The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag
"The Volcano Lover" by Susan Sontag is a historical novel that marks a significant shift in the author’s literary approach, moving from her traditional critical essays to a more experimental narrative form. The story revolves around Sir William Hamilton, a British ambassador in Naples, who has a profound passion for both art and the active, volcanic landscape of Mount Vesuvius. This setting serves as a metaphor for Sir William's emotional life, particularly in relation to his marriage to Emma and his political engagements. The novel intricately weaves themes of aesthetics, politics, and personal relationships, exploring the ways in which individuals navigate their desires and duties.
Sontag employs an ironic narrative voice that critiques the heroic ideals embodied by figures like Admiral Nelson, whose singular devotion to honor creates complex repercussions for those around him. The juxtaposition of beauty and brutality in both art and life is a central focus, inviting readers to reflect on the nature of passion and its impact on human connections. As a critical and popular success, "The Volcano Lover" exemplifies Sontag’s ability to blend her radical political views with a compelling romantic narrative, showcasing her evolution as a writer. This novel offers a rich exploration of the interplay between personal and political spheres during a tumultuous historical period.
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The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1992
Type of work: Novel
The Work
A historical novel seems a radical departure for Sontag, whose critical work scorns realistic fiction and argues in favor of avant-garde styles that challenge conventional ideas about the self and society. However, on another level, The Volcano Lover is an experimental novel. The narrator writes what are, in effect, mini-essays about the nature of art, why people collect it and prize it, and why Sir William Hamilton, in particular, was drawn to the beautiful. The novel is, in other words, about the aesthetic view of life which is, nevertheless, attached to the world of politics and history. Sir William Hamilton is, after all, a British ambassador living in Naples. He is a volcano lover and traverses the hot surface of Mount Vesuvius, an obvious metaphor for the passion that he is able to express only intermittently in his political life and in his marriage to Emma.
Into this aesthetic world Nelson (called only “the hero”) intrudes, enticing both Sir William and his wife to his side. Nelson’s boldness, his attentiveness, and his single-minded devotion to England and to his destiny as a hero make him irresistible—except to the narrator, whose ironic tone questions the brutal consequences of Nelson’s devotion to honor and patriotism.
Both a critical and popular success (the novel was a best seller), The Volcano Lover came at a unique moment in Sontag’s career, justifying her shift away from the essay form to that which she regarded as a more creative, capacious, and spontaneous kind of writing. Her radical politics and her aesthetics remain an important ingredient in the novel, but in this new form of fiction, she is able to harness her ideas to a very romantic and appealing story.
Sources for Further Study
Chicago Tribune. August 9, 1992, XIV, p. 4.
The Christian Science Monitor. August 11, 1992, p. 11.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. August 16, 1992, p. 3.
The Nation. CLV, October 5, 1992, p. 365.
The New York Review of Books. XXXIX, August 13, 1992, p. 3.
The New York Times Book Review. XCVII, August 9, 1992, p. 1.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXIX, June 8, 1992, p. 52.
Time. CXL, August 17, 1992, p. 66.
The Times Literary Supplement. September 25, 1992, p. 24.
The Washington Post Book World. XXII, August 16, 1992, p. 1.