Customer Reviews

Regarding the Pain of Others

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I couldnt help but wonder what Susan Sontag would have to say about a friend of mine, and the manner in which he gets his daily news. First thing, each day, when he gets to work, he logs into his computer, surfs to Yahoo, and looks at a slide show of all the top news photos for the day. He never reads any articles. At most he reads a caption or two, but mainly he looks at the pictures. How many others perceive the world through Yahoo slideshows? Its a bit scary. I think Sontag would agree that many people view the world primarily through the images they receive through the media.

In her revealing book, Regarding The Pain of Others, Susan Sontag examines the many issues associated with the photography of warfare, genocide, and atrocity. She discusses the history of such images, why they are produced, the importance of the viewers perspective, censorship, and many other related topics. In presenting her ideas, Sontag moves through a wide variety of history and literature ( Platos Republic, the Crimean War, the Khmer Rouge, the Nazi concentration camps, Bosnia). Oddly enough, there are no photos in the book. Many photographs that are referred to are described enough to understand what is being said, but the actual photos would have been a much better addition. (Most of the photos referenced are well known and can easily be located online.) It would have been revealing to know why no photos were included.

Many insights regarding war and photography are put forth. Some seemed like just well explained common sense, others were revealing. As a photographer, one concept that was mentioned, I found very profound. Ive often wondered why photography hasnt been replaced by video in the manner in which photography displaced painting. Although video certainly dominates the entertainment industry, photos havent disappeared and they continue to thrive. Sontag asserts that a photograph is the basic visual unit of memory. We remember in terms of photos much easier that entire video sequences. Certain events in our life, for example, the Apollo 11 moon landing, are recalled through the photographs we saw of those events. Although you will probably want a video of your wedding, it is certain there will be photos. For that reason, there will always be a place for photographs. In fact, you might have noticed during the recent coverage of the war in Iraq, many of the television news channels would play sequences of still photos. That is how we remember visually, in still images.

My only complaint is the books size, 126 pages, seemed small compared to the cost. Also the font and spacing are a bit large (remember that trick when writing school papers?). I had the feeling that some greedy marketing person was in the loop somewhere. Once I began to read though, my disappointment with books size went away. I recommend this thoughtful work and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Susan Sontag seems to be a lightening rod for the political sensitive, rare is the person who has lukewarm feelings about Sontag- people seem to even love her or hate her. Not sure if I am ready to confess my love for her yet but I am defiantly far closer to the love side than the hate side.

Regarding the Pain of Others was my first encounter with her. In truth, I only bought it because I happened upon while browsing thought the bookstore and was struck by its great cover design and bought it knowing little more about it than that. Despite my incredibly poor rational for buying the book (judging it by its cover!) I lucked out immensely with this one!

There are few topics more important or relevant in these times than war and our (the west's) perception of war. Sontag takes an unblinking look at these topics of pain, suffering and there representations in photography and comes away with remarkable insight to share. While occasionally going into enough detail to make me squirm in my seat it is important to stress that this book is enjoyable- it is written well and although meandering at times it is always easy to follow and organized.

Even if you disagree with some of the conclusions that Sontag reaches in this book you will still benefit from the ways that it forces you to crystallize your own views. Above all else thought these topics are so incredibly important that they deserve attention from all of us- if you don't read this book read something else on the topic!

As I watch the constant war show on CNN, am I a spectator experiencing war vicariously as entertainment, and if so, should I not be watching? On the other hand, if I choose not to watch am I hiding from reality and turning my back on the soldiers who after all represent me?

If you experience any kind of discomfort with the constant coverage, then Sontag can offer some guidance.

She concentrates mainly on photographs rather than video, but this enables her to draw comparisons between the present and past conflicts. Her elegant potted history of war photography from the Crimean war to today is in some ways a rebuttal to the notion that the ubiquity of media renders modern war substantially different to historical war. If video footage defines our experience of war, photographs become our memories, and this is no less true now than in the 1860's.

If this sounds dry, then I do the book an injustice. First of all, Sontag is able to maintain page-turning readability without sacrificing scholarship. Second, even the most careful reading won't take more than 3 hours. Third, her arguments are forceful and in some cases passionate.

I found "regarding the pain of others" erudite, persuasive and strangely moving.

In this insightful essay, Sontag springboards from an analysis of "Three Guineas" by Virginia Woolf into a discussion about the effects of photography and televised imagery on modern culture and ideas about war and violence. Weaving excerpts from works by Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Wordsworth, and others, including her own previous work "On Photography", she leads readers on a journey into our own psyches and ways of thinking and viewing the world, and pushes us to examine with conscious knowledge the usage of images. I was especially taken with the idea that it is entirely human to turn away from these pictures of suffering, which are often used as a form of entertainment in the modern world. Sontag rightfully doesn't offer answers or platitudes, but instead indicates a welcoming of our own humanity's foibles as a way to deal with the obligations of conscience and the limits of sympathy.

