{"id":65101,"date":"2014-01-16T19:27:40","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T00:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=65101"},"modified":"2014-01-16T18:18:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T23:18:15","slug":"a-creator-of-inwardness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/16\/a-creator-of-inwardness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Creator of Inwardness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13783\" style=\"width: 584px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Peter-Hujar-Susan-Sontag-1975_BLOG.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13783\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13783\" alt=\"Photograph by Peter Hujar. \" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Peter-Hujar-Susan-Sontag-1975_BLOG.jpg\" width=\"574\" height=\"568\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Peter-Hujar-Susan-Sontag-1975_BLOG.jpg 574w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Peter-Hujar-Susan-Sontag-1975_BLOG-300x296.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13783\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Peter Hujar.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Susan Sontag was born today in 1933.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n<p>Is it old-fashioned to think that the purpose of literature is to educate us about life?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">SONTAG<\/p>\n<p>Well, it does educate us about life. I wouldn\u2019t be the person I am, I wouldn\u2019t understand what I understand, were it not for certain books. I\u2019m thinking of the great question of nineteenth-century Russian literature: how should one live? A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility, of what human nature is, of what happens in the world. It\u2019s a creator of inwardness.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Susan Sontag, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/1505\/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag\">the Art of Fiction No. 143<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susan Sontag was born today in 1933. INTERVIEWER Is it old-fashioned to think that the purpose of literature is to educate us about life? SONTAG Well, it does educate us about life. I wouldn\u2019t be the person I am, I wouldn\u2019t understand what I understand, were it not for certain books. I\u2019m thinking of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9064],"tags":[9158,1023,501],"class_list":["post-65101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quote-unquote","tag-birthdays","tag-human-creativity","tag-susan-sontag"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Happy Birthday, Susan Sontag<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An excerpt from the Art of Fiction interview with Susan Sontag, born today in 1933.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/16\/a-creator-of-inwardness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Creator of Inwardness by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 16, 2014 \u2013 Susan Sontag was born today in 1933. 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