Check out this passage from the Times' obit of Susan Sontag:
"Through four decades, public response to Ms. Sontag remained irreconcilably divided. She was described, variously, as explosive, anticlimactic, original, derivative, naïve, sophisticated, approachable, aloof, condescending, populist, puritanical, sybaritic, sincere, posturing, ascetic, voluptuary, right-wing, left-wing, profound, superficial, ardent, bloodless, dogmatic, ambivalent, lucid, inscrutable, visceral, reasoned, chilly, effusive, relevant, passé, ambivalent, tenacious, ecstatic, melancholic, humorous, humorless, deadpan, rhapsodic, cantankerous and clever. No one ever called her dull."
In fact, a 2000 piece in London's Guardian observed: "You read Sontag's early work, and it lies flat and lifeless on the page," which would seem to refute the claim that "no one ever called her dull."
-- BEST OF THE WEB TODAY, December 29, 2004
Good post.
By the way, why is cantankerous the opposite of clever?