Book Review: The Volcano Lover

If you're a photographer then you've read Susan Sontag's On Photography, which is why I couldn't pass by The Volcano Lover without buying it.

It reminds me of a Jane Austen novel, set in the late 1700s it follows a collector and British ambassador to Naples for around 25 years of his life. He gains and loses art and wives, studies a volcano, flees the invading French as their revolution takes hold, meets with Kings and Queens, travels the sea, befriends Admiral Nelson and lives through so much history. What I find very interesting about this book is the lack of names. There are some times when a person is referred to as Duke *** instead of putting the actual name in, it's almost like a test to see if you can deduce who everyone is, Nelson himself is never named, it's simply through a knowledge of history that you realize what is going on. (I'd tell you who everyone is but I think it's more entertaining to let everyone work it out for themselves)

When I am reading a novel the last thing I want is to be pulled back into my own time by the writer and therefore reminded that it is fiction and I am where I actually am. It drove me crazy that Sontag repeatedly did this, continuously making modern day analoges that nearly made me put the book away until I finally realized that Sontag was doing this to draw us into the story more, not push us away. She was trying to help us relating to the characters feeling and state of mind, she gave us modern situations before throwing us back into the character's own peril to get us to understand the emotions and reactions the character had. It still drives me a bit up the wall but I can understand and appreciate what she was doing.

Sontag is very true to details with this work, as she is in everything she does. And since the main character, simply known as the Cavaliere, is a great lover and collector or art and various artifacts it allows Sontag to do what she does best and impart artist knowledge subtly to the reader. I have many pages that have been earmarked and written on for future reference for their simple truth that applies to life and art.

Collectors show the world what has gone "unappreciated, neglected, forgotten. Too much to call this a discovery; call it a recognition" (pg 71). When you think about it, photographers are collectors, they collect memories, moments in time, which is, according to Sontag, and the Cavaliere, what art is all about, the significant moment. That is photography, a moment of feeling, of a look, something frozen in time and truthful, well, some of the time.

I took so many notes in this book that I cannot not recommend it, there is too much it has given me to think about. There are definitely slow parts, and it took me 2 days to get through the last 50 pages but it was worth it in the end when you come across quotes like the one I'll leave you to consider.

"To collect is by definition to collect the past" (pg 268) (I feel like it could be an essay question for school