What do you think?
Rate this book
The Volcano Lover
A historical romance, Sontag's book is based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his wife, Emma, and Lord Nelson in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Passionately examining the shape of Western civilization since the Age of Enlightenment, Sontag's novel is an exquisitely detailed picture of revolution, the fate of nature, art and love.
380 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1992
474 people are currently reading
8448 people want to read
About the author
Susan Sontag
230 books5,494 followersSusan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 376 reviews
January 4, 2020
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson: war hero and butcher, the toast of London and the scourge of Naples. Lady Emma Hamilton: model and muse and wife and mistress, the toast of Naples and the scandal of London. Lord William Hamilton: English ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, collector of vases, lover of volcanoes, husband to Emma and friend to Horatio, a power in Naples and a joke in London. A famous love triangle: brave, tragic hero falls in love with the young, enchantingly beautiful wife of an elderly collector and civil servant who is all too happy to turn his head the other way and let things proceed as they may. And who does Susan Sontag decide to focus on in this historical saga of famous events and powerful people and troubled times? The elderly intellectual, the cuckold who wags mocked in the London papers. But of course that would be her focus. She was herself an intellectual above all things, supreme in her field. I love that "the romance" in The Volcano Lover's title is between elderly collector Lord Hamilton and the volcano Vesuvius. I'm glad he's the focus, the titular character. There have been enough tales told already about the little war hero and his larger-than-life paramour.
This is my kind of historical saga. It is precise, disinterested in generalizations, steeped in irony, has the occasional meta flourish, always avoids sentiment, and comes complete with a chilly, vaguely disinterested narrator who may as well be Sontag herself. Other readers appear to dislike this sort of story, the way it is told, the careful distance from its subjects, its ability to empathize in its own way while never forgetting to chart all of its characters' traits - including their flaws. And not the heroic flaws. The small, mean ones, the petty ones, the traits that make a person human rather than a larger-than-life hero.
If you are a film lover, and beyond that, a person who loves historical sagas, then ask yourself: which do you prefer, the sweepingly emotional films of David Lean or the icy anti-saga that is Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon? If it is the former, stay clear of this book! If it is the latter, then this is your Barry Lyndon, on the page.
Unlike the films of David Lean (who I also love), this book does not want you to cheer the heroes and heroines, to cry and laugh and swoon at the terrible tragedies and awesome majesty of life's rich pageant, to have a cinematic experience. This book wants you to understand what makes people tick, whether they are famous or not. This book wants you to understand its characters within their personal and historical context, every bit of them especially their weak points, their various villainies and heroics small and large but always human, it wants you to know them as you (supposedly) know yourself. This book doesn't even particularly care if you like it. It does not want to be liked, it wants to be contemplated, discussed, and considered as a probing dissection of how humans think of themselves and how the image of themselves rarely matches what is seen by others. Others who are not in automatic sympathy with you, no matter your title or standing or lineage.
Unless those others actually love you, of course! A person who loves you will love you despite or even because of your flaws. One of the delights of this novel is how much its three players actually like each other. They understand each other and they are fine with what they see.
Just as poor Lord Hamilton loved his dangerous monster, Vesuvius. It was the true love of his life. The poor man should never have left Naples.
Sontag has a reputation as a cold intellectual, and she certainly was one. That's a big part of why I love her. But this novel is also a humane one. And often funny, in its sardonic and at times sneaky-cheeky way. A humor that does not call attention to itself; an author who is amusing herself. My favorite amusement: Sontag's inclusion of characters from the opera Tosca as if they were real people, a real part of this history. The fact that they are straight from an opera and never existed goes unremarked. A snobby sort of in-joke, I suppose. Which I love.
This odd, brilliant novel would have been a 5 star experience for me, except for its very last sequence. The end of the book is as brilliant as everything that preceded it, but it goes a different direction in style. Gone is the omniscient narrator, in her place is a series of first person narratives from various characters' perspectives. Starting with Lord Hamilton's dying thoughts (incredibly moving to me), then on to those of Lord Hamilton's deceased and very loving first wife Catherine (quite a sympathetic character), then to Lady Hamilton's silent mother Mrs. Cadigan (quite full of opinions, despite her silence), next the scandalous Emma Hamilton herself, and finally ending with a very minor character, the revolutionary Eleonora Pimentel on her way to the guillotine. All of these parts are beautifully written, including the sequence of Eleonara's last thoughts.
But my God, don't end a book that is literally all about a bunch of entitled rich people by sharing the understandably contemptuous thoughts of a progressive revolutionary about to die. You can't pretend you are down with the revolution and despise the entitled after you've written a whole book that completely humanizes those wealthy, tragic twits. That's like making a big, fancy cake and then throwing it out with a sneer because you want to prove some kind of point about cakes being bourgeois. That last sequence certainly doesn't ruin the book, but it does completely betray it. Tsk tsk, Susan Sontag! Don't front, it's not a good look.
This is my kind of historical saga. It is precise, disinterested in generalizations, steeped in irony, has the occasional meta flourish, always avoids sentiment, and comes complete with a chilly, vaguely disinterested narrator who may as well be Sontag herself. Other readers appear to dislike this sort of story, the way it is told, the careful distance from its subjects, its ability to empathize in its own way while never forgetting to chart all of its characters' traits - including their flaws. And not the heroic flaws. The small, mean ones, the petty ones, the traits that make a person human rather than a larger-than-life hero.
If you are a film lover, and beyond that, a person who loves historical sagas, then ask yourself: which do you prefer, the sweepingly emotional films of David Lean or the icy anti-saga that is Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon? If it is the former, stay clear of this book! If it is the latter, then this is your Barry Lyndon, on the page.
Unlike the films of David Lean (who I also love), this book does not want you to cheer the heroes and heroines, to cry and laugh and swoon at the terrible tragedies and awesome majesty of life's rich pageant, to have a cinematic experience. This book wants you to understand what makes people tick, whether they are famous or not. This book wants you to understand its characters within their personal and historical context, every bit of them especially their weak points, their various villainies and heroics small and large but always human, it wants you to know them as you (supposedly) know yourself. This book doesn't even particularly care if you like it. It does not want to be liked, it wants to be contemplated, discussed, and considered as a probing dissection of how humans think of themselves and how the image of themselves rarely matches what is seen by others. Others who are not in automatic sympathy with you, no matter your title or standing or lineage.
Unless those others actually love you, of course! A person who loves you will love you despite or even because of your flaws. One of the delights of this novel is how much its three players actually like each other. They understand each other and they are fine with what they see.
Just as poor Lord Hamilton loved his dangerous monster, Vesuvius. It was the true love of his life. The poor man should never have left Naples.
Sontag has a reputation as a cold intellectual, and she certainly was one. That's a big part of why I love her. But this novel is also a humane one. And often funny, in its sardonic and at times sneaky-cheeky way. A humor that does not call attention to itself; an author who is amusing herself. My favorite amusement: Sontag's inclusion of characters from the opera Tosca as if they were real people, a real part of this history. The fact that they are straight from an opera and never existed goes unremarked. A snobby sort of in-joke, I suppose. Which I love.
This odd, brilliant novel would have been a 5 star experience for me, except for its very last sequence. The end of the book is as brilliant as everything that preceded it, but it goes a different direction in style. Gone is the omniscient narrator, in her place is a series of first person narratives from various characters' perspectives. Starting with Lord Hamilton's dying thoughts (incredibly moving to me), then on to those of Lord Hamilton's deceased and very loving first wife Catherine (quite a sympathetic character), then to Lady Hamilton's silent mother Mrs. Cadigan (quite full of opinions, despite her silence), next the scandalous Emma Hamilton herself, and finally ending with a very minor character, the revolutionary Eleonora Pimentel on her way to the guillotine. All of these parts are beautifully written, including the sequence of Eleonara's last thoughts.
But my God, don't end a book that is literally all about a bunch of entitled rich people by sharing the understandably contemptuous thoughts of a progressive revolutionary about to die. You can't pretend you are down with the revolution and despise the entitled after you've written a whole book that completely humanizes those wealthy, tragic twits. That's like making a big, fancy cake and then throwing it out with a sneer because you want to prove some kind of point about cakes being bourgeois. That last sequence certainly doesn't ruin the book, but it does completely betray it. Tsk tsk, Susan Sontag! Don't front, it's not a good look.
June 22, 2012
The book is so close to great. . . I was reading Sontag's Paris Review interview afterward, which is fascinating, obviously--at 13, she was apparently reading the journals of Gide--and I think it opened me up to the flaw in the book, which is structural. She had in mind this balletic structure modeled on the four temperaments--melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, although the last two are more like epilogues. First, Sontag gives us an oddly sad story about this quiet aristocrat living in Naples (melancholic) and then the action of the book, his whirlwind romance with a younger woman and the revolt in Naples and the British hero who saves the royal court(sanguine). While these parts aren't necessarily at odds, and both are honestly excellent, I'm not sure that they compliment each other.
