally talented - photographer like Leibovitz? So she treated the latter as her inferior, as geniuses tend to do. But then, there is The Work, around which Moser weaves a dazzling "theme-and-variations" narrative-argument about "reality-versus-fantasy" and "aesthetics-as-ethics". His appraisal illuminates not just Sontag's body of work, but ALL of 20th-century literature, philosophy, and art. There is a reason why a Sontag essay was such an exciting event: She made us aware, in each instance, that the question, "What is the meaning of life", is the wrong one because it leads us to seek and "find" absolute answers, in God and religion, in The Great Leader and the omnipotent state, in theory, ideology, and "wisdom" that inevitably fail us. Instead, each of her greatest essays asks, "Why does everything matter - and nothing else?". In Sontag's case, "everything" is literature, the arts, and civilization itself as well as freedom, the suffering, and the inalienable rights of others. An absolute "must-have" title for Susan Sontag and Benjamin Moser collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed, placed, dated (shortly after publication), and inscribed in blue ink-pen on the title page by the author: "Art is not separate from life but its highest form. Benjamin Moser 26 Sept 2019 Washington DC". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. His inscription succinctly sums up Sontag's still-controversial point that aesthetics ("art") IS ethics ("life"). This title is a great book. This is the best such signed, placed, post-publication dated, and inscribed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for "Sontag: Her Life And Work". One of the most brilliant writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER SUSAN SONTAG TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0062896393.