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emmakrof's review against another edition
informative
sad
medium-paced
2.25
Knowing Sontag’s reputation (although I still don’t understand it…) I expected a complex and original critique of the way AIDS was treated in society in the 80s. But I thought this book fell flat in almost every way.
Sontag is less concerned with the experiences of people with AIDS than she is with linking AIDS to a long history of similarly stigmatized diseases. Maybe that’s useful somehow, but I don’t understand how you can write a book about the stigmatization of AIDS without substantially referencing the lived experiences of people with AIDS?? I understand this was a sequel to “Illness as Metaphor,” so I don’t understand why she spends so much time talking about illnesses other than AIDS. Talking about cholera and syphilis and cancer seems redundant, assuming she talked about them in her other work. I would understand mentioning them to provide context for the way AIDS is perceived, but this was overkill.
After finishing this, I read two reviews that helped me formulate my thoughts: “The Sontag Metaphor” (1989) by Michael Specter, published in the Washington Post, and Paul Robinson’s review in The New York Times (1989). I agree with them that Sontag’s analysis is surface-level; I also think it’s unsympathetic. For example, Sontag discusses AIDS as part of an “apocalypse,” but she ignores what this means for people with AIDS and the gay community in general; surely being viewed as a harbinger of an apocalypse is more significant to people with AIDS on a personal level than the idea of AIDS as an apocalypse is to society as a whole. Likewise, I also take issue with the way she ignores the medical reality of AIDS. Maybe viewing AIDS as a death sentence is detrimental to people with AIDS, and perhaps the inescapability of death from AIDS might hold back medical progress or keep people with AIDS from seeking treatment; but at the time, it WAS a death sentence. As Robinson points out, there wasn’t a single case of recovery at the time she was writing.
Specter’s interview with her makes her seem like a classic conceited intellectual; she doesn’t care about people with AIDS (despite having friends who died of AIDS??), she just feels obligated to find a way to incorporate AIDS into her previous work. I simply cannot stand her intellectual persona. Rather than consulting modern works on AIDS to talk about AIDS, she references texts from centuries ago about other diseases, even ancient accounts. She also references literature and other works of art, which I think adds very little depth to the discussion. At one point, she somehow writes a sentence that goes on for more than a page and includes TWO block quotes. Furthermore, I’m frustrated by her lack of citations?? I feel like she omitted them because ~the point wasn’t the facts, it was her ideas~ or something, but certain parts are just BEGGING for a citation. For example, she writes “Cancer is more feared than heart disease, although someone who has had a coronary is more likely to die of heart disease in the next few years than someone who has cancer is likely to die of cancer” (38). Cancer is such a varied disease I have a hard time believing this is an accurate statement. And if she did consult actual research, why didn’t she include a source?? This led me to doubt a lot of her other claims as well.
To her credit, there are a few parts where she really rips into the way AIDS has hurt an already marginalized group (though she also implies it’s their fault for being sexually promiscuous…). It just wasn’t enough in my opinion. I do not suggest this book, there are surely much better analyses of the AIDS crisis out there.
Sontag is less concerned with the experiences of people with AIDS than she is with linking AIDS to a long history of similarly stigmatized diseases. Maybe that’s useful somehow, but I don’t understand how you can write a book about the stigmatization of AIDS without substantially referencing the lived experiences of people with AIDS?? I understand this was a sequel to “Illness as Metaphor,” so I don’t understand why she spends so much time talking about illnesses other than AIDS. Talking about cholera and syphilis and cancer seems redundant, assuming she talked about them in her other work. I would understand mentioning them to provide context for the way AIDS is perceived, but this was overkill.
