“A blinding and incandescent ball of light”: The volcano and its eruption in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s The Violins of Saint-Jacques

Well-known for his non-fiction works on southeastern Europe, the British author, traveller, and decorated World War II veteran Patrick Leigh Fermor also wrote about the Caribbean. Indeed, this region was to provide the inspiration for his only novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques (1953), which to date has received limited attention from scholars. As a deft portrayal of idyllic colonial life on a fictional French-ruled island ultimately destroyed by a catastrophic volcanic eruption, the work naturally brings to mind the devastating 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée on Martinique. Accordingly, this contribution analyses the role played by the fictional Salpetrière volcano in the book, drawing on its position as a fiery leitmotif which casts both a figurative and a literal shadow over the pages of this short work. In examining the symbolism of the stirring volcano both as a backdrop to the preparations for the frivolous main event (a Shrove Tuesday masque) as well as the agent of the island’s destruction amid lava and flames, it is intended to underline the crucial importance of environmental factors, thereby aiming to present new literary perspectives on how societies interact with the potentially destructive power of the natural world.