L'amante del vulcano

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

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 model Leggi tutto

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 sub Leggi tutto

I did alot of yawning while reading this, it was honestly very boring. I also did alot 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 surroundin Leggi tutto

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 Leggi tutto

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 mo Leggi tutto

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 Kin Leggi tutto

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.

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 f Leggi tutto

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, "historic Leggi tutto