Reviews with content warning for War - Das Leiden anderer betrachten

I might do a more in-depth review later on, but for now I chose to do my review in my personal book journal. There's just a LOT that this book made me think about and a LOT of Sontag-praise that I'd be embarrassed to put on blast here. (How does she manage to make Art out of literary criticism while being meta and speaking on Art Itself and using that Art to make her Point at the end? like, what the hell?) I read an article recently where the author said they wished Sontag were alive to see her tear shit apart on twitter, and yeah, I feel that, but also, I wouldn't wish anyone to live through the hellscape we're all in now :/

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applesodaperson's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

This was an interesting one because of how unique of a topic it is. It's not really something that I have put much thought into before. But yeah there is a lot to be said and a lot to talk about in terms of how people, especially those in the Western world, perceive war. A lot of times, especially now, people talk about war in a very impersonal and removed way. Because if it isn't directly affecting the, then they don't actually care. But yeah, especially in this age of the internet and social media, it is very easy to find videos and pictures and stories from wars happening in other places. But it can be hard to actually do something to help, when it feels like it is all happening so far away.
My one criticism of this book was that it felt too long. I think the point could have been entirely made in a third of the length. It ended up just repeating the few same talking points over and over again.
Read from the BYU library.

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dchalamish's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

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moranguinhos's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

still so relevant, 20 years after being published. war and history is cyclical & people are still figuring out ways to compartmentalize the atrocities. Sontag’s predictions about the future of news and online information are spot on.

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mads_jpg's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

After seeing so many haunting images from Gaza of Palestinians either dead or dying, many of them children, I wanted to understand it all better. Whether violent imagery creates lasting pathos, whether we should look or if it's just self flagellation, and whether images like these can actually make significant change.

These are admittedly very complicated questions to answer, so Sontag's ideas have left me feeling both less and more confused. Maybe it's harder to compare the almost real-time images from Motaz's Instagram stories to the war images filtered through television companies and journalists. Maybe it's a whole different beast seeing images of death through the eyes of someone you have a parasocial relationship with.

But I did leave this book feeling like I understood the desire to document and witness these atrocities, despite all the complications that come along with it. And all the emotions that can come up for people for different reasons, how sympathy can turn to apathy when someone feels hopeless to stop the suffering.

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