In her On Photography, which appeared 35 years ago, Susan Sontag worried that the public's continuous exposure to horrific photos of the violence of war might backfire. The purpose (or at least one of the purposes) of such photos is to rouse opposition to the cruelty of war. But the continuous publication of them can surfeit and benumb, encouraging instead public passivity.

In her Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag rethinks this claim (even though it's now become received wisdom), suggesting that such photos in fact haunt us. True, our attraction to images of suffering can be prurient (Plato, in the Republic, was the first to catalog this human curiosity). The way in which a photo of suffering is framed, moreover, can transform it from an object of horror into one (primarily) of heroism. But notwithstanding these and other manipulations, photos of war victims remain what Sontag calls "emblems of suffering" that awaken us to the fact that the violence of warfare is very real indeed, and that we may be complicitous in it, notwithstanding the fact that, as "spectators," we are far removed from the imaged violence. Photographs shouldn't be "supposed to repair our ignorance about the history and causes of the suffering [they] pick out and frame." But they are effective "invitation[s] to pay attention" (p. 117). Viewing photographs of suffering is no substitute for hard thinking about war, murderous violence, and our moral responsibilities. But photos can spark and fuel such reflection (p. 103). For those of us who will never have firsthand experience of the horrors of war, this vicarious exposure can be a moral catalyst. That we can turn away from such photos does nothing to "impugn the ethical value of an assault by images" (p. 116).

Like all Sontag-authored extended essays, this one is so rich in ideas and insights that at times it seems (but ony, I believe, seems) to ramble. Along the way, Sontag discusses the history of war photography, the ethical dilemma of merely "looking at" atrocities rather than doing something about them, the French school of "the spectacle" founded by Guy Debord and made "respectacle" by Baudillard and Bataille. Chapter headings would be profoundly helpful here, as well as an occasional summary. But Sontag presumably wants to provoke thought in her readers, and hesitates to provide roadmaps.

Moreover, accompanying photographs would be helpful, especially since Sontag refers to a good baker's dozen to illustrate her arguments. The curious thing--and perhaps this was her point--is that any educated reader is likely to form an immediate memory image of the photo under discussion. We are, indeed, haunted by such photos.

An intriguing, genuinely thought-provoking book--and thought-provoking books are rare these days.

Sontag's essay is concerned with the moral implications of looking, through photographs, at people who are suffering or dead. Much of the book is a history of war photography, which is intimately bound with the history of public tolerance of violent photos. While Sontag does not provide any revolutionary ideas, the essay is a succinct and thorough examination of the issues surrounding photography. And, if there is no grand thesis to keep in mind, her exploration is full of smaller, thought-provoking observations. She notes, for example, that displaying photos of dead bodies is less taboo the more foreign and faraway those bodies are. Until she pointed it out, I had not even realised how North American coverage of 9-11 included practically no pictures of corpses, although picturing the dead in foreign conflicts is an expectable way of rallying support for the victims. Her remarks on the way a photo replaces the memory of the thing itself are, if not surprising, good to have restated.

Sontag also does not ignore the uncomfortable reality of the pleasure which most people have in regarding suffering, but in this as in many areas of her essay, I wished that she would go further, spend more time teasing out and elaborating her analysis -- I wished, in other words, that she had written a real book-length book, not a long essay. On the other hand, the incompleteness of her discussion means that it is particularly good at stimulating further thought, at opening questions rather than closing them off.

Susan Sontag only passed away recently. She was more of a philosopher, social activist, literary critic, and essayist than a fictional writer. In this book, she points out British writer Virginia Woolfe's view of war in today's society. War is a crime and an outrage where ever it might be whether it's in the boardroom, Wall Street, Sarajevo, Kabul, Baghdad, etc. War comes in many shapes and forms but what does war really mean to us. Is it about killing human lives or what about the destruction of the human soul in our society, we are transformed by the images displayed on cable television about the two wars going on and the lives lost. We are close to four thousand American soldiers being killing in Iraq. We had no reason to go but we did and now we must clean up the mess. I totally support our troops overseas because they are selfless human beings who would sacrifice their lives for their country. But what about the leaders who sent them there only to return home in coffins or end up at Walter Reed Medical Center for the injured veterans. Are the injured better off than the casualties? Maybe not because they have to live with their images of war and their actions. Sontag's book works because it makes us think about war without thinking so much about it. Where do we stand? Of course, it would be a perfect world without war and peace prevailed but war is a fact of life. Maybe Sontag should have used examples of wartime strategies that are not so gory or gloom with images of death and destruction. She did not live long enough to see Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast. What about the business world where casualties are not just in coffins but at the unemployment office? This book made me think so that's why I'm writing about this situation. We lose 18,000 Americans every year because they lack health insurance, that's six times the amount of the victims of September 11, 2001. Maybe we don't have to declare war, uninsured Americans are at war with a society who has neglected them or disregarded their needs for whatever reason.

