"Against Interpretation" is Sontag''s seminal essay within Against Interpretation and Other Essays that discusses the divisions between two different kinds of art criticism and theory: that of formalist interpretation, and that of content-based interpretation. Sontag is strongly averse to what she considers to be contemporary interpretation, that is, an overabundance of importance placed upon the content or meaning of an artwork rather than being keenly alert to the sensuous aspects of a given work and developing a descriptive vocabulary for how it appears and how it does whatever it does. She believes that interpretation of the modern style has a particular “taming” effect: reducing the freedom of a subjective response and placing limitations or certain rules upon a responder. The modern style of interpretation is particularly despised by Sontag in relation to the previous classical style of interpretation that sought to “bring artworks up to date”, to meet modern interests and apply allegorical readings. Where this type of interpretation was seen to resolve conflict between past and present by revamping an art work and maintaining a certain level of respect and honour, Sontag believes that the modern style of interpretation has lost sensitivity and rather strives to “excavate...destroy” a piece of art. Sontag asserts that the modern style is quite harmful; to art and to audiences alike, enforcing hermeneutics- fallacious, complicated “readings” that seem to engulf an artwork, to the extent that analysis of content begins to degrade, to destroy. Reverting back to a more primitive and sensual, almost magical experience of art is what Sontag desires; even though that is quite impossible due to the thickened layers of hermeneutics that surround interpretation of art and that have grown to be recognised and respected. Sontag daringly challenges Marxian and Freudian theories, claiming they are “aggressive and impious”. Sontag also refers to the contemporary world as one of “overproduction... material ”, where one''s physical senses have been dulled and annihilated by mass production and complex interpretation to the extent that appreciation of the form of art has been lost. To Sontag, modernity means a loss of sensory experience and she believes (in corroboration with her theory of the damaging nature of criticism) that the pleasure of art is diminished by such overload of the senses. In this way, Sontag asserts that inevitably, the modern style of interpretation separates form and content in a manner that damages an artwork and one''s own sensorial appreciation of a piece. Though she claims that interpretation can be “stifling”, making art comfortable and “manageable” and thus degrading the artist’s original intention, Sontag equally presents a solution to the dilemma she sees as an abundance of interpretation on content. That is, to approach art works with a strong emphasis on form, to “reveal the sensuous surface of art without mucking about in it.”

Against Interpretation

The Kellers are a bourgeois couple living in a smaller German town whose daughter has married the Russian emigre writer Chorb. The distrust between Chorb and his father-in-law is deepened when Chorb and his bride escape from the formality of their wedding to spend their first night at a local seedy hotel. On the honeymoon, the bride accidentally touches a live electric wire near Nice and dies. Chorb now returns to recreate her image by visiting the sites they had been to together and to tell her parents. Arriving in the evening he only finds the maid at the Keller''s home who have gone to the opera to see Parsifal. Chorb does not want to break the news to her and tells her that his bride is ill and he will be back in the morning. He returns to the hotel to spend the night in the same room he had been with his wife. Unable to stay in the room alone, he pays a prostitute to stay with him. When the Kellers get home, they are too alarmed to wait for the morning and leave for the hotel. There, during the night, Chorb sees his wife in the prostitute, screams, and the terrified woman is about to leave: at this moment the Kellers arrive.

The Return of Chorb

Five teenagers meet after all ending up in detention for different reasons. While in detention, they all play and sing along together with a jingle on the radio. They decide to form a band after discussing it. At first, they have trouble agreeing on music, but soon learn to work together and get along. The group decides to play at the Halloween Bash, but many students who are fans of Mudslide Crush, another band at the school, do not want the group to do the Bash. Ray, a member of Mudslide Crush and the school bully, harasses Olivia because of her band. Mo, Charlie and Stella get involved to defend Olivia and Stella spits a mouthful of lemonade into Ray''s face. Ray calls Stella "lemonade mouth" and thus, the group takes "Lemonade Mouth" as their band name. Before the Bash, the lemonade machine that inspired the band is taken away as part of an agreement with a sports drink company that is sponsoring the school''s new gym. This angers the band, and they decide to fight the decision. At the Bash, many of the students are surprised at Lemonade Mouth''s music when they take the stage because the band uses instruments like trumpets and ukuleles. The bandmates develop friendships and bonds with each other when they arrive at Olivia''s house to console her after her cat dies. They gradually open up to one another about their problems: Stella thinks she''s stupid and has problems with her parents, Wen''s father will be marrying his much-younger 26-year-old girlfriend, Mo, an immigrant from India, feels that she doesn''t belong, and Charlie''s twin brother died at birth. Olivia reveals that her mother and father had sex when they were in high school, and Olivia''s mother, who never loved or wanted her, left Olivia''s father, Ted, to raise his daughter by himself until he was convicted of armed robbery and manslaughter. In the meantime, Charlie falls in love with Mo. With new trust and friendship, the band becomes successful, getting on the radio and performing at a restaurant. However, things go downhill when Stella''s ukulele breaks, Wen injures his lip, Charlie burns his hand, Olivia loses her voice, and Mo gets sick. All of this happens just before an annual live battle of the bands. Though the band does not do well in the competition due to their recent problems, their fans support them nevertheless, singing along to their songs to lift their spirits. Afterwards, Charlie and Mo share a kiss and the two begin dating. Stella makes amends with her parents and finds out she has a learning disability. Wen and Olivia become attracted to each other after Wen gifts Olivia a new kitten.

