slauderdale’s Reviews > The Last Days of St. Pierre: The Volcanic Disaster That Claimed 30,000 Lives > Status Update
slauderdale
is 99% done
Definitely not as good as the Scarth book, but I’m glad I read it because it did have a lot of additional stuff. The Scarth book was super focused. This book offered more granularity about personalities, and the “adventures“ of some outsiders who came after May 8 to look at the devastation and the volcano. I was in a better position to appreciate that because I read the other book first.
— Oct 22, 2025 04:27AM
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slauderdale’s Previous Updates
slauderdale
is on page 113 of 292
Weird little fictionalized scene with the meeting of the scientific commission: there have been other little creative embellishment bits like this, but this one sticks out more because of all the invented dialogue.
— Oct 18, 2025 10:20PM
slauderdale
is on page 103 of 292
One thing that I like about this book is that it has given some actual real estate to the volcano that went off in St. Vincent a day before Mount Pelee really blew its top. A full chapter, “La Soufriere.”
— Oct 18, 2025 08:10PM
slauderdale
is on page 68 of 292
“So what’s going to happen next, Professor?” “I wish I knew.” “But don’t you scientists know everything?“ “Hardly, Dr. Guérin. If we did, we wouldn’t be scientists. We’d be encyclopedias.“
— Oct 17, 2025 11:12AM
slauderdale
is on page 31 of 292
“The only thing obviously colonial about Martinique was that its governor was appointed rather than elected…”. And that all the natives were killed off. “…Martinique and the other French West Indian islands were better off in every way…[including] the participation of natives in the government of the mother country.“ The ones that got killed off save for the scant few at the north end of the island?
— Oct 16, 2025 06:54PM
slauderdale
is on page 12 of 292
Scarth (and Ozymandias, the reviewer who recommended his book) may have ruined me for Zebrowski. Still, I shall continue.
— Oct 16, 2025 09:48AM
