capacity as an excuse.nSontag went to North Vietnam whennit was an act of defiance—legally andnmorally—to do so. Although she opensnher essay implying that she will be ancritical observer and reporter, any rigornrapidly becomes naivete. For example,nshe spots what she is told is the grave ofnan American fighter pilot in a village.nShe knows it to be one because it hasnpieces of what she assumes to be chunksnof the downed F-105 on top; suchnknowledge brings her philosophicalntraining into question. She is astoundednat the existence of the mound, and positsnthe villagers “quietly” taking up theirnshovels to “tastefully arrange his grave.”nShe assumes that “the villagers thoughtnburying the pilot was a beautiful (theynwould probably say ‘humane’) thing tondo.” It doesn’t occur to her that then”grave” (it could have been a land fill)nmight simply be a showpiece that wouldnsink less skeptical American observersnthan she under waves of sympathy.n”Taste” is one of Sontag’s key concernsn—she finds it everywhere, even in the nationalncelebration of Ho Chi Minh’snbirthday (it expresses the people’s “delicacynof. . .feeling toward him”)—and tonquestion the kind hosts about theirnmotives would have been in bad taste.nBut in other instances, when it is usednagainst the American war efforts, taste-nIcssness is appropriate, as evidenced in anpassage describing how “Americannplanes have become virtual mines in thensky.” Sontag details how each planenthat’s “bagged” is “methodically takennapart” and so yields things from sandalsnto combs, from jewelry to surgical instruments.nShe doesn’t mention weapons,nnor does she wonder about the fate of thenpilot. One can only assume that shenthinks the pilot is either in a well-madengrave or a lucky prisoner of war. I use thenword lucky because Sontag states: “ThenNorth Vietnamese genuinely care aboutnthe welfare of the hundreds of capturednAmerican pilots and give them bigger rationsnthan the Vietnamese populationngets ‘because they’re bigger than we are,’nas a Vietnamese army officer told me,n18nChronicles of Cttltttren’and they’re used to more meat than wenare.’ ” Sontag circa 1968 might evennhave believed that the North Vietnamesenhad arranged to ship in White Castlenhamburgers for the hungry imperialists.nWhile a litany of Sontag’s remarkablenstupidity in “Trip to Hanoi” could continuenunabated for pages, the foregoingnshould suffice to show that literarynintellectuals don’t always read thingsnoutside their area of expertise with anynclarity.nIf Susan Sontag is known for one oralnpresentation, it’s the one she made at anmeeting in New York in Febmary 1982.nIn the before-mentioned New YorknTimes Book Review article Sontag recountsnthe statement that made hernformer liberal and radical friendsnapoplectic:nThe statement at Town Hall that wasnconsidered the most insolent and provocativenwas: Imagine the preposterousncase of somebody who readnonly the Reader’s Digest betweenn1950 and 1970, and somebody elsenwho read only The Nation betweenn1950 and 1970. Who would be gettingnmore truth about the nature ofnCommunism? There’s no doubt itnwould have been the Reader’s Digestnreader, and for a specific reason,nwhich I’m sorry I didn’t explain,nbecause that too has been misunderstood.nIt’s because the Reader’snDigest was open to a lot of immigrantnwriters and their testimony about lifenin the Soviet Union.nThere is commendable truth in hernobservation. But what is more preposterousnthan the case of her fictionalnreaders is the fact that Sontag didn’t statenher case until 1982, even though shenclaims in the same article, ” [M]y politicalnviews began changing 14 years ago.” Isnthere an anti-“Trip to Hanoi”? No. Butnone may emerge, as Sontag is now thentarget of vituperative attacks launched bynher former comrades.nSontag, when staying close to hernmetier, has shown herself to be cognizantnof the vicious inhumanity of totalitariannnnregimes. For example, in her eviscerationnof Riefenstahl, Sontag attacks the debilitatingneffect of totalitarianism on art.nSontag notes, “Fascist art glorifies surrender,nit exalts mindlessness, it glamorizesndeath.” She goes on to say, “featuresnof fascist art proliferate in the official artnof communist countries. . . . The tastesnfor the monumental and for mass obeisancento the hero are common to bothnfascist and communist art, reflecting thenview of all totalitarian regimes that artnhas the fianction of ‘immortalizing’ itsnleaders and doctrines.” Clearly, that’snthe task of malevolent propaganda, notnart. She states in an interview conductednin 1975: “the moralism oiserious communistnsocieties not only wipes out thenautonomy of the aesthetic but makes itnimpossible to produce art (in the modernnsense) at all. A six-week trip to China inn1973 convinced me … that the autonomynof the aesthetic is something to benprotected, and cherished, as indispensablennourishment to intelligence.” Obviously,nby this time Sontag was reevaluatingnwhat she presented in 1968 as thenjoys of oppression.nThe 1975 interview was published innSalmagundi (Fall 1975-Winter 1976),na quarterly. It is the kind of fomm thatnhas only a limited effect due to its specializednaudience. Fortunately, the interviewnis collected in A Susan SontagnReader. In it, Sontag, seven years beforenthe Town Hall meeting, makes a statementnthat foreshadows her developingnsensitivity to reality:nAnd why shouldn’t people bennaturally conservative? That the pastnnecessarily weighs more on the axis ofnhuman consciousness is perhaps angreater liability to the individual thannto society, but how could it be otherwise?nWhere is the scandal?nIf anything is reproachable, it’s thenfollowing. Susan Sontag has been on thenscene for 20 years. Current photos of hernshow a gracefully aging, middle-agednwoman. She has accumulated a history.nWhy has it taken her so long to grow up ?n