After finishing this, I read two reviews that helped me formulate my thoughts: “The Sontag Metaphor” (1989) by Michael Specter, published in the Washington Post, and Paul Robinson’s review in The New York Times (1989). I agree with them that Sontag’s analysis is surface-level; I also think it’s unsympathetic. For example, Sontag discusses AIDS as part of an “apocalypse,” but she ignores what this means for people with AIDS and the gay community in general; surely being viewed as a harbinger of an apocalypse is more significant to people with AIDS on a personal level than the idea of AIDS as an apocalypse is to society as a whole. Likewise, I also take issue with the way she ignores the medical reality of AIDS. Maybe viewing AIDS as a death sentence is detrimental to people with AIDS, and perhaps the inescapability of death from AIDS might hold back medical progress or keep people with AIDS from seeking treatment; but at the time, it WAS a death sentence. As Robinson points out, there wasn’t a single case of recovery at the time she was writing.
Specter’s interview with her makes her seem like a classic conceited intellectual; she doesn’t care about people with AIDS (despite having friends who died of AIDS??), she just feels obligated to find a way to incorporate AIDS into her previous work. I simply cannot stand her intellectual persona. Rather than consulting modern works on AIDS to talk about AIDS, she references texts from centuries ago about other diseases, even ancient accounts. She also references literature and other works of art, which I think adds very little depth to the discussion. At one point, she somehow writes a sentence that goes on for more than a page and includes TWO block quotes. Furthermore, I’m frustrated by her lack of citations?? I feel like she omitted them because ~the point wasn’t the facts, it was her ideas~ or something, but certain parts are just BEGGING for a citation. For example, she writes “Cancer is more feared than heart disease, although someone who has had a coronary is more likely to die of heart disease in the next few years than someone who has cancer is likely to die of cancer” (38). Cancer is such a varied disease I have a hard time believing this is an accurate statement. And if she did consult actual research, why didn’t she include a source?? This led me to doubt a lot of her other claims as well.
To her credit, there are a few parts where she really rips into the way AIDS has hurt an already marginalized group (though she also implies it’s their fault for being sexually promiscuous…). It just wasn’t enough in my opinion. I do not suggest this book, there are surely much better analyses of the AIDS crisis out there.
milliecorkery's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I think clearly very important and influential but at times felt repetitive; unsure how much there actually is to say and at points that felt like there was a new consideration, then abruptly shifted again.
chlopiecy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
omw's review against another edition
4.75
yeah i mean. pretty good pretty good pretty neat pretty neat.
fjcookie's review
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
absolutely fascinating and very useful for my dissertation
simlish's review
5.0
I reread Illness as Metaphor before moving on to AIDS and Its Metaphors, and that was the right choice, since AIDS and Its Metaphors builds so much off of Illness as Metaphor, and begins by addressing Sontag's changes in thinking since Illness as Metaphor. AIDS and Its Metaphors is a bit more wide-ranging than Illness, which kept a fairly narrow focus on tuberculosis and cancer. AIDS and Its Metaphors gets more into what pre-disposes a disease to be used metaphorically, and the difference between an epidemic and a plague.
Reading it during an epidemic added a little bit of extra something -- COVID is referred to almost exclusively as an epidemic, except by people who are being racist, which felt very illustrative of what Sontag meant. My only thing is that I would have liked a little bit more about AIDS specifically, but it was written earlier in the AIDS outbreak, so I guess there wasn't as much to dig into, in the ways people talk about AIDS.
Reading it during an epidemic added a little bit of extra something -- COVID is referred to almost exclusively as an epidemic, except by people who are being racist, which felt very illustrative of what Sontag meant. My only thing is that I would have liked a little bit more about AIDS specifically, but it was written earlier in the AIDS outbreak, so I guess there wasn't as much to dig into, in the ways people talk about AIDS.
callofthelibrary's review against another edition
2.25
oh to be a 20th century theology, unbeholden to sources, just saying shit and sourcing a play from 1886 as evidence.
also, with every important or salient point about illness Sontag gives, she presents another which makes me roll my eyes and scoff loudly. anyway may ur distaste for military metaphors rot in hell Sontag! people with aids under attack, what do we do? fight aids fight back!
also, with every important or salient point about illness Sontag gives, she presents another which makes me roll my eyes and scoff loudly. anyway may ur distaste for military metaphors rot in hell Sontag! people with aids under attack, what do we do? fight aids fight back!