Lemonade Mouth

The lives of two couples intertwine in mid-1950s California, and all learn important lessons about life. Jim Briskin is a classical music DJ. He and his ex-wife Patricia Gray are still very much in love but have divorced because he is sterile. The two divorcees meet a teenaged married couple named Art and Rachael and essentially swap partners. Pat passionately loves the youthful but dysfunctional Art, almost as though he were her child, and the two of them have an abusive relationship in which he gives her a black eye. Meanwhile, Jim and Rachael hook up and Rachael offers to ditch Art and move to Mexico with Jim where he will adopt her baby and raise it as his own. In the end, however, maturity prevails and they all return to their original partners. Miss Thisbe Holt of the original title is actually a very minor character in the book. She is a well-endowed stripper who performs at an optometrists convention which occurs near the very end of the novel. Her act consists of climbing naked into a large clear plastic ball which the optometrists then roll around the hotel suite to more thoroughly examine her ample personal assets. The ball is demolished when it''s later filled with debris and pushed off the hotel roof by the inebriated optometrists. The shortened title seems more obviously appropriate in that its lack of specificity allows it to do double duty in serving as a metaphor symbolizing the irreversible effects of the various life-altering events that occur within the orbits of the main characters.

The Broken Bubble

The novel tells the story of Henry Morton, who shelters John Balfour of Burley, one of the assassins of Archbishop James Sharp. As a consequence Morton joins Burley in an uprising of Covenanters (who wanted the re-establishment of presbyterianism in Scotland) which was eventually defeated at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, by forces led by the Duke of Monmouth and John Graham of Claverhouse. The bulk of the novel describes the progress of the rebellion from its initial success at the Battle of Drumclog, and the growth of factionalism which hastened its defeat. Henry''s involvement in the rebellion causes a conflict of loyalties for him, since he is in love with Edith Bellenden who belongs to a family who oppose the uprising. Henry''s beliefs are not as extreme as those of Burley and many other rebel leaders, which leads to his involvement in the factional disputes. The novel also shows their oppressors, led by Claverhouse, to be extreme in their beliefs and methods. Comic relief is provided by Cuddie Headrigg, a peasant who reluctantly joins the rebellion because of his personal loyalty to Morton, as well as his own fanatical mother. Following the defeat at Bothwell Bridge, Morton flees the battle field. He is soon captured by some of the extreme Covenanters who see him as a traitor, and get ready to execute him. He is rescued by Claverhouse who has been led to the scene by Cuddie Headrigg. Morton later gets to witness the trial and torture of fellow rebels, before going into exile. The novel ends with Morton returning to Scotland in 1689 to find a changed political and religious climate following the overthrow of James VII, and to be reconciled with Edith. The novel takes its title from the nickname of Robert Paterson, a Scotsman of the 18th century who late in life decided to travel around Scotland re-engraving the tombs of 17th century Covenanter martyrs. The first chapter of the novel describes a meeting between him and the novel''s fictitious narrator.