Let me put it another way. A review below says that the emotional heart of the story is Nelson's actions during the Revolution. But Nelson's not even present for most of this book, and the Revolution is eventually only a minor point in a much longer narrative. Or you could say that the focus is really the title character, but he's got little to do with the Revolution, and Sontag does become noticeably less interested in him when Nelson enters the picture. At the same time, the lens isn’t quite wide enough to give us a satisfying picture of life in Naples at the end of the 18th Century, or even of court life there. The Volcano Lover is about more than the Cavalier, but not quite about enough more to be satisfying. To quote the cliche, the whole is a little less than the sum of the parts.
But those parts! I'll defend this thing from almost all of its detractors. A common criticism is that Sontag doesn’t have sympathy for any of her characters, which is bullshit. I respect the Cavalier, who is truly a gentle human being and a lover of knowledge, a rare and estimable quality. (Compare him to his nephew Charles, a character that Sontag really doesn’t respect.) Then there’s the Cavalier’s wives, both of whom we are asked to sympathize with, the second wife throughout and the first wife only at the novel’s end (a result of the novel’s opening focusing narrowly on the Cavalier). Even the Hero is seen as something of the ultimate romantic lover, putting his career at risk, continually, for this obese former prostitute.
As for the narrative intrusions by Sontag, they’re not all that common, especially after the book’s first hundred pages or so, and they’re usually fascinating. Who could refuse a two-page digression on the nineteen year-old who shattered the Cavalier’s greatest treasure, the Portland Vase, in 1851, and what says about male desire and great art? Consider too that it contains paragraphs like this: “Torch a temple. Pulverize a vase. Slash a Venus. Smash a perfect ephebe’s toes.”
The Volcano Lover has period pomp, gorgeous prose, a satirical edge, perhaps the most violent mob scene I’ve ever read and an under-recognized warmth. I can imagine literally everyone I know reading this thing and enjoying it. Which isn’t to say that they would. As the Cavalier would say, other individuals so often disappoint.
Let me put it another way. A review below says that the emotional heart of the story is Nelson's actions during the Revolution. But Nelson's not even present for most of this book, and the Revolution is eventually only a minor point in a much longer narrative. Or you could say that the focus is really the title character, but he's got little to do with the Revolution, and Sontag does become noticeably less interested in him when Nelson enters the picture. At the same time, the lens isn’t quite wide enough to give us a satisfying picture of life in Naples at the end of the 18th Century, or even of court life there. The Volcano Lover is about more than the Cavalier, but not quite about enough more to be satisfying. To quote the cliche, the whole is a little less than the sum of the parts.
But those parts! I'll defend this thing from almost all of its detractors. A common criticism is that Sontag doesn’t have sympathy for any of her characters, which is bullshit. I respect the Cavalier, who is truly a gentle human being and a lover of knowledge, a rare and estimable quality. (Compare him to his nephew Charles, a character that Sontag really doesn’t respect.) Then there’s the Cavalier’s wives, both of whom we are asked to sympathize with, the second wife throughout and the first wife only at the novel’s end (a result of the novel’s opening focusing narrowly on the Cavalier). Even the Hero is seen as something of the ultimate romantic lover, putting his career at risk, continually, for this obese former prostitute.
As for the narrative intrusions by Sontag, they’re not all that common, especially after the book’s first hundred pages or so, and they’re usually fascinating. Who could refuse a two-page digression on the nineteen year-old who shattered the Cavalier’s greatest treasure, the Portland Vase, in 1851, and what says about male desire and great art? Consider too that it contains paragraphs like this: “Torch a temple. Pulverize a vase. Slash a Venus. Smash a perfect ephebe’s toes.”
The Volcano Lover has period pomp, gorgeous prose, a satirical edge, perhaps the most violent mob scene I’ve ever read and an under-recognized warmth. I can imagine literally everyone I know reading this thing and enjoying it. Which isn’t to say that they would. As the Cavalier would say, other individuals so often disappoint.
December 15, 2023
The Volcano Lover is a powerful, intricate novel of ideas, frequently inflected with Sontag's feminism; it applies a modern lens to the Enlightenment's moral, social, and aesthetic concerns. Yet it is also a tender inventory of desire, intricately mapping the modulation from the cold mania of the collector to the lover's passion.
I don't know if it's the author's fault, but it's the second book I read, and I didn't like it. So many people around here say they wanted her essays more than her novels. Let's see how her next book goes.
Source:
The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag – review - the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
I don't know if it's the author's fault, but it's the second book I read, and I didn't like it. So many people around here say they wanted her essays more than her novels. Let's see how her next book goes.
Source:
The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag – review - the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
May 19, 2015
I love Sontag the writer, provocateur, thinker, etc...and I love her essays and criticism. And her life. I always think twice about what she says and recommends and the attitudes she takes.
But this book didn't really live up to my expectations. I love some of it- the aphoristic insights and the subdued delineations of places and objects, especially. Her characterization can be pretty strong and sometimes the evocative feel of time and place is really there.
Unfortunately the writing is a little too self-conscious, a little too jagged and angular. There's this rather irritating tic she seems to have where her sentences. have to be like five or six words long. and end abruptly. It's almost as if she's willfully capping herself off once the idea or sensation is just starting to breathe. I think it stems from the ever-present ultra-intellectual quality of her writing and (at least, it seems to me) her general being. I understand this kind of thing, intimately, because when I try to write creatively I often start hacking up my sentences or spiking the rhythm because it seems too...derivative? Felicitous? Easy? "Stream of consciousness-y"? Simple? Cliched?
So I sympathize but for extended reading it's a little bludgeoning. One can feel (or at least I could) the massive intelligence and critical rigor of the mind that wrote this, but that same brain sort of weighs the whole thing down too often, nearly reaching the point, on many occasions, of being pedantic or turgid. I hate to say it because I have such deep respect for her but I can't ignore it.
Towards the end she starts to pick up speed- the free indirect discourse passing through the different characters starts to really pack an emotional and sensory punch. This happened throughout the novel when she cut loose a little bit and started to let the language do the talking (!). At times, things hum along pretty smoothly but there's always this leaden density (huge paragraphs, esoteric slightly interesting references, over-written psychological descriptions, chopped melody) just around the corner. I started to lose interest and do that page-flipping thing one does when a book starts to lose its pull.
It's not a bad book, it's just not a great one. Two stars is the perfect score. It's ok.
I'll read her other fiction, certainly, and I'll definitely dig in to more of her essays and nonfiction, etc. But as for now I'll hold off on the former and look forward to the latter.....
August 30, 2021
In ‘The Volcano Lover,’ the High Priestess of Cool has delivered an extended fictional essay on aesthetics, desire, feminist politics and revolution. There are certainly some risks taken in structure and narration but overall, this is a wonderful blend of the romance of history and ideas in its broadest form.
October 8, 2022
I did a lot of yawning while reading this, it was honestly very boring. I also did a lot of that sound that I would imagine myself making if there was a hairball forming at the back of my throat. All these rich people problems, swimming in luxury and opulence and all these immaterial things surrounding them, the need to collect, to have, to own. Yak. Art is talked as if it's only something appreciated by the wealthy and some of the art pieces mentioned went right over my head, so I have no understanding what is being said. Clearly a book for the "better folk".
December 15, 2021
Annie Liebovitz has called this Susan Sontag's best book, and she should know, and I agree. It's a book wearing many disguises. A roman à clef disguised as a gorgeous, lyrical novel of ideas... disguised as an 18th century romance... about a love triangle... between the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, the concubine he marries and the Naval hero she worships. This book has it all: pretty girls, virile noblemen, erupting volcanoes, priceless paintings, science and seduction, sex and war crimes, houses and gardens, gallows and guillotines.
As with everything I've ever read by the great-lesbian-intellectual-who-came-before-me, I started out hating the book for being too clever by half. As with most of Sontag's books, I felt I could barely get through it the first time.
But nobody is ever compelled to re-read a book (twice!) if disdain is the deepest emotion. So, what ran deeper than my disdain for Sontag's European grammatical constructions? My admiration for her powerful intellect. I even came to like things about the book I loathed on first reading. What's the opposite of a coup de foudre,? What do you call it when it leads to love?
It is perhaps for this reason--the full range of my mixed emotions--that I give the book three stars, in much the same way as I give Joan Schenkar's Dolly Wilde only three stars and Sybille Bedford's novel A Legacy merely four. And I have mixed emotions about that. Guilty feelings. But mixed emotions cost you stars, as Mercedes de Acosta well knew.
So much for stars. Now back to the book.
In form, The Volcano Lover stands the roman galant on its head while setting the stage, historically and literarily, for the flowering of gay culture that led generations of queers to establish colonies in southern Italy.
(Another rock star, gay travel writer William Beckford, who went on the first Grand Tour, makes a cameo appearance as a houseguest in The Volcano Lover. I only realized on the second reading that in dining with Beckford I was dining with Sontag.)
Over time I slowly became aware of how sexy it feels to be in the hands of an author in full command of her literary, cultural, linguistic and historical material.
In function, the book subverts the contemporary art world, satirizing its denizens--collectors in particular--better than The Bonfire of the Vanities. The prose impresses you with its humanity. Here is a world-weary author, you can't help but notice, with true understanding of the affectations and vanities in every character you hate to love. The final scenes read as testimonials that have left a deep imprint.
