Coffeetable Books

Women

Random House, 240 pp., $75

Dream on: That's what most coffeetable books encourage us to do. Dream on, and be swept into another universe. Women, the mutually authored book of photographs by Annie Leibovitz and essay by Susan Sontag, challenges us to dream; moreover, to think. "After all, a photograph is not an opinion. Or is it?" This suggestive Sontag query closes her essay; it is the most provocative aspect of her piece, which otherwise unremarkably covers familiar ground regarding photography's complicity in creating and perpetuating female role models and self-images. The stated purpose of this book is to present the variety of womanhood. The book fails in the accomplishment of this goal. Ironically, what it achieves is something quite different, yet something worth contemplating in itself. With its preponderance of photographs of women of celebrity and women in unusual occupations, the book presents a panoramic portrait of women's strength. Indeed, the wit and clarity of Leibovitz's photographs lead us to perceive the indomitability of women and their unconventional choices. These are articulate photographs, many of them uncommon and unforgettable, much like the women we all know.