SOURCE: Simon, John. “From Sensibility toward Sense.” New Leader 63, no. 23 (15 December 1980): 22-4.

In the following review, Simon judges that many of the phrases in Sontag's collection Under the Sign of Saturn are nonsensical and overly verbose, creating confusion for the reader.

According to an adage that often performs also as an analogy, if we watched ourselves walking, we could not walk at all. In the process of speculating about just how we propel ourselves forward by putting one foot in front of the other, we would end up paralyzed or falling on our faces. Whether or not this is the truth about ambulation, it unfortunately is not true of criticism: Entire schools of contemporary criticism watch themselves—anxiously, self-importantly, gloatingly—perform in essays that, far from freezing, flow unremittingly on. If anyone becomes numb, it is the reader, unlucky fellow, who finds himself in the position of an...