Volume 52, Number 2 · February 10, 2005
Susan Sontag (1933–2004)
By Elizabeth Hardwick
Except in unusually desolating circumstances, human beings do not want to die. Medicines, hospitals, and so on are called upon to do what they can, and, that failing, there is not much to do except to surrender. It was otherwise with Susan Sontag, who fought death, challenged it. Her death in December is a great sadness for those who loved her personally and for those who treasured her luminous career as a writer. In the previous decades she had known serious assaults on her life. An illness sent her to Paris, where in her scholarly fashion she had decided the most hopeful treatment might be found. This past year, she spent months in Seattle being treated for a return of cancer. That failing, she was sent back home to New York, where she underwent further treatment, and then died. A mournful defeat of her will to live.
Feature, 820 words
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