The Benefactor: A Novel

by Susan Sontag

Paperback, 2002

Status

Checked out

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Picador (2002), 288 pages

Description

"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.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Brasidas

Sontag wrote this, her first novel of four, in the early sixties when the idea of dream interpretation still held water. We know today from the work of neuroscientists that there is no consensus on what dreams mean, if they mean anything. Indeed, some researchers have called dreams meaningless,

nothing more than an overactive brain repeating recent stimuli during the nightly period of sensory deprivation. The narrator, Hippolyte, evinces a powerful inwardness and love of solitude. He lives in Paris, but disguises the city in the 19th century Russian manner, because "I wish to indicate that where I lived was not of importance in the matters I shall relate." His friend Jean-Jacques is a homosexual prostitute and thief (see Jean Genet) who lives a dangerous night life. Perhaps as a means of highlighting Hippolyte's inwardness, Sontag has Jean-Jacques take him home to bed after one particular night. After which he shows not a jot of curiosity. Despite its uniqueness in the narrator's experience, it passes as if it were nothing more than a recent shower. It's as if Sontag means to signify, through Hippolyte incuriousness about his bisexuality, his total immersion in his dream life. For both can be seen as forms of dualism, a willingness to dwell simultanteously in opposing worlds. Hippolyte is for the most part drawn to women. Frau Anders is a socialite, given to nightly soirees, where she collects the talented and famous. (It is here that Hippolyte meets Jean-Jacques.) The two run off to an unnamed Islamic country. Hippolyte sells Frau Anders to an native merchant, and returns home without her. As he abandons her he mulls her happiness: "I must confess that, knowing nothing more of her fortunes, I envied her. She had achieved her freedom, which coincided with the fulfillment of her fantasy." In such an oneiric novel nothing is made of this. Frau Anders is barely missed. The world goes on. Hippolyte continues to dream, his true passion. For him the dreamlife and logic have overtaken reality. In the Dream of Mirrors, he comes to see his dreams as a reflection of daily life:

The dreams, all of them, were a mirror before which my daytime life presented itself, and which gave back to me an unfamiliar but intelligible image. With perseverence and attentive inactivity--the two would come together

Hippolyte is a narcissist, entirely self-involved, with little or no view into the suffering of others, no compassion, insight or sympathy. The real world exists as a backdrop to his valued dreams

Lucrezia

Frau Anders return.

Her "murder"

His subsequent redecoration of a house for her

marrage--to provincial girl

death of wife

the fringe professor

split with JJ--completely irrational

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