The Benefactor - Softcover

Sontag, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312420129 ISBN 13: 9780312420123

Publisher: Picador, 1900

Synopsis

The Benefactor, Susan Sontag's first book and first novel, originally published in 1963, introduced a unique writer to the world. In the form of a memoir by a latter-day Candide named Hippolyte, The Benefactor leads us on a kind of psychic Grand Tour, in which Hippolyte's violently imaginative dream life becomes indistinguishable from his surprising experiences in the 'real world.' Sontag's novel supplies a fascinating, knowing, acerbic portrait of a certain bohemian demimonde that flourished in France until quite recently. More important, The Benefactor is a novel about ideas-especially religious ideas-unlike any other: funny, acrobatic, disturbing, profound.

About this title

Review:

"An extraordinary, imaginative achievement that plays over the reader's senses with boldness, grace, and daring." --John Hawkes

"A highly original, brilliant tale of a self-centered, solitary dilettante whose dreams take over his life." --New York Post

"Originality, economy of language, brilliance . . . There is a Kafka-esque quality to The Benefactor." --Newsday

"Remarkable . . . Its ancestors are Baudelaire, Kafka, and perhaps in the distance Dostoyevsky and Proust." --John Wain

"A major writer . . . I especially admired how she can make a real story out of dreams and thoughts." --Hannah Arendt

From the Back Cover:

'A highly original, brilliant tale of a self-centred, solitary dilettante whose dreams take over his life' New York Post

Hippolyte is a wealthy bohemian with a surprising, violently imaginative dream life. Taking the form of a memoir, The Benefactor is the story of his psychic grand tour through increasingly strange mental landscapes. As Hippolyte tries to make his daily existence conform to his bizarre dreamworld, and reality and fantasy become more and more indistinguishable, will he be able to find peace? Funny, acrobatic, disturbing and profound, Susan Sontag's first book, published in 1963, is a wry pastiche of the nineteenth-century novel and a bold commentary on identity and the imagination.

'Originality, economy of language, brilliance ... There is a Kafka-esque quality to The Benefactor' Newsday

'A major writer ... she can make a real story out of dreams and thoughts' Hannah Arendt

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1900
• ISBN 10: 0312420129
• ISBN 13: 9780312420123
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288