Susan Sontag's journal writings

If blogs are a mongrel breed descended from the journal then the jottings discovered in the cache of notebooks left behind by Susan Sontag are illuminating to this genre of writing:

"Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one's private, secret thoughts - like a confidante who is deaf, dumb and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself."

She continues:

"The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual daily life but rather - in many cases - offers alternatives to it."

And finally - after reading about herself in another's journal:

"... Do I feel guilty about reading what was not intended for my eyes? No. One of the main (social)functions of a journal or diary is precisely to be read furtively by other people, the people (like parents + lovers) about whom one has been cruelly honest only in the journal."