Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Styles of Radical Will – Susan Sontag (1969)

Styles of Radical Will by Susan Sontag

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In this collection of essays, what stands out to me is that there are no stars here. Unlike both Against Interpretation (where there are two stars, plus many other good essays) and On Photography (where the whole book is a star), this book has some good essays (on silence, her response to questions about the US and Vietnam), and some essays that either feel endless repetitive or clearly of a time and place, but less relevant away from the moment. Namely, what stands out to […]

Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors – Susan Sontag (1989)

Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag

AIDS and Its Metaphor by Susan Sontag

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Together these books are amazing for many reasons, not the least of which that she goes back to “Illness as Metaphor” and differentiates how the metaphors of cancer and AIDS differ so much based on a few key considerations: a) AIDS is an epidemic in certain countries, and a pandemic overall, depending on certain factors. b) that the language of public health (especially versus public discourse) differs wildly based on what countries you’re looking into, and c) how AIDS is so invariably talked about culturally […]

Against Interpretation – Susan Sontag (1966)

Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

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I don’t think I fully agree with a lot of this book, but I do agree with plenty, and I also don’t think this book “inflicted” anything on us, and in some ways presaged some really awful things to come. I think the most important two things to recognize (at least for me) with this book is that the almost the whole of the book is situated in the two famous essays here: “Against Interpretation” and “Notes on Camp,” which are certainly in a top […]

In June 1938 Virginia Woolf published Three Guineas, her brave, unwelcome reflections on the roots of war.

Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag

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I’ve read this slim volume about 4-5 times now, and each time I reread, there’s more here for me to think about. At the same time, I often forget much of its contents shortly after. It’s an interesting essay and argument style and I think it comes from Susan Sontag’s not being academic in approach. So there’s a wonderful connective musing quality here, that flits around a central thesis, without ever quite cementing things. I think this works wonderfully in terms of finding ways to […]

Literature was the passport to enter a larger life

At the Same Time by Susan Sontag

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Before I read this book I had a lot of name recognition for Susan Sontag (thank you liberal arts degree) but wasn’t that familiar with her actual writing.  At the Same Time is a collection of her essays and speeches, published posthumously in 2007, and comprising three categories: 1) essays about obscure literature; 2) essays about 9/11; and 3) speeches Sontag gave on varied themes (literature, courage, etc.). Given that the major unifying thread for this collection is loose- essay or speech- my opinions on […]

Depression is melancholy minus its charms.

Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag

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This is a long essay written in the mid to late 1970s as Susan Sontag has just learned she has cancer. The essay is not narrative or personal really at all, but explores the ways in which illness is defined through metaphors in literature and culture. Because of her own cancer, cancer becomes one of the two main subjects, with tuberculosis being the other. The primary focus of the two subjects in the essay is to explore the ways in which meaning has been inscribed […]



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