SOURCE: Kleinman, Arthur M. Review of Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag. Literature and Medicine 22, no. 4 (fall 2003): 257-61.

In the following review, Kleinman praises Regarding the Pain of Others for not only displaying human fascination with images of death and pain, but for urging readers to view such images with sympathy and compassion.

Susan Sontag has been, since the 1970s, one of the leading public literary figures in the United States. In addition to six novels, two film scripts, and a play, she has written eight books of essays. Two of the latter are widely cited meditations on medically relevant topics. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, books that are taught to medical students in courses in the medical humanities and social sciences, illustrate the power of meaning to shape experiences of pain and suffering, often in ways that create problems for patients and...