At 5:40 PM -0500 5/6/03, tom bell wrote:
>I may well be wrong in my reading but to me it reads in the final analysis
>as an excuse for distancing oneself through photos and TV.
I think it _is_ a misreading, Tom; it read like the opposite to me,
in that Sontag is examining how contemporary notions of atrocity are
indelibly linked to photographs (the napalm shot of Vietnam, My Lai,
&c) and she is exploring some of the ways that the photographic image
alters reality. It seems rather that she is saying that the image
can never convey what the reality is like.
Sontag is one of those commentators who has been outrageously smeared
since September 11 for her critiques of US government policy, so it
seems a little unfair that she is also accused of being conservative.
As I said, something troubled me about that book. But it certainly
wasn't that.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor, Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
|