158
described? There's lots to be said about
the sterilities and limitations of Camp
taste, but Mr. Simon has said none
of it. Mr. Simon offers nothing but
his self-righteous zeal on behalf of
Good Art, and his anxieties. Let me
reassure him that it is unlikely that
either Camp taste or talking about
Camp will ever have the effect of
"making the good undistinguishable
from the bad." Mr. Simon, no one is
trying to contaminate your bodily
fluids.
What can
I
say to Mr. Simon's
absurd charge that
I
hold "all style"
to be "equally" expressive and mean–
ingful except to wonder how it would
be possible to hold such a position?
And to his allegation that
I
"accept
without challenge a self-elected class,
mainly homosexuals, as the aristocrats
of taste," except sigh?
Is
Mr. Simon
CORRESPONDENCE
totally unable to tell approving of
something from describing it?
Is
to
mention someone necessarily to men·
tion that person "respectfully" ? One
cannot always be on the attack.
Lastly, about Mr. Simon's sly ad·
monition to look to the lexicographers.
Mr. Simon has decided to quote only
definitions 3 and 4, since definitions
1 and 2 don't suit his purposes. But
there is more to ideas than even
all
of what Partridge, or Webster, says
about them. Mr. Simon must know
this, too. What he really means to do
at the beginning of his letter is to
drag in the red herring of homo·
sexuality. But the connection between
homosexuality and Camp taste-which
I
tried to explain in the "Notes"–
is a part of the phenomenon, not
an
argument against it.
Susan Sontag
THE THEATRE OF REVOLT
Studies in Modern Drama from Ibsen to Genet
by Robert Brustein
1962 Winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Drama Criticism
This fascinating study examines in depth the works of the eight most power–
ful dramatists in the modern theatre, and exposes the roots of their revolt.
The result is a critical landmark in which Robert Brustein does for modern
drama what Edmund Wilson did, in
Axel's Castle,
for modern literature.
"His first book requires that Brustein be recognized as one of our abler
interpreters of the drama."-NoRRIS HOUGHTON,
Saturday Review
"For the first time on a thoroughgoing scale contemporary drama has been
brought into the larger intellectual and esthetic history of our time."–
RICHARD GILMAN,
Book Week
"A worthy book, which in time may well become one of the standard and
decisive books on the modern theater ..."-ALEX SZOOYI,
N. Y. Times Book
Review
An Atlantic Monthly Press Book
UTILE, BROWN and COMPANY
$7.50 at all bookstores
BOSTON
