THE BODY IN PAIN: The Making and Unmaking of the World

by Elaine Scarry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 1985

A 400-page mishmash of quotes, semi-history and personal opinion. We are thrown ideas and blurbs from such disparate philosophers and venues as Kant, Sartre, the act of war by von Clausewitz, a diatribe on the values of Amnesty International, Churchill, the opinions of Justices Holmes and Marshall, Theodore Sorenson, selected readings from the Bible, and Karl Marx's laundry lists. Scarry says the purpose of this work is to examine the difficulty and impossibility of expressing pain--but that physical pain is unshareable and destroys language. There is no clarity of style in this work and the subject as specified by the author is in no manner covered. Instead, the reader is bombarded with the semantics of lexical neologism, while the author in a fit of paraphrenic rage searches vainly for etymological meaning, trying to explain the origins of all subsequence, but not her intended subject. Assumptions are made and asserted with no supporting evidence: Crucification is the center of Christianity; specific races tend to vocalize unitelligible cries more than others; war permitted Hitler's mass executions. Instead of attempting profundity with platitudes like "". . .to have pain is to have certainty--to hear about pain is to have doubt,"" Scarry might better have concentrated on the brief glimmers of sentient thought she happens on instead of subjecting the reader to verbal torture. The deobjectification of farm tools or household goods as weapons of torture and death, the powers of obiliteration and the participation by man in a modern age of war, these deserve separate treatises. The concept of word substitution such as harvest and reap to connote killing is interesting but hardly original. To paraphrase Kant, "". . .a sudden transformation of a strained expectation--into nothing.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1985

ISBN: 0199741220

Page Count: -

Publisher: Oxford Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION