Sontag, "Happenings"

[Paul Mackin]

Don't know if I'm on the same wave length as Judy here but I did and
still do feel a definite negativity toward Sontag's seeming implication
that "underreacting," lack of emotional response, etc., etc., are
character defects, faults, sins. Or to carry it over to her approval of
Brown--if only we could get over our distrust of the body and dislike for
death, our so called "denial" of death, then everything would be honky
dory. Seems like only the most egregious kind of wishful thinking that any
of us could ever rise above her criticism. If her analysis of laughter (as
opposed to Judy's) is correct then our misfortunes will surely continue to
be fit subjects for laughter. 

Maybe it's a 60s thing.

I'm trying to remember something about Sontag. Back then she both used
disease as a metaphor (maybe for Vietnam)  and later discoursed about the
use of disease as metaphor, perhaps the second in some kind of contrition
for the first. I'm vague on this. Does anyone remember anything like this?

	P.

On Sun, 29 Oct 2000, Judith A. Panetta wrote:

> Help me out here. I'm struggling with Dave's post (as I do
> with many plist). I believe my difficulty stems from my
> relationship to "the work" (art in general-pynchon in
> particular) that is visceral and the deconstructivist views
> presented on the list. This particular post resonates with
> me because of Sontag's definition of comedy. Please bear
> with me as I try to stumble through this and forgive what
> may appear to be ignorant or irreverent.
> 
> A little background. I was a theater director for oh over 20
> odd years. As a youngster I went through phases-poking at
> this and that-subjecting poor audiences to my intellectual
> meandering. I came up with a few conclusions: Brecht was a
> pompous ass and Artaud was mad, among other realizations.
> This was a process, I guess. The discovery of what makes the
> activity satisfying. For me it was an abandonment of the
> intellectual and to react emotionally to the text. Like sex,
> theater was  most successful when the satisfaction is shared
> by both the presenters and the audience. This is where I
> start to have problems with Sontag. Her explanations of the
> "happening." I played that game. It was a superficial
> experience. I would agree that there is a place for
> "stir(ring) the modern audience from its cozy emotional
> anesthesia." Although I would caution that this phrase
> refers to a particular audience-a specific socioeconomic
> group. I get peeved with these categorizations-they're
> narrow, often bigoted.
> 
> We all seemed to be most gratified by emotional response to
> the vagaries of life on a basic level, as compared to the
> "happening" made manifest by arbitrary outbursts often
> without context, let alone conflict. This wears thin and
> becomes tiresome.
> 
> I'm not just talking about the traditional linear narrative
> as being the be-all and end-all. (Found this tiresome as
> well.) I'm speaking purely of emotion response to
> conflict-in whatever genre. 
> 
> And finally let me get to the meat of all this prattle. I
> take great exception to this:
> 
> [snip] "In the heart of comedy, there is emotional
> anesthesia.  What permits us to laugh at painful and
> grotesque events is that we observe that the people to whom
> these events happen are really underreacting.  No matter how
> much they scream or prance about or inveigh to heaven or
> lament their misfortune, the audience knows they are really
> not feeling very much.  The protagonists of great comedy all
> have something of the automaton or robot in them."
> 
> This statement is so strange, so out of my experience.
> Comedy is differentiated from tragedy by incongruity. If
> anything it is the negation of invulnerability. A character
> engages an audience by being sympathetic, offering resonance
> on an emotional level. The conflict is presented and it is
> the unexpected response or reaction that makes us laugh.
> That this response may appear to be robotic does not
> indicate lack of feeling. How many examples can we cite?
> Roadrunner and Wile E.? (The incongruity lying in the
> defiance of the physical world: you don't fall from the
> precipice until you look down.) The Goon Show? (Ned's Atomic
> Dustbin-one of my faves-the characters' "sensible" response
> to nuclear war.) Lysistrata?
> 
> Sontag's explanation is frustrating, if not just sad. Like
> many analytical texts, hers seems to lose the "heart" of the
> issue as well as  missing (or a refusal to acknowledge) the
> impulse that creates art. It doesn't come from the head, but
> from another place. 
> 
> And so much for my own blah, blah, blah.
> 
> My fellow contributors...why does it seem that you seem to
> be reacting to Mr. Pynchon's work vicariously through other
> writers. I'd be much more interested in how you feel about
> it. 
> 
> Am I missing the point?
> 
> Thanks, judy