I want to make a plug for reading Trisha Ready’s article in The Stranger from last week. It is a brilliant piece of writing about healing from cancer with music, and fighting against the pronouncements of Susan Sontag in her book Illness as Metaphor.
While I have not had cancer, I have read Sontag’s book, and recently, a few others on the topic of Language, Metaphor and Writing about Illness and I think Ready does considerable work in articulating the medical aspects, choices and limitations of allopathic medicine along with the possibilities, and need for, less traditional forms of healing.
I am not ready to post my own essay on the topic of language, illness and healing, as I have it out for consideration of publication, but I hope to be able to offer it soon. In the meantime, read Ms. Ready!.