The Rittenhouse Review

A Philadelphia Journal of Politics, Finance, Ethics, and Culture


Saturday, January 01, 2005  

BOOK OF THE WEEK
The Volcano Lover

This week’s book of the week is The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag, which I read when it was published in 1992.

Here are a few comments culled by Amazon.com:

“A passionate and often radical novel of ideas that affords all the old-fashioned pleasures of a traditional historical novel.”-- New York Times

“A great novel. It repeatedly scales heights of complex thought, passion, and expression that few American writers ever approach, while reimagining a majestic love story in dazzling style.”-- Philadelphia Inquirer

“A panoramic, passionately feminist examination of the changing shape of Western civilization since the Age of Enlightenment. Sontag’s book is a sweeping, exquisitely detailed picture of Europe in the final decades of the eighteenth century.”-- Chicago Sun-Times

“A slippery, intelligent, provocative, and gripping book.”-- Washington Post Book World

“A novel Susan Sontag was destined to write, a shift from the moral intelligence of the essayist to the intelligent heart of the novelist. To her admirers, the novel will only confirm her originality, and perhaps win over a whole new set of readers. For The Volcano Lover is not just a thinking woman’s (or man’s) historical romance but a sly, luminously insightful, provocative novel.”-- The Nation

“A brilliant performance.”-- Chicago Tribune

Frankly, I thought The Volcano Lover kind of stunk. Pretentiously ponderous. Dismally dull. Consistently cloying. But Sontag passed away earlier this week, so I really shouldn’t say that, should I?

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