I don't know why this book isn't at the top of Amazon's Susan Sontag's list of publications. It was very hard to put it down until I got to the end. It could use another chapter on the type of photos being shown from Iraq (a second edition?) and I'm sure her comments would be very interesting. What I really like about the book is, with the exception of the cover, there are no illustrations to distract us from what she's trying to get across and what she's trying to get across is, as she states, illustrations--sketches, paintings, photos--do not help us, unlike the written word, to UNDERSTAND, not only to feel/observe.

When Susan Sontag prepared and wrote her newest book REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS, she probably did not know that at the time of its release to the public the world would once again be at war. Sontag remains one of our more inportant American philosphers and commentators and this book addresses the representaton of pain, war, agony, and injustice as captured by painters from Velasquez, Goya, Callot and others to photographers Matthew Brady, Capa, Bourke-White et al. While she sees it as the responsibility for these people to capture the horrors of war in order that 'we' as observors will be informed and thus never allow such things to continue, she also now addresses how important it is for us to not have these images edited from public consumption - a very current feature that we are now seeing (or not seeing) in the TV and newspaper versions of the Iraqi war. Sontag gives evidence that some of the more sensational photographs from the Civil War and the Vietnam War were actually staged; corpses were added or altered or assasinations were set for the photojournalist much as the paintings of the 19th century were modified to gain impact. She shows that the horrors if the Nazi concentration camps were best captured by the untrained camera rather than the images made famous by Bourke-White et al, manipulating the light and position of vantage to play on the message instead of simply reporting it.

She stimulates our anger when she reports such incidences during the Gulf War as "American television viewers weren't allowed to see footage acquired by NBC (which the network then declined to run) of what superiority could wreak: the fate of thousands of Iraqi conscripts who, having fled Kuwait City at the end of the war, on February 27, were carpet bombed with explosives, napalm, radioactive DU (depleted uranium)rounds, and cluster bombs as they headed north, in convoys and on foot, on the road to Basra, Iraq - a slaughter notoriously described by one American oficer as a 'turkey shoot'". She shows that atrocities in foreign places are 'more acceptable' to view than cloistered photographic documents of our own history of the abuse of slaves, the poor, AIDS victims here in this country. We can construct Museums for the reminders of the German atrocities of genocide, crematoriums, starvation etc, but we do not have a single Museum to remind us of the American abuse of African American slaves (lynchings, beatings, prisons etc).

There are many quotes to highlight; "It is because a war, any war, doesn't seem as if it can be stopped that people become less responsive to the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do - but who is that 'we'? - and nothing 'they' can do either - and who are 'they'? - then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic."

Sontag urges us to be more in tune, more involved, more sensitive to the visual images that report the pain of others. "We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can't understand, can't imagine. That's what every soldier, and every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire, and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly feels. And they are right." This is the powerful last paragraph in this intensely moving book. It is a shame that some of the photographs and paintings to which she refers could not have been inserted in this book, but even without the visuals, this is a book that reveals myriad secrets and truths. Highly recommended reading.

I think this book would be more aptly called "Regarding War Photography" or "War Photography as Metaphor" (keeping Sontag-style titles intact). Unfortunately misnamed, this is a book about the effect of war photography on the viewer. It's about representation and what the image means to us, what the absence of an image does or doesn't mean to us. Not a book about the pain of others, it demonstrates how images of others' pain shape our views of their pain.

Sontag writes a brief history of war imagery, beginning with the advent of photography (the result of the amount of time required to take a picture) to faster and lighter cameras (likely to capture, rather than to re-recreate or to show only war's aftermath), to television, to the present (the internet, constant access and the expectation of constant access to images). She goes back, pre-photography, to discuss a few specific paintings that depict war or other suffering. She describes the methodology of the photographs--often naming specific images and photographers--analyzes their impact, how the images are viewed during the war and, because of the images, the war thought of by future generations.

Her interpretations are largely familiar and unchanged since "On Photography," but "Regarding the Pain of Others" discusses only war photography. That her analyses are expected doesn't detract from them; Sontag's input about this topic is valuable -- some early war photographs are staged; specific atrocities have become more urgent or real after being viewed; photojournalism is given a special veracity unlike other art forms; images shape our memories of wars that took place in prior generations. Sontag is clear about disbelieving in "collective memory" and states that it is the artifacts, photographs, we are left with that determine our feelings.

Worth seeking out is a shorter piece Sontag wrote called "Regarding the Torture of Others" (quite true to its title) after the Abu Ghirab prison photographs were released. In a way, it's a finer example of what this book achieves, though far more condensed.

Toward the end, she revisits "On Photography." She's recently re-read it and isn't sure if she agrees with certain elements. She debates herself in a way, though in my opinion, only in the smaller scheme of her general argument about representation and its relationship to fact and result. On a personal level, I was glad to see her revisit "On Photography." It read as a celebration of her groundbreaking work and ways of thinking about photographic representation. The circular nature, yet diffierent topics, discussed at the start and near end of her brilliant life and career rendered this, for me, satisfying and somewhat sad. I will miss her flow of opinions.