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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pseudolain's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0


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honeyvoiced's review against another edition

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informative reflective

4.25


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sarahrose_a's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5


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orndal's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

Leste denne på jobb. Noen av essayene er bedre enn andre, men Sontag i Balkan er ... opp til hver enkelt leder, vil jeg si. Ikke hopp over etterordet, der var det mye interessant om Sontag i sin samtid!

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lizlikesfrogs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

4.0


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