"The ratés, the failed intellectuals (writers, artists, would-be Ph.D.’s). People like Sam Wolfenstein [mathematician], with his limp, his briefcase, his empty days, his addiction to the films, his penny-pinching and scavengering, his arid family nest from which he flees — terrifies me."
- Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947-1964
My book order finally came in! Sontag even said journals were meant to be read by other people (albeit people intimate with the author, but still). Other people's journals aid in narcissistically looking at our own world and drawing out grand parallels. Any young girl reading Sylvia Plath's college journals would, I'd imagine, identify with all her private insecurity, all her immeasurable melancholy (all her beauty). Five Christmas's ago, the boy who gave me Plath's journals wrote behind the front cover: "I hope it's not too dark or depressing or anything." But given the time, I probably would have wanted it that way.
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