And in its poetry, this book makes you weep. The tenderest scenes are that affecting.
Sontag came a generation before me. They say you never get along with your mother. But if you fail to learn her lessons, that's your problem. And my life of books would not be the same if I hadn't tried one more time--and learned at last--to appreciate seeing the world through the eyes of Susan Sontag.
This book lives inside me now. It haunts me. My own characters agree. It haunts them, too. That is why The Volcano Lover makes a cameo appearance in Book Three of my own novel cycle, Tabou, very much in homage to the literary contributions of Susan Sontag, that butch intellectual boulevardier who never asked me out.
As with everything I've ever read by the great-lesbian-intellectual-who-came-before-me, I started out hating the book for being too clever by half. As with most of Sontag's books, I felt I could barely get through it the first time.
But nobody is ever compelled to re-read a book (twice!) if disdain is the deepest emotion. So, what ran deeper than my disdain for Sontag's European grammatical constructions? My admiration for her powerful intellect. I even came to like things about the book I loathed on first reading. What's the opposite of a coup de foudre,? What do you call it when it leads to love?
It is perhaps for this reason--the full range of my mixed emotions--that I give the book three stars, in much the same way as I give Joan Schenkar's Dolly Wilde only three stars and Sybille Bedford's novel A Legacy merely four. And I have mixed emotions about that. Guilty feelings. But mixed emotions cost you stars, as Mercedes de Acosta well knew.
So much for stars. Now back to the book.
In form, The Volcano Lover stands the roman galant on its head while setting the stage, historically and literarily, for the flowering of gay culture that led generations of queers to establish colonies in southern Italy.
(Another rock star, gay travel writer William Beckford, who went on the first Grand Tour, makes a cameo appearance as a houseguest in The Volcano Lover. I only realized on the second reading that in dining with Beckford I was dining with Sontag.)
Over time I slowly became aware of how sexy it feels to be in the hands of an author in full command of her literary, cultural, linguistic and historical material.
In function, the book subverts the contemporary art world, satirizing its denizens--collectors in particular--better than The Bonfire of the Vanities. The prose impresses you with its humanity. Here is a world-weary author, you can't help but notice, with true understanding of the affectations and vanities in every character you hate to love. The final scenes read as testimonials that have left a deep imprint.
And in its poetry, this book makes you weep. The tenderest scenes are that affecting.
Sontag came a generation before me. They say you never get along with your mother. But if you fail to learn her lessons, that's your problem. And my life of books would not be the same if I hadn't tried one more time--and learned at last--to appreciate seeing the world through the eyes of Susan Sontag.
This book lives inside me now. It haunts me. My own characters agree. It haunts them, too. That is why The Volcano Lover makes a cameo appearance in Book Three of my own novel cycle, Tabou, very much in homage to the literary contributions of Susan Sontag, that butch intellectual boulevardier who never asked me out.
February 3, 2024
Critic Lettie Ransley of The Guardian calls Susan Sontag’s self-proclaimed romance The Volcano Lover “A novel of ideas.” According to the blurbs on the back of the Picador paperback, the New York Times critic does the same. Seems like the literary establishment wanted to praise Sontag’s historical fiction of Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples, his remarkable wife Emma, and Emma’s scandalous affair with English war hero admiral Nelson, but they were puzzled enough by the book’s form to feel obliged to give it that deadly post-modern stamp, to categorize it as a tad European, a bit intellectual, perhaps subtly off-putting to readers of Gresham, King, and Brown, to brand it “a novel of ideas.”
The Volcano Lover, published in 1992, is, in retrospect, not a novel of ideas so much as a romance of passions. It begins with Hamilton’s passion for collecting—first for art, then objects, and finally his late acquisition of the inimitable Emma—and flows seamlessly into Emma and Nelson’s unexpected and ill-timed love affair—back-dropped by the political passion of the short-lived Republic of Naples. Lady Hamilton’s assumed passing of the royal outrage of the deposed queen to Lord Nelson, and the admiral’s ruthless putting down of the high-minded Jacobins when he restores the monarchy (historically the biggest blot on the hero’s military career), finishes the etymological exploration of the word passion (from Latin “patior” to suffer), when the romance recounts the sad martyrdom of the short-lived democratic governors of the city. It makes a good read in these days in which democracy seems again teetering on the brink, as the USA, for the second time in the last 5 elections, has saddled the nation with a president not elected by the people but by the electoral college.
I had to read Sontag’s conversation with Edward Hirsh in The Paris Review (The Art of Fiction #143—available online) in order to understand the book’s form, its division into four unequal parts with a prologue. In the interview Sontag explains her inspiration for the structure: “I took it from a piece of music, Hindemith’s The Four Temperaments... (It) starts with a triple prologue, three very short pieces. Then come four movements—melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, choleric. In that order. I knew I was going to have a triple prologue and then four sections or parts corresponding to the four temperaments—though I saw no reason to belabor the idea by actually labeling Parts I to IV “melancholic,” “sanguinic,” etcetera.”
Oh, Ms. Sontag, please belabor! Once I had understood this structure, The Volcano Lover became a considerably more enjoyable read. For it is a text libel to be off-putting for those accustomed to the easy, pretend-omniscient narrative of standard historical fiction—as well as those avid readers of history. For The Volcano Lover alternates freely between these two styles of discourse. It never quite throws historical detail or its opinionated commenting authorial voice out the window for that pretend fictional narrator. Nor does it fail to digress on its themes or to recount events out of order for dramatic effect, or to descend wholly into the voices and opinions of its characters, letting them have their say—particularly in the stunning “choleric” conclusion, in which 4 angry women clear the air from beyond the grave. Focused as I was on the traditions of the historical novel, I read on ignorant of what this post-modern romance was actually achieving.
All things considered, I understand why critics wanted to praise The Volcano Lover—it does all of the enjoyable things that a traditional historical novel does: it informs, instructs, and entertains. But it does these things in a new and unfamiliar form—one so thoughtful and systematic it could only be labeled postmodern, a narrative experiment, alas, a novel of ideas. Ah, but the idea is volcanic.
--------------------------
This is my second time through, and I was perhaps reading rather more carefully this time as I'm teaching the novel in a course centered on both female Neapolitan writers (Serao, Ortese, and Ferrante) stretched to include Sontag and a film element focusing on the female figure in some other literary and celluloid depictions of Naples (Boccaccio, Di Giacomo, Wurtmuller). While I'm pleased with the above review (it still pretty much sums up my reading) it was kind of wonderful to read the novel while living here in Naples, even on the Circumvesuviana train on my commute to work, right under the mouth of the volcano that becomes such an important objective correlative, I think, in the novel, relating both to the Cavaliere's outward reticence and his wife's inner passion. I even took a stroll past their residence, the Palazzo Sessa, now Naples' synagogue yesterday just to trod in the famous couple's footsteps.
This time through I did feel a tad less totally seduced by the narrative at every turning. For, at its worst, there are some passages that feel more like the summation of research than the furthering of the story, a tad more historical than novel shall we say; but I was also more impressed this time by the passages in which our narrator directly spoke of female experience and gave us an omniscient female voice reassessing history--this was so welcome in a world with so many omniscient male narrators! I still very much love this novel for the Neapolitan history, the pleasurable drama, and the erudite asides and interpretations.
Anyone who enjoys this novel should try Enzo Striano's Il resto di niente, an historical novel focusing on the life of Eleanora de Fonseca Pimentel and the short-lived Partenopean Republic of 1799, here a powerful voice if only a minor character. That's the novel every Neapolitan told me to read when I first moved here and it is a great one. Sadly I believe it's never been translated into English. Yes, I have considered doing it myself, although it would be quite difficult given its mixing of Eleanora's native Portuguese with Neapolitan dialect and Italian. if anyone out there wants to offer me money to undertake the project, let me know.
The Volcano Lover, published in 1992, is, in retrospect, not a novel of ideas so much as a romance of passions. It begins with Hamilton’s passion for collecting—first for art, then objects, and finally his late acquisition of the inimitable Emma—and flows seamlessly into Emma and Nelson’s unexpected and ill-timed love affair—back-dropped by the political passion of the short-lived Republic of Naples. Lady Hamilton’s assumed passing of the royal outrage of the deposed queen to Lord Nelson, and the admiral’s ruthless putting down of the high-minded Jacobins when he restores the monarchy (historically the biggest blot on the hero’s military career), finishes the etymological exploration of the word passion (from Latin “patior” to suffer), when the romance recounts the sad martyrdom of the short-lived democratic governors of the city. It makes a good read in these days in which democracy seems again teetering on the brink, as the USA, for the second time in the last 5 elections, has saddled the nation with a president not elected by the people but by the electoral college.
I had to read Sontag’s conversation with Edward Hirsh in The Paris Review (The Art of Fiction #143—available online) in order to understand the book’s form, its division into four unequal parts with a prologue. In the interview Sontag explains her inspiration for the structure: “I took it from a piece of music, Hindemith’s The Four Temperaments... (It) starts with a triple prologue, three very short pieces. Then come four movements—melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, choleric. In that order. I knew I was going to have a triple prologue and then four sections or parts corresponding to the four temperaments—though I saw no reason to belabor the idea by actually labeling Parts I to IV “melancholic,” “sanguinic,” etcetera.”
