Shusaku Endo – Volcano

At once a powerful novel of ideas and a dramatic, suspenseful narrative. The action takes place over a few months in the lives of two men–Jinpei Suda, a volcanologist, and Durand, an unfrocked French Catholic priest. Both men have become obsessed by Akadaké, a quiescent volcano that is either in its death throes or taking on renewed life. For both men, the question of whether the volcano is still active or not becomes their overriding concern, the question that justifies their own lives. Suda, retired and ignored by his family, has spent fifteen years studying the volcano and is convinced that it is dying. His expert opinion is vital to an important business tycoon who plans to build a lavish resort hotel on the volcano’s higher slopes. Durand, ill and bitter, is equally certain that the volcano will erupt, pouring streams of lava down on the religious retreat being built by Father Sato, a complacent Japanese priest and Durand’s self-satisfied successor. Overshadowing all their lives is the volcano. To Durand, it is a symbol of evil and a possible judgment on people who can never understand the significance of sin and redemption. To Suda, it must remain dormant or wreck the thesis on which he has spent much of his life.

Sceptre, 1992 Softcover edition. Creasing to front wrap along with general discoloration/light wear.