Old Mortality

Lady Sandrilene fa Toren is locked away in a dark room with a fading oil lamp. She was magically hidden in this storeroom days ago by her nurse, who was murdered moments later just outside the door by a mob bent on destroying everything infected by the fierce plague that killed Sandry''s parents. Sandry is concerned about the flickering oil lamp, even though she knows there is no chance of anybody finding her as the room she is locked in is protected by magic so that it cannot be found either magically or non-magically, and the only person who knows her whereabouts is her nurse, who is dead. Sandry is afraid of going crazy in the darkness. Unknowingly doing her first piece of magic, Sandry traps the remaining light in a simple braid. A powerful seer, Niklaren Goldeye, finds her and takes her to Winding Circle in Emelan. Trader Daja Kisubo is the lone survivor when her family''s ship is destroyed in a storm. She floats on the water for days, surviving only because she finds a suraku- a survival box full of food and water from the ship. When Niko finds her, they go to the Trader Council so they can decide Daja''s fate. Because Daja is the only survivor of her family, they declare her trangshi, or outcast- the worst sort of bad luck. As trangshi, she is forbidden to speak, touch, or write to other Traders. Niko is outraged at the council''s decision and conducts her to Winding Circle. Roach (later named Briar Moss) is a "street rat" in Hajra, Sotat. His mother died when he was four; he was then taken in by the Thief Lord, the leader of the gang Lightning. Each time Roach is caught committing a crime, an "X" is tattooed onto the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. After his third capture, Roach is sentenced to the docks but is saved by Niko, who stopped the judge and convinced her to allow him to take Roach to Winding Circle. Roach also has the opportunity to choose a new name for himself; he chooses Briar Moss because of his curiosity and experience with plants. Trisana Chandler is from a merchant''s family. She has been passed from relative to relative because of the strange things that occur when she is around. Never staying long in one house, she never had a real family. Eventually, she is brought to Stone Circle Temple by her parents and left there, where she wreaks more havoc still. The temple''s dedicate superior pleads with Niko to take her to Winding Circle, and he agrees after Tris starts a hail storm out of anger. The four children are brought to Winding Circle Temple in Emelan, where they do not fit in. Daja is secluded and ignored because she is a Trader, Tris wreaks havoc through weather when girls upset her by making fun of her, Briar threatens other boys with knives, and Sandry is caught looking at the looms too much. They are all taken to Discipline Cottage, an isolated cottage for children who do not fit in, where they are overseen there by Dedicate Lark, a kind and gentle thread mage, and Dedicate Rosethorn, a sharp plant mage. The four learn they have magic, which none of them knew about. While they all practice meditation, each of the four is matched with a main teacher to guide them through their magical learning. Sandry begins studying with Lark, learning to weave and spin; Tris studies with Niko about weather; Daja is taken under the wing of Dedicate Frostpine, the greatest smith mage; Briar works with Rosethorn in her garden and workshop. They each grow closer together and stronger in their magic. During the course of the book, there have been tremors all summer. Near the end of the book, a big earthquake comes, having gained power by bouncing off the walls of a crystal used in an attempt to trap it. Just before, the four were out walking Little Bear, their dog, when he runs down a path and into the back of a large cave. The four and their dog are stuck underground when the earthquake begins. Daja holds to roof of their small space up by making a magical "suraku" around the space to help save them. Tris and Briar begin their own protections and Tris starts to open up air vents. However, the three of them cannot finish, because each person does not have the skill to finish. Sandry remembers her time trapped in the storage room and is paralyzed with fear when she remembers her weaving bag. She infuses it with the essences of the four and weaves their magic together, so each can complete his or her jobs. The four and their dog are rescued by their teachers after the quake. It is discovered that they are under the kitchens of the temple. At the very end of the book, Tris, Briar, and Daja present Sandry with a light-filled crystal to help her conquer her fear of the dark.

Sandry''s Book

The novel is a meditation on the effects of modernity upon the individual''s perception of the world. It is told through a number of plot lines that slowly weave together until they are all united at the end of the book. * Kundera, as narrator, visits a chateau on vacation and tells a story that seems to be a combination of fiction and fact. * A Chevalier from eighteenth-century France visits the chateau and experiences a night of carefully orchestrated sensual pleasure with its owner, Madame de T. * Vincent, Kundera''s friend, visits the hotel and pursues a romance with a girl met in a bar. * Berck, a "dancer", meets a woman who once scorned him at the same conference and shows his emptiness to her. * Immaculata, the woman who scorned Berck, must deal with her disappointment at learning Berck''s apparent perfection is actually a facade. Each plot shows a different point-of-view into Kundera''s concept of the dancer and provides a perspective on modernity, memory and sensuality. By the end of the book, all of these plots have been brought together in a single location and the characters interact, showing how the ideals they represent interact in the world. Kundera even manages to tie the modern to the past by having Vincent meet the Chevalier as they both depart. By having these characters meet, Kundera again illustrates how the idea of sensuality and pleasure have changed as technology provides humanity with tools that speed us to our destination and demand our attention.