Oh, Ms. Sontag, please belabor! Once I had understood this structure, The Volcano Lover became a considerably more enjoyable read. For it is a text libel to be off-putting for those accustomed to the easy, pretend-omniscient narrative of standard historical fiction—as well as those avid readers of history. For The Volcano Lover alternates freely between these two styles of discourse. It never quite throws historical detail or its opinionated commenting authorial voice out the window for that pretend fictional narrator. Nor does it fail to digress on its themes or to recount events out of order for dramatic effect, or to descend wholly into the voices and opinions of its characters, letting them have their say—particularly in the stunning “choleric” conclusion, in which 4 angry women clear the air from beyond the grave. Focused as I was on the traditions of the historical novel, I read on ignorant of what this post-modern romance was actually achieving.
All things considered, I understand why critics wanted to praise The Volcano Lover—it does all of the enjoyable things that a traditional historical novel does: it informs, instructs, and entertains. But it does these things in a new and unfamiliar form—one so thoughtful and systematic it could only be labeled postmodern, a narrative experiment, alas, a novel of ideas. Ah, but the idea is volcanic.
--------------------------
This is my second time through, and I was perhaps reading rather more carefully this time as I'm teaching the novel in a course centered on both female Neapolitan writers (Serao, Ortese, and Ferrante) stretched to include Sontag and a film element focusing on the female figure in some other literary and celluloid depictions of Naples (Boccaccio, Di Giacomo, Wurtmuller). While I'm pleased with the above review (it still pretty much sums up my reading) it was kind of wonderful to read the novel while living here in Naples, even on the Circumvesuviana train on my commute to work, right under the mouth of the volcano that becomes such an important objective correlative, I think, in the novel, relating both to the Cavaliere's outward reticence and his wife's inner passion. I even took a stroll past their residence, the Palazzo Sessa, now Naples' synagogue yesterday just to trod in the famous couple's footsteps.
This time through I did feel a tad less totally seduced by the narrative at every turning. For, at its worst, there are some passages that feel more like the summation of research than the furthering of the story, a tad more historical than novel shall we say; but I was also more impressed this time by the passages in which our narrator directly spoke of female experience and gave us an omniscient female voice reassessing history--this was so welcome in a world with so many omniscient male narrators! I still very much love this novel for the Neapolitan history, the pleasurable drama, and the erudite asides and interpretations.
Anyone who enjoys this novel should try Enzo Striano's Il resto di niente, an historical novel focusing on the life of Eleanora de Fonseca Pimentel and the short-lived Partenopean Republic of 1799, here a powerful voice if only a minor character. That's the novel every Neapolitan told me to read when I first moved here and it is a great one. Sadly I believe it's never been translated into English. Yes, I have considered doing it myself, although it would be quite difficult given its mixing of Eleanora's native Portuguese with Neapolitan dialect and Italian. if anyone out there wants to offer me money to undertake the project, let me know.
February 19, 2012
Perhaps I should start with a comment by Evelyn Toynton in COMMENTARY, Nov. 1992, right after the book was published. This is just a short section of a well written critique:
"But in the end, apart from some vivid images of street scenes in Naples, of a rampaging mob, of Sir William’s pathetic pet monkey, and of Emma dancing, the strongest impression one takes away from this book is of the suffocatingly humorless presence of Susan Son-tag.
She has become by now a virtual icon of Mind, the ultimate “glamorous intellectual,” as Vanity Fair puts it. Yet her chief strength may lie in nothing much more than the ability to assume a voice of authority at all times. In the case of The Volcano Lover, what this produces is a solemn rather than a serious novel, in which portentous observations are made in the tone of someone offering a glimpse of the Holy Grail."
It is that cold, distant, "voice of authority" narrator that made this a very hard book for me to read. Strangely, that voice works best when describing the volcano itself--but the people in the book remain puppets and Sontag comes right out, at the very end of the book, and states how she despises them. In the last 4 pages of the book, the "voice" is that of Eleonora Pimentel as she is about to be hanged for her part in the Neapolitan revolution of 1799. Those 4 pages are simply amazing. Eleonora ends the book by saying:
"But I cannot forgive those who did not care about more than their own glory or well-being. They thought they were civilized. They were despicable. Damn them all."
So perhaps Sontag deliberately set up William and Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson to be self-indulgent puppets--but I have little patience with authors who detest their own characters. If Sontag had written a diatribe against wealth and aristocats, she should have used her famous essay form. And if she IS an advocate for the poor, why write this novel without bringing them into the picture at all?
I have to admit I skimmed this book rapidly--but those last 4 pages stopped me in my tracks. Those pages brought the book from one star to two for me.
"But in the end, apart from some vivid images of street scenes in Naples, of a rampaging mob, of Sir William’s pathetic pet monkey, and of Emma dancing, the strongest impression one takes away from this book is of the suffocatingly humorless presence of Susan Son-tag.
She has become by now a virtual icon of Mind, the ultimate “glamorous intellectual,” as Vanity Fair puts it. Yet her chief strength may lie in nothing much more than the ability to assume a voice of authority at all times. In the case of The Volcano Lover, what this produces is a solemn rather than a serious novel, in which portentous observations are made in the tone of someone offering a glimpse of the Holy Grail."
It is that cold, distant, "voice of authority" narrator that made this a very hard book for me to read. Strangely, that voice works best when describing the volcano itself--but the people in the book remain puppets and Sontag comes right out, at the very end of the book, and states how she despises them. In the last 4 pages of the book, the "voice" is that of Eleonora Pimentel as she is about to be hanged for her part in the Neapolitan revolution of 1799. Those 4 pages are simply amazing. Eleonora ends the book by saying:
"But I cannot forgive those who did not care about more than their own glory or well-being. They thought they were civilized. They were despicable. Damn them all."
So perhaps Sontag deliberately set up William and Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson to be self-indulgent puppets--but I have little patience with authors who detest their own characters. If Sontag had written a diatribe against wealth and aristocats, she should have used her famous essay form. And if she IS an advocate for the poor, why write this novel without bringing them into the picture at all?
I have to admit I skimmed this book rapidly--but those last 4 pages stopped me in my tracks. Those pages brought the book from one star to two for me.
December 4, 2008
Deep research on scandals and art works of aristocratic late 18th-century Naples around the time of the French Revolution made into good story/character study of English aesthete and collector William Hamilton, his two wives, and Admiral Nelson. Hamilton profited from the excavations at Pompeii, had an intimate view of the scatalogical excesses and executions perpetrated by the Neapolitan court, and participated in a few menages a trois. His second wife Emma progresses as a Barry Lyndon-type rake, and Admiral Nelson is revealed as a fool. With first-person narratives of the death of each major character in the final chapters, Sontag tears away masks, depriving collecting and the desire for social betterment of moral value. Sontag's constant need to provide a 20th-century perspective weighs down the novel with her own narcissistic reflections. After all, she herself was a collector of facts and perceptions as much as an actor in the intellectual drama of the second half of the 20th-century.
March 31, 2025
Η Λαίδη Χάμιλτον και η πολυτάραχη ζωή της έγινε αντικείμενο αρκετών βιογραφιών και ιστορικών μυθιστορημάτων. Μεταξύ αυτών η Λαίδη Χάμιλτον: Μια ζωή γεμάτη πάθος του Ζιλμπέρ Σινουέ και Ο Εραστής του Ηφαιστείου της Σούζαν Σόνταγκ (1933-2004), που μεταφράστηκε για πρώτη φορά στη γλώσσα μας από τον Αντώνη Γαλέο το 1998 για τις εκδόσεις Οδυσσέας, έξι χρόνια μετά την πρώτη του κυκλοφορία στα αγγλικά. Η νέα, προσεγμένη μετάφραση της Μαρίας Μπλάνα, πιστή στο ύφος του πρωτοτύπου, για τις εκδόσεις Gutenberg, από τις οποίες κυκλοφόρησαν πρόσφατα και δυο τόμοι με δοκίμια της Σόνταγκ, είναι ιδανική ευκαιρία για να (ξανα)διαβάσουμε ένα έργο που σε μερικές δεκαετίες θα θεωρείται «κλασικό». Το πολυσέλιδο αυτό μυθιστόρημα, πέμπτο εκ των έξι που συνέγραψε η Σόνταγκ, αποτελεί τον 100ο τόμο της εμβληματικής σειράς Aldina του εκδοτικού οίκου, πλαισιώνεται από δεκάδες επεξ��γηματικές υποσημειώσεις της μεταφράστριας, κυρίως για ιστορικά πρόσωπα και γεγονότα, όχι όμως από κάποιο, στοιχειώδες έστω, ενημερωτικό επίμετρο.
Σε αντίθεση με τα περισσότερα πεζά έργα (βιογραφίες, ιστορικά μυθιστορήματα και μελέτες ), θεατρικά και ταινίες, η υπόθεση του μυθιστορήματος δεν εστιάζει αποκλειστικά στον παράνομο ερωτικό δεσμό του επονομαζόμενου «θρύλου των θαλασσών» και της καλλονής που ανέβηκε τα σκαλιά της κοινωνικής ιεραρχίας χάρη στους ερωτικούς της δεσμούς και στον γάμο της με έναν κατά πολύ μεγαλύτερό της Άγγλο ευγενή. Η ερωτική τους περιπέτεια λειτουργεί ως αφορμή για την περιδιάβαση σε μια κρίσιμη ιστορική περίοδο του 18ου αιώνα που βρίθει γεγονότων, ιδεών και (έμμεσων) ιστορικών ερμηνειών που αντανακλούν τις απόψεις της συγγραφέως για πληθώρα ζητημάτων, από τον φεμινισμό έως τις ιστορικές συνθήκες της εποχής και τους παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν τις πράξεις αυτών που καθορίζουν τον ρου της Ιστορίας ή αφήνουν το αποτύπωμά τους σε αυτήν. Άλλωστε, ο εραστής του τίτλου δεν είναι ο εραστής της Λαίδης Χάμιλτον, αλλά ο σύζυγός της με τη σχεδόν εμμονική ενασχόλησή του με το ηφαίστειο του Βεζούβιου, τις εκρήξεις και τα πετρώματά του. Θα έλεγε κάποιος ότι και η Σόνταγκ γοητεύεται από τις εικόνες καταστροφής, που τη φαντάζεται και την πλησιάζει όπως κάποτε ο Πλίνιος ο Νεότερος την ιστορική έκρηξη του Βεζούβιου, αλλά χωρίς η ίδια να καεί.
Ως διανοούμενη η Σόνταγκ, εύλογα επιλέγει ως πρωταγωνιστή αυτού του roman à clef σημαντικών ιστορικών γεγονότων και ισχυρών προσωπικοτήτων που αναδείχθηκαν σε ταραγμένες εποχές, όχι την Έμα ή τον Νέλσον, αλλά τον ηλικιωμένο διανοούμενο που απαξιώθηκε και περιφρονήθηκε ως αφελής «κερατάς» από τις λονδρέζικες εφημερίδες της εποχής και τις καρικατούρες του James Gillray: τοποθετεί στο επίκεντρο του έργου όχι την ερωτική ιστορία μεταξύ της Λαίδης Χάμιλτον με τον Ναύαρχο Νέλσον, αλλά το ειδύλλιο του Καβαλιέρε με τη λάβα του Βεζούβιου.
Έτερος πρωταγωνιστής θα λέγαμε πως είναι η Ιστορία, επιλογή που ενδεχομένως θα απογοητεύσει όσους, παρασυρμένοι από τον υπότιτλο Ένα ρομάντζο (που απουσιάζει, ωστόσο, από το εξώφυλλο αμφότερων των ελληνικών εκδόσεων) θα περίμεναν να διαβάσουν μια ιστορία για το μεγάλο ερωτικό πάθος που ένωσε τη Λαίδη με τον Ναύαρχο. Όμως, χάρη στο συγγραφικό τάλαντο της Σόνταγκ, είναι μέσα από την Ιστορία που το μυθιστόρημα γίνεται σπουδαίο. Σε μια Νάπολη που η μοναρχία απειλείται από την απήχηση των επαναστατικών ιδεών και κινδυνεύει όπως τα γύρω χωριά και πόλεις από μια ηφαιστειακή έκρηξη, με μια βασίλισσα που φοβάται πως θα έχει το τραγικό τέλος της αδερφής της και θα βρεθεί στην γκιλοτίνα, η επιθυμία συγκρούεται με την ευθύνη, το προσωπικό υποχωρεί μπροστά στο κοινωνικό που παίρνει τη θέση πρωταγωνιστή. Μετά την αφήγηση του ρομαντικού ανεμοστρόβιλου στον οποίο παρασύρεται ο Καβαλιέρε χάρη στον έρωτά του για μια νεότερη γυναίκα, τη σκυτάλη παίρνουν οι πολιτικές ίντριγκες, η εξέγερση στη Νάπολη και οι ενέργειες του Βρετανού ήρωα που υπό την επιρροή της ερωμένης του και δίχως την επίσημη στήριξη της Βρετανικής κυβέρνησης διέσωσε τη βασιλική αυλή της Νάπολης.
Φιλοτεχνώντας την πληθωρική, σχεδόν μπαρόκ, τοιχογραφία μιας κρίσιμης εποχής, η Σόνταγκ δεν γράφει με σκοπό να διασκεδάσει τον αναγνώστη· το μυθιστόρημά της είναι περισσότερο ιστορικό παρά ρομαντικό, περισσότερο εγκεφαλικό παρά ερωτικό. Η γραφή, τα σχόλια και οι επιλογές της δίνουν την εντύπωση πως για την ίδια τη συγγραφέα δίχως το συγκεκριμένο ιστορικό πλαίσιο και τον ρόλο που διαδραμάτισαν στην Ιστορία οι ήρωες και το ερωτικό τους menage à trois πολύ πιθανόν να ήταν θέμα άξιο για τη λογοτεχνία (άλλωστε η συμβίωση των τριών μετά την επιστροφή τους στη Βρετανία ήταν ένα από τα μεγαλύτερα σκάνδαλα της εποχής και απασχολούσε διαρκώς τον τύπο), αλλά διόλου επαρκές για τη Σόνταγκ ώστε να γράψει ένα βιβλίο γι’ αυτούς. Ιστορία, τέχνη, έρωτας και μουσική είναι τα βασικά συστατικά αυτού του μεταμοντέρνου μυθιστορήματος που η ίδια η Σόνταγκ θεωρούσε ως το σπουδαιότερό της. Πολύ συχνά η συγγραφέας προβαίνει σε σχόλια και στοχασμούς ψυχολογικής, φιλοσοφικής και αισθητικής τάξεως π.χ. για τις εμμονές, για την Τέχνη, για τα κίνητρα και τον τρόπο σκέψης των μανιωδών συλλεκτών. Στόχος της δεν είναι ο αναγνώστης να νιώσει ότι συμπάσχει με τους ήρωες του έργου, ούτε να γελάσει, να κλάψει, να ενθουσιαστεί ή να απογοητευτεί με τις περιπέτειες και τις προσωπικές τραγωδίες των πρωταγωνιστών της, αλλά μέσα από το επιμέρους να γνωρίσει το καθολικό. Γι’ αυτό και οι ήρωες συνήθως δεν αποκαλούνται με τα ονόματα αλλά με τις ιδιότητές τους: ο Χάμιλτον είναι ο Καβαλιέρε, η Έμα η γυναίκα του Καβαλιέρε και η ερωμένη του Νέλσον, ο Νέλσον ο Ήρωας, ο Γκαίτε που κάνει μια σχεδόν cameo εμφάνιση είναι ο Ποιητής.
Τα υπόλοιπα στο κείμενό μου στο τεύχος Απριλίου του The Books' Journal.
Σε αντίθεση με τα περισσότερα πεζά έργα (βιογραφίες, ιστορικά μυθιστορήματα και μελέτες ), θεατρικά και ταινίες, η υπόθεση του μυθιστορήματος δεν εστιάζει αποκλειστικά στον παράνομο ερωτικό δεσμό του επονομαζόμενου «θρύλου των θαλασσών» και της καλλονής που ανέβηκε τα σκαλιά της κοινωνικής ιεραρχίας χάρη στους ερωτικούς της δεσμούς και στον γάμο της με έναν κατά πολύ μεγαλύτερό της Άγγλο ευγενή. Η ερωτική τους περιπέτεια λειτουργεί ως αφορμή για την περιδιάβαση σε μια κρίσιμη ιστορική περίοδο του 18ου αιώνα που βρίθει γεγονότων, ιδεών και (έμμεσων) ιστορικών ερμηνειών που αντανακλούν τις απόψεις της συγγραφέως για πληθώρα ζητημάτων, από τον φεμινισμό έως τις ιστορικές συνθήκες της εποχής και τους παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν τις πράξεις αυτών που καθορίζουν τον ρου της Ιστορίας ή αφήνουν το αποτύπωμά τους σε αυτήν. Άλλωστε, ο εραστής του τίτλου δεν είναι ο εραστής της Λαίδης Χάμιλτον, αλλά ο σύζυγός της με τη σχεδόν εμμονική ενασχόλησή του με το ηφαίστειο του Βεζούβιου, τις εκρήξεις και τα πετρώματά του. Θα έλεγε κάποιος ότι και η Σόνταγκ γοητεύεται από τις εικόνες καταστροφής, που τη φαντάζεται και την πλησιάζει όπως κάποτε ο Πλίνιος ο Νεότερος την ιστορική έκρηξη του Βεζούβιου, αλλά χωρίς η ίδια να καεί.
Ως διανοούμενη η Σόνταγκ, εύλογα επιλέγει ως πρωταγωνιστή αυτού του roman à clef σημαντικών ιστορικών γεγονότων και ισχυρών προσωπικοτήτων που αναδείχθηκαν σε ταραγμένες εποχές, όχι την Έμα ή τον Νέλσον, αλλά τον ηλικιωμένο διανοούμενο που απαξιώθηκε και περιφρονήθηκε ως αφελής «κερατάς» από τις λονδρέζικες εφημερίδες της εποχής και τις καρικατούρες του James Gillray: τοποθετεί στο επίκεντρο του έργου όχι την ερωτική ιστορία μεταξύ της Λαίδης Χάμιλτον με τον Ναύαρχο Νέλσον, αλλά το ειδύλλιο του Καβαλιέρε με τη λάβα του Βεζούβιου.
Έτερος πρωταγωνιστής θα λέγαμε πως είναι η Ιστορία, επιλογή που ενδεχομένως θα απογοητεύσει όσους, παρασυρμένοι από τον υπότιτλο Ένα ρομάντζο (που απουσιάζει, ωστόσο, από το εξώφυλλο αμφότερων των ελληνικών εκδόσεων) θα περίμεναν να διαβάσουν μια ιστορία για το μεγάλο ερωτικό πάθος που ένωσε τη Λαίδη με τον Ναύαρχο. Όμως, χάρη στο συγγραφικό τάλαντο της Σόνταγκ, είναι μέσα από την Ιστορία που το μυθιστόρημα γίνεται σπουδαίο. Σε μια Νάπολη που η μοναρχία απειλείται από την απήχηση των επαναστατικών ιδεών και κινδυνεύει όπως τα γύρω χωριά και πόλεις από μια ηφαιστειακή έκρηξη, με μια βασίλισσα που φοβάται πως θα έχει το τραγικό τέλος της αδερφής της και θα βρεθεί στην γκιλοτίνα, η επιθυμία συγκρούεται με την ευθύνη, το προσωπικό υποχωρεί μπροστά στο κοινωνικό που παίρνει τη θέση πρωταγωνιστή. Μετά την αφήγηση του ρομαντικού ανεμοστρόβιλου στον οποίο παρασύρεται ο Καβαλιέρε χάρη στον έρωτά του για μια νεότερη γυναίκα, τη σκυτάλη παίρνουν οι πολιτικές ίντριγκες, η εξέγερση στη Νάπολη και οι ενέργειες του Βρετανού ήρωα που υπό την επιρροή της ερωμένης του και δίχως την επίσημη στήριξη της Βρετανικής κυβέρνησης διέσωσε τη βασιλική αυλή της Νάπολης.
Φιλοτεχνώντας την πληθωρική, σχεδόν μπαρόκ, τοιχογραφία μιας κρίσιμης εποχής, η Σόνταγκ δεν γράφει με σκοπό να διασκεδάσει τον αναγνώστη· το μυθιστόρημά της είναι περισσότερο ιστορικό παρά ρομαντικό, περισσότερο εγκεφαλικό παρά ερωτικό. Η γραφή, τα σχόλια και οι επιλογές της δίνουν την εντύπωση πως για την ίδια τη συγγραφέα δίχως το συγκεκριμένο ιστορικό πλαίσιο και τον ρόλο που διαδραμάτισαν στην Ιστορία οι ήρωες και το ερωτικό τους menage à trois πολύ πιθανόν να ήταν θέμα άξιο για τη λογοτεχνία (άλλωστε η συμβίωση των τριών μετά την επιστροφή τους στη Βρετανία ήταν ένα από τα μεγαλύτερα σκάνδαλα της εποχής και απασχολούσε διαρκώς τον τύπο), αλλά διόλου επαρκές για τη Σόνταγκ ώστε να γράψει ένα βιβλίο γι’ αυτούς. Ιστορία, τέχνη, έρωτας και μουσική είναι τα βασικά συστατικά αυτού του μεταμοντέρνου μυθιστορήματος που η ίδια η Σόνταγκ θεωρούσε ως το σπουδαιότερό της. Πολύ συχνά η συγγραφέας προβαίνει σε σχόλια και στοχασμούς ψυχολογικής, φιλοσοφικής και αισθητικής τάξεως π.χ. για τις εμμονές, για την Τέχνη, για τα κίνητρα και τον τρόπο σκέψης των μανιωδών συλλεκτών. Στόχος της δεν είναι ο αναγνώστης να νιώσει ότι συμπάσχει με τους ήρωες του έργου, ούτε να γελάσει, να κλάψει, να ενθουσιαστεί ή να απογοητευτεί με τις περιπέτειες και τις προσωπικές τραγωδίες των πρωταγωνιστών της, αλλά μέσα από το επιμέρους να γνωρίσει το καθολικό. Γι’ αυτό και οι ήρωες συνήθως δεν αποκαλούνται με τα ονόματα αλλά με τις ιδιότητές τους: ο Χάμιλτον είναι ο Καβαλιέρε, η Έμα η γυναίκα του Καβαλιέρε και η ερωμένη του Νέλσον, ο Νέλσον ο Ήρωας, ο Γκαίτε που κάνει μια σχεδόν cameo εμφάνιση είναι ο Ποιητής.
Τα υπόλοιπα στο κείμενό μου στο τεύχος Απριλίου του The Books' Journal.
March 28, 2025
Qué exquisita y enriquecedora se percibe la complejidad del ser humano y sus relaciones cuando es narrada de esta manera.
El Nápoles del siglo XVIII, la revolución, una época convulsionada y una aristocracia ensimismada en sus placeres. En este contexto Susan Sontag reconstruye con destreza personajes históricos claramente influenciados por sus mas profundos deseos, pasiones y ambiciones. Personajes que aman incondicionalmente, que tienen esa necesidad natural de sentirse comprendidos, que afrontan las pérdidas e intentan sobreponerse a ellas. Todo bien narrado, salpicado de reflexiones, y con una voz y visión tan bien lograda de los personajes, sobre todo los femeninos, que uno queda más que maravillado con el talento y la inteligencia de la autora.
Finalmente, las últimas páginas y ese cambio de perspectivas que propone sobre sus personajes y la historia terminan siendo un recurso magistral, un excelente cierre para una gran novela.
El Nápoles del siglo XVIII, la revolución, una época convulsionada y una aristocracia ensimismada en sus placeres. En este contexto Susan Sontag reconstruye con destreza personajes históricos claramente influenciados por sus mas profundos deseos, pasiones y ambiciones. Personajes que aman incondicionalmente, que tienen esa necesidad natural de sentirse comprendidos, que afrontan las pérdidas e intentan sobreponerse a ellas. Todo bien narrado, salpicado de reflexiones, y con una voz y visión tan bien lograda de los personajes, sobre todo los femeninos, que uno queda más que maravillado con el talento y la inteligencia de la autora.
Finalmente, las últimas páginas y ese cambio de perspectivas que propone sobre sus personajes y la historia terminan siendo un recurso magistral, un excelente cierre para una gran novela.
Read
July 21, 2025Ėmiau skaityti po Gatopardo, kelionės po Siciliją metu. Labai mėgavausi šia knyga - kokia ji man buvo pilna ir nuostabi. Bandžiau ieškoti kažkokios info internete, kaip lietuviai ją priėmė ir nieko neradau, nes išleista 2001. O po kelionės įkritau su skaitymu į kažkokią duobę. Nepamenu ar buvo mano, ar knygos kaltė. Bet vėl atostogos, tai pabaigiau. Pabaiga vėl žavinti.
February 22, 2015
Who knew a volcano could give birth to such a wealth of conflicting symbolism? In Sontag’s gripping piece of historical fiction, it appears as a metaphor for destruction and preservation, the artistic and the scientific, the penis and the vagina – and a whole lot more.
I personally love historical fiction and The Volcano Lover is an enjoyable and thought-provoking example of the genre. It takes as its basis a very famous, real-life love affair from the Napoleonic Wars, but avoids directly naming its key characters until the very last page. The protagonist is not only a volcanologist, but also a collector of assorted objets d’art and British ambassador in 18th-century Italy. His residence in Naples overlooks the smoldering Mount Vesuvius, which he regularly clambers up either to collect samples or to entertain visiting dignitaries – one of the most famous of whom (and certainly the most amusingly acerbic) is Goethe.
This visit by Goethe, like the general framework of the novel, is largely faithful to history and certain events that took place in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies leading up to and during the Napoleonic Wars. There are also, however, several occurrences described that never really took place, blurring the lines between fact and fiction – for instance, the plot from the opera Tosca is insouciantly inserted into the very real persecution of anti-monarchists.
Sontag clearly doesn’t want the reader to dwell too much on the historical elements, but more on the universal themes. The Volcano Lover employs several narrative devices to force us back from becoming completely enveloped by the world it evokes, e.g. not naming its central couple until the end, starting the book with a scene set more than 200 years after the events described, having dead characters reflect on their lives. This is a novel that entertains, but also very obviously wants you to think what the plot and characters say about war, women and the nature of art.
I personally love historical fiction and The Volcano Lover is an enjoyable and thought-provoking example of the genre. It takes as its basis a very famous, real-life love affair from the Napoleonic Wars, but avoids directly naming its key characters until the very last page. The protagonist is not only a volcanologist, but also a collector of assorted objets d’art and British ambassador in 18th-century Italy. His residence in Naples overlooks the smoldering Mount Vesuvius, which he regularly clambers up either to collect samples or to entertain visiting dignitaries – one of the most famous of whom (and certainly the most amusingly acerbic) is Goethe.
This visit by Goethe, like the general framework of the novel, is largely faithful to history and certain events that took place in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies leading up to and during the Napoleonic Wars. There are also, however, several occurrences described that never really took place, blurring the lines between fact and fiction – for instance, the plot from the opera Tosca is insouciantly inserted into the very real persecution of anti-monarchists.
Sontag clearly doesn’t want the reader to dwell too much on the historical elements, but more on the universal themes. The Volcano Lover employs several narrative devices to force us back from becoming completely enveloped by the world it evokes, e.g. not naming its central couple until the end, starting the book with a scene set more than 200 years after the events described, having dead characters reflect on their lives. This is a novel that entertains, but also very obviously wants you to think what the plot and characters say about war, women and the nature of art.
April 16, 2008
I couldn't even finish this book. Not my cup of tea. If I don't like the style and what the author has to say, I don't waste my time on it.
September 15, 2016
Det känns som att Susan hände mig. Tidigare har jag bara läst hennes On Photography, och hennes essäistiska bakgrund är tydlig här.
Denna bok är väldigt, väldigt bra. Väldigt bra, alltså.
Denna bok är väldigt, väldigt bra. Väldigt bra, alltså.
April 1, 2025
Ο λόρδος Χαμιλτον, είναι ο πρέσβης της Αγγλίας στην Νάπολη του 18ου αιώνα.Αγαπά την τέχνη και του αρέσει να συλλέγει από πίνακες μέχρι πέτρες του ηφαιστείου. Η επιλογή της νεαρής Έμμα ως δεύτερη σύζυγο του, προκαλεί αντιδράσεις αρχικά, αλλά όλοι καταλήγουν να γοητεύονται από εκείνη, την ομορφιά της και την καλλιέργεια που της πρόσφερε ο σύζυγος της. Όταν όμως ο ναύαρχος Νελσον, μπαίνει υπό την προστασία του ζευγαριού, μια σπίθα φουντώνει ανάμεσα τους, που εξελίσσεται σε πυρκαγιά.
Σε αυτό το βιβλίο η συγγραφέας γράφει ένα ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα, που ενώ οι κεντρικοί ήρωες είναι ο Καβαλιέρε κι η αγάπη του για την τέχνη, δεν θα μπορούσε να παραλείψει τα γεγονότ�� που ταλάνισαν το βασίλειο της Νάπολης κατά τη σύντομη διάρκεια του. Ίντριγκες, πολιτικά παιχνίδια, αυλικοί, έρωτες, πάθη γεμίζουν τις σελίδες του βιβλίου αυτού. Ο έρωτας της Εμμα με τον ναύαρχο, μοιάζει να είναι η αρχή της πτώσης του Καβαλιέρε.
Ένα βιβλίο χορταστικό που κατά καιρούς ένιωθα να παρεμβαίνει η φωνή της συγγραφέως, σχολιάζοντας μικρά περιστατικά!
Σίγουρα θέλω να διαβάσω και κάτι άλλο δικό της!
3,5 αστέρια
February 25, 2011
This rating will no doubt seem harsh, compared to the rating I just gave another book, but I think at least in some ways, it's merited.
I really like Sontag's essays, and think she's quite a wonderful writer and thinker, and a lot of that is on display here. I was curious to see what she'd make out of a novel, and she doesn't disappoint in that regard-- this really is a strange book, one that is as interested in argument and philosophy and culture as much as it is in more traditional novelistic concerns. It announces itself as a strange book, one that does very little in the way of traditional narrative scene setting, and instead, for most of the book, is happy to skim the surface of the action and resort mostly to comment.
It's chilly and strange and for the first half of the book, I think it works in this idiosyncratic, deliberate way. I like the Cavaliere as a character, I am a bit of a collector myself, and I'm pretty interested in what Sontag has to say about collecting, late capitalism, and all the rest.
But I can't help but feel she loses the script around the time the Cavaliere's second wife enters into a romantic triangle with Nelson. It just wrenches the story out of areas I'm interested into events that seem to have no thematic significance, that don't illuminate much beyond themselves. And then it drags on and on, without any discernible point-- I mean, there are glances at totalitarianism and repression and democracy, all of which are in Sontag's wheelhouse, but what she has to say here feels too provisional, too rooted in the particular circumstances of her historical romance.
I do like the monologue that closes the book, which is obviously a very contemporary cri de couer about arts in the present moment. But it comes probably a hundred pages after Sontag lost my full sympathy.
I really like Sontag's essays, and think she's quite a wonderful writer and thinker, and a lot of that is on display here. I was curious to see what she'd make out of a novel, and she doesn't disappoint in that regard-- this really is a strange book, one that is as interested in argument and philosophy and culture as much as it is in more traditional novelistic concerns. It announces itself as a strange book, one that does very little in the way of traditional narrative scene setting, and instead, for most of the book, is happy to skim the surface of the action and resort mostly to comment.
It's chilly and strange and for the first half of the book, I think it works in this idiosyncratic, deliberate way. I like the Cavaliere as a character, I am a bit of a collector myself, and I'm pretty interested in what Sontag has to say about collecting, late capitalism, and all the rest.
But I can't help but feel she loses the script around the time the Cavaliere's second wife enters into a romantic triangle with Nelson. It just wrenches the story out of areas I'm interested into events that seem to have no thematic significance, that don't illuminate much beyond themselves. And then it drags on and on, without any discernible point-- I mean, there are glances at totalitarianism and repression and democracy, all of which are in Sontag's wheelhouse, but what she has to say here feels too provisional, too rooted in the particular circumstances of her historical romance.
I do like the monologue that closes the book, which is obviously a very contemporary cri de couer about arts in the present moment. But it comes probably a hundred pages after Sontag lost my full sympathy.
April 21, 2024
La novela tiene mucho méritos a nivel filosófico y estético, pero no se le pueden dar los mismo a nivel narrativo. Si bien se reflexiona sobre ciertas prácticas, dinámicas, concepciones de la época, no se siente que exista una trama, y es entendible puesto que se trata de una novela histórica, esto me confirma que no me gustan este tipo de libros. Sin embargo, me pregunto qué tanto pudo haberse mejorado si por ejemplo, la autora no se perdía tanto en instropecciones que no incumbían en la novela, o en descripciones eternas de lo que sucedía. Hay otros inconvenientes que me hacen apreciarla menos, como hechos que se narran de forma muy general y otros que abarcan demaciadas páginas, saltos en el tiempo que no se justifican, o alteraciones en el carácter en la voz narrativa que cambian por completo el tono de la novela. A esto se suma un desbalance en la novela entre los sucesos políticos y los domésticos, porque no existe una conexión orgánica entre ambas dimensiones, este enlace, aun si es producto de las circunstancias que vievn los personajes se siente extraño, fue casi como leer dos novelas distintas. Aun así, sería una mentirosa si dijera que no la disfruté aunque fuera un poco, las intrigas de los personajes, su ingenuidad, frialdad, obsesiones y deseos hacen que la novela a veces se torne emocionante.
July 25, 2021
As a writer, I greatly admire Susan Sontag's writing in this book. (I have not read her other work.) She is brilliant, there is no other word to describe her voice, style and ability to dig deep into her characters' psyche. She unapologetically breaks rules and it doesn't matter because she's that talented. She opened up a style of writing that was unfamiliar to me, one that I came to really applaud especially her very short descriptive (list-like) sentences that set the tone and pulled me into her domain.
She goes very deep into the mind of her characters, not only revealing their egotistical nature but detailing their flaws and obsessions especially the Cavalier's love of beauty and collecting and the Hero's need to be admired. But Susan Sontag is not a romantic, just the opposite. And her point of view was sobering, heart-wrenching and beautifully painful at times. Like holding up a mirror and seeing the shadow within. But the book is worth reading and this one will stay with me for a very long time.
She goes very deep into the mind of her characters, not only revealing their egotistical nature but detailing their flaws and obsessions especially the Cavalier's love of beauty and collecting and the Hero's need to be admired. But Susan Sontag is not a romantic, just the opposite. And her point of view was sobering, heart-wrenching and beautifully painful at times. Like holding up a mirror and seeing the shadow within. But the book is worth reading and this one will stay with me for a very long time.
May 23, 2010
This is an exhilarating read more for its encyclopedic if kaleidoscopically shifting views of a passionately intelligent and acquisitive Cavaliere. It matters little that the novel is based on the real-life triangle of Sir William Hamilton, his wife Emma, and Lord Nelson. What counts is the formal yet lyrical beauty of the writing, the ever-changing impressions of a man in love with not just a woman but the world of objects and art. Almost mystical in the revelry of its cataloguing of things and experience, it is at once a contradictory celebration of the primacy of empiricism and the transcendence from the mundane that only an elevated mind can realize in the accumulation of life. This is one book that epitomizes the philosophy of gestalt aesthetics: that a thing of beauty is greater than the sum of all its parts.
August 20, 2016
Every pleasure […] becomes an experience of anticipated loss.
