illness as metaphor and the handmaid's tale

Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors belong in that Eichmann in Jerusalem or The Death and Life of Great American Cities category of staggeringly clear thinking and argumentation that has the voice of rigorous academic authority without needing to bother with academic evidence. The Sontag pieces are dated, although to be fair she predicted that they would be. In fact, the temporariness of the metaphors is part of the point: Things are scariest when we don't understand them, and once we do their power as metaphors dissipates. Cancer is less frightening than it was in the 1970s, and AIDS is less frightening now than it was 25 years ago. They are both still terrifying diseases, but cancer in particular carries less moral weight than it used to.

The Handmaid's Tale is a work of genius. Beautifully written, gripping, terrifying, insightful. I said this on FB the other day but it's almost hard to believe it's by the same author who wrote Oryx and Crake, which is, by comparison, clumsy and clunky and not all that interesting.