Slowness

The book features nanotechnology, which Richard Feynman had discussed in his 1959 speech There''s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Drexler imagines a world where the entire Library of Congress can fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where universal assemblers, tiny machines that can build objects atom by atom, will be used for everything from medicinal robots that help clear capillaries to environmental scrubbers that clear pollutants from the air. In the book, Drexler first proposes the gray goo scenario—his prediction of what might happen if molecular nanotechnology were used to build uncontrollable self-replicating machines. Topics also include hypertext as developed by Project Xanadu and life extension. Drexler takes a Malthusian view of exponential growth within limits to growth. He also promotes space advocacy arguing that, because the universe is essentially infinite, life can escape the limits to growth defined by Earth. Drexler supports a form of the Fermi paradox, arguing that as there is no evidence of alien civilizations, "Thus for now, and perhaps forever, we can make plans for our future without concern for limits imposed by other civilizations."

Engines of Creation

In Lisbon, OGPU Colonel Irina Sedova, also known as ''Babuska'' (Russian for ''grandmother''), visits the Russian cell leader in Portugal. However, she soon realizes that he isn''t the cell leader. He vainly tries to kill her but Sedova''s bulletproof vest protects her and she manages to kill the imposter. She then finds a sheet of paper with a name from the past on it: James Bond. During this time, Bond is on his way for a school skiing trip in Austria when he runs afoul of a group of Hitler Youth members who call him a cheater for having won a game of poker. He beats them, gives them back their money, and tells them to play with good grace. Some time later, he arrives in Austria where he realizes that he is being followed. When he arrives at his hotel, he is still being followed. There, he meets with his friend Andrew Carlton and his teacher Mr. Merriot. During a skiing outing, Bond goes after one of his classmates who is drunk and they get caught in an avalanche. After saving himself and his classmate, Bond is hospitalised and hears a man crying out about his cousin named Jürgen who is going to be killed. He later finds out this man was the Graf Von Schlick. A few days later, the boys return to Eton where Bond meets the new maid, Roan Power. He finds himself falling in love with her and starts to spend time with her. She takes him to meet her friend, an Irishman named Dandy O''Keefe. During this meeting, Bond accidentally meets the Princesses, Elizabeth and Mary but doesn''t recognize them. A few days later, he is invited to a party given by the Prince of Wales where he meets the mysterious Graf Otto von Schlick. On the 4 June King George V comes to Eton and Bond spots Sedova among the crowd. Sometime later he is knocked unconscious, bound and gagged by Dandy, who is planning to assassinate the King by blowing up the church of Eton, while framing Bond for it as part of a plan to start a communist revolution. After preventing the attempt and escaping with a hidden knife, Bond goes after Dandy, who tries to kill him with his knife. Bond is saved by the man who followed him in Austria when he shoots Dandy, who takes him to Mr. Merriot. The teacher reveals that he works for MI6 and that they have been keeping an eye on him. He tells Bond that Dandy and Roan are working for a Communist cell and that they want to know all about the operation. They want Bond to get Roan to talk. Back at Eton, Roan tells Bond that they are working for a Communist agent who they know as ''Amethyst'', who works for the Communist cell based in Portugal. This operation is being run by a man known as ''Obsidian''. Bond informs her that Dandy was captured and, after she begs him not to give her away, they share a kiss. However, unable to betray Roan, Bond tells her the truth and they run away to Austria together. During their crossing the country, they are pursued not only by MI6 but also by Sedova. When they arrive in Austria, Roan betrays Bond to Obsidian who is none other than Dr. Perseus Friend, whom Bond thought he had killed in Silverfin. It is revealed that Friend had assumed the identity of the Graf since the surgery and had met Bond at the party, and the original Graf had been killed. Also, it is revealed that Friend and Amethyst, a Russian named Vladimir Wrangel, are not working for the Russians but for the Nazis. The plan was to trick Dandy and Roan into believing that the King''s death would inspire the workers of Britain to revolt against the government, into killing King George V. The King''s death would, thus, have placed Edward VIII on the throne. As he was more sympathetic towards Hitler, and the fact that Dandy and Roan would have claimed to be working for the Communists, the UK would have formed an alliance with Germany, isolating the French and giving Germany an ally in the ensuing war against Communist Russia. Dr. Friend mocks Roan by saying that the British were too conservative to rise up against their monarchy. Bond and Roan are locked up and Friend plans to skin Bond alive as a revenge for having nearly killed him. However, they manage to escape and are pursued around the castle by Wrangel. As he is about to kill them, OGPU agents under the command of Colonel Sedova, who had followed the entire conspiracy since Lisbon, attacked the Germans. Roan kills Wrangel, saving Bond, and Sedova kills Friend. Sedova corners Bond and Roan just as Bond had cornered her in London. However, as she is about to take him to Russia as leverage against the British, MI6 arrive and rescue the two. However, Sedova tries to shoot Bond who is saved by Roan. Bond shoots Sedova, although she disappears shortly afterwards. Before dying, Roan reveals that she had been married to Dandy, but that she loved Bond. Subsequently Merriot informs Bond that, although the King was very grateful that he had saved his life, he would be unable to remain at Eton, so Bond is sent instead to Fettes College.

Young Bond Book 5

Priest Savely Tuberozov, a spiritual leader of a small Russian Orthodox Christian community (sobor) in a provincial town of Stargorod, who firmly believes in his spiritual and social mission, but not in making compromises of any kind, comes into conflict with his church bosses and the local authorities. His seniors expect him to "eradicate raskol" (schism), and expect him to report to them on dissenters, he refuses to comply and criticizes instead the destruction of the old believers'' church as barbarism. As the Governor comes to town, he comes up with a speech complaining of local masters exploiting peasants, making them work on Sundays and religious holidays; describes devastation local rural areas were being submerged into. The Governor doesn''t want to listen, and protopope Tuberozov, reprimanded for such an audacity, gets demoted in rank. His mission ends after he summons the whole of the local authority figures to a moleben and makes a sermon which sounds more like a political speech, promising dires to leaders who treat their people in an inhuman way. Tuberozov gets fired, goes through numerous humiliations, falls ill and dies.

The Cathedral Clergy

When Gilda Joyce earns a scholarship to attend Our Ladies of the Sorrows, a private high school for Catholic girls, she discovers that a girl named Dolores Lambert had drowned in the lake near the school a few years ago. In this novel, self-proclaimed psychic investigator Gilda Joyce investigates the mysterious happenings that seems to connect with the drowning of Dolores. Some people say that Dolores walked blindfolded onto a sheet of cracked ice that was overlapping the lake on the eve of Thanksgiving, while trying to get to her house. However, Gilda suspects that someone might have intentionally pushed Dolores into the depths of the lake or made her walk on it. Gilda investigates the drowning of Dolores, and approaches to the truth after eavesdropping, and sneaking into places she was not supposed to be. Eventually, she discovers that Danielle Menory, Priscilla Barkley, and Nikki Grimaldi were members of The Ladies of the Lake, a secret society. In her initiation ceremony, Dolores to find her way to the ruins (where they had the secret club) and she went on the lake and drowned. The girls are eventually punished and Gilda''s mother breaks up with her boyfriend Brad. The only downfall is that Gilda''S scholarship was taken away from Our Lady of Sorrows for having failing grades, although it is implied that she was kicked out for revealing that three of the school''s most prized citizens were involved in murder, even if it was an accident.

Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake

Johanna who is a lector at a Danish university gets involved by her colleague professor Jeyde in a time travel experiment. Jeyde has discovered that he can put the time 23 days back. The background to the invention is that Jeyde perceives the time as split up into small sets, among which time stands calm. Jeyde compares his theory with films, where every second 24 still pictures are shown. If you happen to cut the time "tape" the world gets rewound to the previous secure point (which would be 23 days before the moment of the cut). The problem that Jeyde has encountered is that after the time cut neither he nor anybody else can notice that there was a cut because everything that happened between the safe point and the cut is erased from their memories as it never had happened (and theoretically it hasn''t happened indeed). He can''t even be sure about any event whether it''s the first time it''s happening or not. To be able to understand the possibilities of his invention better, Jeyde sends Johanna to a psychiatrist who "opens up her mind" so after a time cut she''d be able to remember the destroyed time. When Johanna gets tired of being repeatedly sent by Jeyde back in time (since Jeyde sends back the entire Universe and not just Johanna he doesn''t need Johanna''s participation or agreement to send her back) she manages to lock Jeyde up in a psychiatric hospital and wants to leave time travelling behind her, but then she suddenly realises how much freedom it can give her. This way Johanna gets the unique chance to outplay different variations of her relationship with Sverre, one of her students, as she can always correct a mistake that she has made. Another bonus she gets is in no need to spend time tidying up at home because she can always come back to a time when everything was still clean. However she quickly discovers that too much knowledge about upcoming events tends to make things more complicated. Her relationship with Sverre cannot recommence from where they left off and she has trouble remembering which events are real and which are fictional in any given situation. Finally she decides that the only solution to let time flow normally is for her to first kill Jeyde and then herself.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Against Interpretation

By Susan Sontag

The Return of Chorb

By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

Lemonade Mouth

No Author Listed

The Broken Bubble

By Philip K. Dick

Old Mortality

By Walter Scott

Sandry's Book

By Tamora Pierce

Slowness

By Milan Kundera

Engines of Creation

By K. Eric Drexler

Young Bond Book 5

By Charlie Higson

The Cathedral Clergy

By Nikolai Leskov

Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake

By Jennifer Allison

Let Time Pass

By Svend Aage Madsen