It was hard for me to read this book while not around a computer as I am tempted to google every image Sontag discusses. I think the lack of imagery in this book really detracts from her argument and I wonder why a book written mainly to discuss art does not include representations of the art in it.

I noticed that she mentions Sarajevo a lot and I was a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know much about what went on in Sarajevo prior to enlightening myself on wikipedia. The material was dense. I had to re-read often to grasp the ideas. It was also hard to visualize what she was explaining and not see the photograph. Being a photographer myself, I can relate to much of what she says. I loved the part when she described a Sarajevan man yelling at a photographer. "Are you waiting for a shell to go off so you can photograph some corpses?" It’s funny to me because it borders immoral. Photographing desolation in foreign countries makes for good pictures, success, money, and victory in the job field. But while in the process of trying to retrieve a good picture does the photographer forget that they are exploiting their fellow man?

This book explores a lot of the same concepts as another book I’m reading called "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger. They both mention how reproductions and the creation of the camera have desensitized the human race. People now aspire to become images. In a way reality has been abdicated and there are only representations: media. I like this quote from the book: "It seems that the appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire for ones that show bodies naked." Berger talks about that too. Sex sells and if it bleeds it leads.

While reading I came up with an idea to solve this problem. Would outlawing the nightly news show be a solution for desensitizing horror? Imagine news was banned from TV in the way that cigarette commercials are. People would certainly be allowed access to news online and in Newspapers but video footage would not be allowed on television. Banning it from webcast would just make it a taboo that someone would capitalize on. But if news was banned from TV wouldn’t it create the necessity for only actual information and eliminate competition over ratings, and lessen painful imagery?

I think it’s funny that the book addresses the fundamental question but still can’t answer it. Why do we take/look at pictures of pain? "To make us feel ‘bad’; that is, to appall and sadden? To help us mourn? Are we the better for seeing these images? Do they actually teach us anything? Don’t they rather just confirm what we already know (or want to know)?" I don’t know if anyone can answer that question. The best explanation I think we’ve ever come up with is that old adage "if it bleeds it leads". I also think Sontag raised an interesting point when she mentioned the Holocaust Museum in America and how there is no slavery museum honoring the dead of that tragedy. America can touch the issue of Holocaust because it didn’t happen here but slavery is a topic that’s still too close for comfort therefore we’d better just ignore it for another hundred years until we forget about that mistake.

"How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd..."

I’m not exactly sure what this quote means but I like it. How much I wish I could have the procedure done in the movie to forget someone. The one guy I loved and wasted 3 years on is moving to San Diego next week and I’ll never see him again. I feel like the characters in the movie must have. What is the point of having the pleasure if all you’re left with is the pain? I’d rather not have any of it at all. I’d rather have no memory than have a bad memory of a good thing. It’s not worth it.

I think I love this movie because it gives the viewer a chance to see what it would be like if you never met the person that caused you so much pain. I must have a bleak outlook on life right now because if you really think about it everything that brings you pleasure can give you pain. And when you surrender yourself to something, such as love, you can be destroyed by it in such a vulnerable state. But humans really are pleasure seekers and when we feel love we can’t stop ourselves. We can seriously consider the consequences but it’s really an unstoppable force. Something that could only be leveled by a brain-damage inducing machine. The movie let me escape into my desire of "I wish I never met him." But it is really kind of sad because that’s not the way the world is. When life wants to teach you a hard lesson you get to deal with it. We don’t have an easy way out of our pain. We can’t go see Dr. Howard to zap our brain. We can’t medicate ourselves to the point where we won’t remember someone who hurt us. If we do it’s with drugs or alcohol, not with an uppermiddle-class American procedure like what was shown in the movie, making an appointment just like a dentist.

Pain shapes people, without it we wouldn’t have much character. If Joel didn’t have memories of Clementine what in his life would he have? He is portrayed as a boring thirty something year old working class American. Granted, I don’t know his life but his childhood memories didn’t reveal anything traumatic. Clementine, on the other hand was created to be a weird character. She dressed weird, she acted weird, she died her hair weird colors, her name was even weird. The writer of this movie wanted to make it very clear that these two people were opposites and complete personality antithesis’s of each other. I would like to know what went on in Clementine’s life to make her the way she was. I would have liked to see her memories. I have a feeling she had some alarming ones.

Because of my current situation, I’m biased. This movie is really a powerful love story, sending the message that fate brings two people together and cannot be overcome! That even erasing someone from your life completely to the point of erasing a memory won’t stop love! It’s a cute message but it’s not real. One of my favorite Dylan lyrics goes "It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart". That message I can more relate to. I wish love was controlled by fate and I wish pain could be erased from your memory but unfortunately it’s only a movie.

What can I say about Pain: The Science of Suffering by Patrick Wall? The book was enlightening. Pain is not a topic I have thought about objectively until now, besides having it. Around chapter 4 I felt the book became more interesting. I was taking little notes about the book while reading it and until chapter 4, I didn’t have anything to write down. I guess I’ll use this blog post to discuss everything I found engaging in this book and interrupt with some ideas of my own.

William James, professor of psychology at Harvard, proposed that our emotions were "an awareness of our general body reactions to an event, rather than to the event itself", for lack of better words or meaning getting lost through rephrasing. My understanding of this is that our body chemicals and composition trigger an emotional response not vice versa. This is an intriguing concept that I would have never thought of. I guess it must take a Harvard professor to deduce such things.

Next is the topic of congenital analgesia, a very rare disease in which one feels no sensation of pain. I swear while reading about this the only thought that came to my mind was how much I wish I could have been born with this disease. Growing up to never feel physical pain seemed lucky to me and I was jealous of these people who could never physically hurt themselves or feel physical pain caused by others. Of course when I stopped daydreaming about this phenomenon and got back to reading about it I felt foolish. To feel pain is our body’s response to danger. I think the book used the example of a child touching a hot stove and instantaneously pulling away, burnt. Without feeling physical pain one would never experience the peril in touching a hot stove and could seriously burn their hand and get an infection. Then I felt sorry for the people in the world with congenital analgesia. They could end up doing some harmful damage to their bodies because they don’t get the warning signal of pain.

I always found the phenomenon of hypnosis fascinating so naturally I would enjoy this section in the book. I forever have wanted to be hypnotized but never had thought about how hypnosis could occur anytime one succumbed to a higher power of authority. I also never realized hypnosis was used for surgery back in the day. I still want to be hypnotized someday.

Another part of the book I enjoyed was the bit about ultrasound. My mom is a chiropractor and this summer had begun giving me ultrasound treatments for unexplained pain in my hip and knees. I find it funny that the author regards chiropractics as an alternative form of medicine after I know how much schooling chiropractors have to go through. I think my mom would certainly disagree with the author's opinion.

I feel like during the course of the book Wall contradicts himself and also never makes a commitment to anything he describes. He criticizes but he doesn’t necessarily advocate anything he illustrates, as far as treatments or methods. I guess as far as humans have come in technological and medicinal advances, we really don’t know a whole lot about how pain is caused, why, or what works to treat it. We are basically clueless as far as causes and effects of the body and its processes. I understand Wall when he says we have a long way to go.

I also agree with Wall in another point he brings up though I had never before thought about it. There is really nothing being done about the people in pain. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies are researching for the cure to ailments to help prevent pain, and Doctors and Surgeons are taking care of injuries, but those with chronic pain after seeing a doctor and before being cured by a miracle drug, they are left isolated. I know many of these such people in the limbo of medical care and though I don’t know what can be done about them or how they can be helped, at least Wall brought an awareness to this topic. Identifying the problem is the first step to recovery, don’t they say?

In closing all I can say was that I wish this book was more about psychological pain instead of just physical pain. I am really more interested in learning about psychological pain than physical pain. I think I enjoyed the part about placebos the most because it dipped into the psychology of the human as well as animal mind. I find the marvel of placebos bizarre and extraordinary. I kind of wish there was an omnipotent third party in my life that would offer me a placebo to help me with my pain.

The last point I will make was that it was a useful book for me to read because it offered insight into something that was previously undiscovered and unexplored in my mind. It even helped me recognize some medical terms today when I was at my wisdom tooth consultation. That should be a fun experience. I can’t wait to try my mom’s ultrasound machine on my face January 5th.

My name is Nadya. I’m a senior photography major. I really love Bob Dylan and a lot of other music. I try my best to be nice to everyone and not judge anyone because I figure it’s a good way to live. I hate 'about me’s' because I prefer subtlety but I did read On the Road this summer and I feel like I can identify with this quote.

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."