*
They belong to different generations, have had such different lives. Yet they have so many of the same tastes, the same disappointments. From stories they passed to confidences, each unwrapping a package of grief and yearning.
*
To be unaccompanied. To be alone. To lower yourself into your own feelings.
There to find mists and vapors. Then little protuberances of old angers and longings. Then a large emptiness. You think of what you have done, done with brio—great slabs of actions, enterprises. All that energy has drained away. Everything becomes an effort.
Surfeited, his appetite for surfeit. Now it’s enough.
*
They belong to different generations, have had such different lives. Yet they have so many of the same tastes, the same disappointments. From stories they passed to confidences, each unwrapping a package of grief and yearning.
*
To be unaccompanied. To be alone. To lower yourself into your own feelings.
There to find mists and vapors. Then little protuberances of old angers and longings. Then a large emptiness. You think of what you have done, done with brio—great slabs of actions, enterprises. All that energy has drained away. Everything becomes an effort.
Surfeited, his appetite for surfeit. Now it’s enough.
November 22, 2012
I love this book, having first read it back in '92-'93. It's still sitting right there on my shelf, despite having been pulled off several times for a re-read. Complex? Uhmmm, not really. Big words? No bigger, certainly, than McCarthy. Ha! Not even close. No, just top of the line, grade A, "historical romance." If that. I'd call it much more myself. Susan Sontag is a writers writer. 5 Star caliber all the way.
August 25, 2022
მაშრიყიდან მაღრიბამდე რომ არ იყოს გადაჭიმული ტექსტი, უფრო გამიხარდებოდა.
July 26, 2021
درود بر خانم سانتاک دوست عزیزم
من عاشق نقدها و کتابهای ادبی خانم سانتاک هستم نمونه بارز و درجه یکش کتاب علیه تفسیر که واقعا محشر و درجه یک
ولی متاسفانه نتونستم بیشتر از 400صفحشو بخونم و خوانندهرو خیلی پَس میزنه عقب
نمیدونم چی بگم، امیدوارم عذرخواهی منو بپذیری سوزان مهربان و عزیزم
من عاشق نقدها و کتابهای ادبی خانم سانتاک هستم نمونه بارز و درجه یکش کتاب علیه تفسیر که واقعا محشر و درجه یک
ولی متاسفانه نتونستم بیشتر از 400صفحشو بخونم و خوانندهرو خیلی پَس میزنه عقب
نمیدونم چی بگم، امیدوارم عذرخواهی منو بپذیری سوزان مهربان و عزیزم
February 4, 2008
The dramatic love triangle between Sir William Hamilton, his wife Emma, and her lover, Lord Nelson, of the late 18th-century Naples is the basis of Sontag's historical "romance". The Cavaliere is an obsessive collector and fascinated with Mount Vesuvius which becomes symbolic of each characters' emotions at one point or another. When his beloved Catherine dies he falls in love with his nephew's lover, Emma, who ultimately finds true love not in the Cavaliere, but in "the hero", Lord Nelson. The volcano demonstrates the malcontent of the characters in their endless search for satisfaction.
I have not read any other fiction by Sontag, but found the writing style she implemented in this book different than what I had expected after the one or two essays I have read by her. The lack of quotation marks in dialogue is something I am not particularly a fan of (if James Joyce couldn't win me over, I'm not likely to lap it up by someone else), but I managed to make it through. The connection between the volcano and the characters and the mirror images of nature and society was fascinating to me and managed to keep me enthralled.
In typical fashion I wound up being more interested in the shadowy sideline characters, such as the fortune teller, Efrosina. While I wanted to know more about her, her time in the story was short. Character development left something to be desired; while I can understand why Joyce made some of the ridiculous choices he had made (whether I agree with them or not), I can appreciate his efforts. Sontag's choices left me questioning more than I would have liked. Maybe I just need to read more of her fiction to get a better grasp on her work.
I have not read any other fiction by Sontag, but found the writing style she implemented in this book different than what I had expected after the one or two essays I have read by her. The lack of quotation marks in dialogue is something I am not particularly a fan of (if James Joyce couldn't win me over, I'm not likely to lap it up by someone else), but I managed to make it through. The connection between the volcano and the characters and the mirror images of nature and society was fascinating to me and managed to keep me enthralled.
In typical fashion I wound up being more interested in the shadowy sideline characters, such as the fortune teller, Efrosina. While I wanted to know more about her, her time in the story was short. Character development left something to be desired; while I can understand why Joyce made some of the ridiculous choices he had made (whether I agree with them or not), I can appreciate his efforts. Sontag's choices left me questioning more than I would have liked. Maybe I just need to read more of her fiction to get a better grasp on her work.
February 18, 2007
عاشق آتشفشان سومین ولی مشهورترین رمان سونتاگ است. رمانی تاریخی بر مبنای یک مثلث عشقی مشهور که اوایل قرن هژدهم در شهر ناپل ایتالیا اتفاق افتاده. سونتاگ در رمان خود از نام های واقعی قهرمانان استفاده نکرده.
اگرچه سوزان سونتاگ در ایران بیشتر به یک منتقد ادبی و اجتماعی نویس معروف است، و در این زمینه ها کارهای بزرگی تالیف کرده، اما رمان های سونتاگ کارهای زیبایی ست که ندیده یا نشنیده ام به فارسی ترجمه شده باشد. روشن نیست چرا بجز چند مقاله، آثار او به فارسی برگردانده نشده. سوزان سونتاگ از روشنفکران آمریکایی دهه ی 1960 است، با همان دید رادیکال نسبت به جوامع غربی. بعدها به شکلی از آمریکا زده شد و به تبعیدی خودخواسته به اروپا، سوئد و بعدن فرانسه رفت. سال های اقامت سونتاگ در اروپا یادآور زندگی بسیاری از نویسندگان نسل پیش از او هم چون همینگوی است که بخشی از دوران جوانی و میانسالی شان را در اروپا و عمدتن فرانسه گذراندند. اگرچه سونتاگ در میان دانشگاهیان و در رسانه ها بیشتر به یک روشنفکر نق نقو و ایرادگیر معروف است، با این همه نمی توان از نقش او به عنوان یک زن نویسنده در روند تفکر دایره ی روشنفکری آمریکایی ها چشم پوشید.
در مورد رمان های سونتاگ، و بسیاری از رمان های مدرن، به سختی می شود چیزی نوشت، نه داستانی دارد چنان که در رمان های کلاسیک، و نه روندی سنتی، وقایعی پی در پی، کنش ها و واکانش هایی چنان که ذهن ما به آن عادت دارد. در رمان نو بسیاری از خانه ها خالی ست، و پر کردن این خانه های خالی به عهده ی خواننده است. خواندن هم مثل زندگی کردن در دنیای جدید، کار طاقت فرسایی ست.
اگرچه سوزان سونتاگ در ایران بیشتر به یک منتقد ادبی و اجتماعی نویس معروف است، و در این زمینه ها کارهای بزرگی تالیف کرده، اما رمان های سونتاگ کارهای زیبایی ست که ندیده یا نشنیده ام به فارسی ترجمه شده باشد. روشن نیست چرا بجز چند مقاله، آثار او به فارسی برگردانده نشده. سوزان سونتاگ از روشنفکران آمریکایی دهه ی 1960 است، با همان دید رادیکال نسبت به جوامع غربی. بعدها به شکلی از آمریکا زده شد و به تبعیدی خودخواسته به اروپا، سوئد و بعدن فرانسه رفت. سال های اقامت سونتاگ در اروپا یادآور زندگی بسیاری از نویسندگان نسل پیش از او هم چون همینگوی است که بخشی از دوران جوانی و میانسالی شان را در اروپا و عمدتن فرانسه گذراندند. اگرچه سونتاگ در میان دانشگاهیان و در رسانه ها بیشتر به یک روشنفکر نق نقو و ایرادگیر معروف است، با این همه نمی توان از نقش او به عنوان یک زن نویسنده در روند تفکر دایره ی روشنفکری آمریکایی ها چشم پوشید.
در مورد رمان های سونتاگ، و بسیاری از رمان های مدرن، به سختی می شود چیزی نوشت، نه داستانی دارد چنان که در رمان های کلاسیک، و نه روندی سنتی، وقایعی پی در پی، کنش ها و واکانش هایی چنان که ذهن ما به آن عادت دارد. در رمان نو بسیاری از خانه ها خالی ست، و پر کردن این خانه های خالی به عهده ی خواننده است. خواندن هم مثل زندگی کردن در دنیای جدید، کار طاقت فرسایی ست.
February 6, 2024
How not to love this book, in spite of some other reviewers?
4* Under the Sign of Saturn
4* The Volcano Lover
4* Under the Sign of Saturn
4* The Volcano Lover
October 9, 2025
Leído bastante despacio, un poco como ha vivido el Cavaliere: oscilando entre la admiración hacia Sontag (taaaan lista con sus reflexiones sobre la representación de una catástrofe, el coleccionismo, la belleza, la condición de la mujer, todo lo que representa el volcán...) y la frustración por cómo articula la narración en un retrato de la época que se me antoja bastante desdibujado e irregular. En cualquier caso, hay que leer a Sontag y asomarse al volcán.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 376 reviews