The Volcano Lover: A Romance
by Susan Sontag
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Book Summary Information
Author: Susan SontagEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-01
ISBN: 0312420072
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of The Volcano Lover: A Romance
Book Review: Passions and Fancies
Summary: 5 Stars
Hamilton was a collector, married for sixteen years to Catherine, childless. He lived in Naples. He had a reputation as a connoisseur and a man of learning. Hamilton was the British envoy. The Marquis de Sade was in Italy in 1776.
William Beckford arrived in Naples after a pet monkey was acquired by Hamilton. Beckford spoke to Catherine about THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER. They played the piano together.
Catherine was dying. Hamilton fretted he was being inconvenienced. At her death he realized he had deep feeling for her, (but collectors are misanthropic, detached).
He met Emma through his nephew Charles. He was fifty-six and she was twenty-three. Hamilton, Sontag refers to him as The Cavaliere, claimed the impossibility of describing Emma's beauty. He found she had natural authority.
The rest of the story is known, it is history. The telling of it by Sontag is adroit, light, and richly cultured.
The idea of the volcano is masterful. There is the notion of collecting objects and then collecting volcanic events, collecting emotion, passion, the stages of a dynamic system. There are visual effects and there is danger. Excitement is produced. The volcano is a metaphor.
The reader's imagination is engaged. Whereas Susan Sontag was by nature an essayist, not a novelist, her voice does come through in this splendid work.
Summary of The Volcano Lover: A Romance
Set in 18th century Naples, based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his celebrated wife Emma, and Lord Nelson, and peopled with many of the great figures of the day, this unconventional, bestselling historical romance from the National Book Award-winning author of In America touches on themes of sex and revolution, the fate of nature, art and the collector's obsessions, and, above all, love.
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