susan sontag (2)

Um post dedicado ao Paulo, instando-o a subir o Vesúvio com il Cavaliere.

Sontag, herself, is a hybrid of reason and romance. One need only peruse the vast library in her airy five-room apartment for confirmation. An intellectual who studies the history of ideas might have many books. But only a person intemperately in love with reading possesses 15,000.
"I'm an addicted reader," she says, "a hedonist. I'm led by my passions. It's a kind of greed, in a way." She laughs happily. "I like to be surrounded by things that speak to me and uplift me."
I ask how the books are arranged.
"Ahhh. By subject or, in the case of literature, by language and chronologically. The 'Beowulf' to Virginia Woolf principle. I'll show you."
"Nothing is alphabetical?"
"I know people who have a lot of books. Richard Howard, for instance. He does his books alphabetically, and that sets my teeth on edge. I couldn't put Pynchon next to Plato! It doesn't make sense."

(texto e entrevista por Leslie Garis; The New York Times, 2 de Agosto de 1992)