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A review by coleton
The Volcano Lover by Susan Sontag
5.0
Absolutely mind boggling that someone as famous as Sontag can still manage to be underrated. Very few people seem to really take her seriously as an artist, even if they like her as a cultural critic. But if this had been written by John Barth I feel the overall feelings towards it would be much more effusive.
This is an amazing book. First you get Sontag doing her best Balzac impression (and it is a spectacular impression) but it also shows off her breadth of knowledge in a way that is staggering. I’ve never been so bowled over by the sheer amount of knowledge on the page outside of Pynchon.
Then you get her little modernist spins on the the novel, drastically shifting form in the final part, anachronistic digressions, the author inserting herself mid-sentence, etc. and with this she takes an old fashioned story and contextualizes it with the contemporary. She laments the narratives of history, but reminds us that there are always other narrative perspectives.
I haven’t been this taken by surprise by a book in a long time. I’ve read none of Sontag’s other fiction, but even if this is her only good one, it solidifies her as a world class writer who should be taken much more seriously as an artist, not “merely” an essayist.
This is an amazing book. First you get Sontag doing her best Balzac impression (and it is a spectacular impression) but it also shows off her breadth of knowledge in a way that is staggering. I’ve never been so bowled over by the sheer amount of knowledge on the page outside of Pynchon.
Then you get her little modernist spins on the the novel, drastically shifting form in the final part, anachronistic digressions, the author inserting herself mid-sentence, etc. and with this she takes an old fashioned story and contextualizes it with the contemporary. She laments the narratives of history, but reminds us that there are always other narrative perspectives.
I haven’t been this taken by surprise by a book in a long time. I’ve read none of Sontag’s other fiction, but even if this is her only good one, it solidifies her as a world class writer who should be taken much more seriously as an artist, not “merely” an essayist.