MEOW, MEOW
CERTAIN members of the cognoscenti are buzzing about Terry Castle's recent essay in the London Review of Books ridiculing her former friend, the late Susan Sontag. Castle cattily portrays her 10-year friendship with the skunk- maned intellectual as a tedious affair in which she was reduced to being a "sidekick" to the pompous, self-important scribe who treated her like a chauffeur and personal assistant. Castle relays some embarassing [sic - DH] anecdotes of Sontag's strange behavior, like when Sontag described evading sniper fire in Yugoslavia, then began "dashing in a feverish crouch from one boutique doorway to the next . . . bobbed zanily in and out, ducking her head, pointing at imaginary gunmen on rooftops and gesticulating wildly" and frightening passers-by. The two later had a falling out when Castle made a joke about how bad Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" was, sending Sontag into a rage. Still, in the end, Castle tries to take the high road. "Susan Sontag was a troubled and brilliant American . . . Judge her by her best work, not by her worst."