Product Description
It is the Day of the Dead. The fiesta in full swing. In the shadow of Popocatepeti ragged children beg coins to buy skulls made of chocolate...and the ugly pariah dogs roam the streets. Geoffrey Firmin, HM ex-consul, is drowning himself in liquor and Mescal, while his ex-wife and half brother look on powerless to help him. As the day wears on, it becomes apparent that Geoffrey must die. It is his only escape from a world he cannot understand. "Under The Volcano" is one of the century's great undisputed masterpieces. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Under the Volcano (Penguin Modern Classics)
Here is the story of the last day in the life of Geoff, a British consul stationed in Mexico.This day happens to fall on the holiday, the Day of the Dead.Geoff is a raging alcoholic whose estranged wife has decided to come back to give their marriage one last try by inviting him to leave Mexico and start again somewhere else.Against the detailed backdrop of Mexican town, landscape and culture, Geoff, his wife and Geoff's half-brother play out the final hours of this man's tragic life.

Malcolm Lowry's language is remarkably beautiful, despite the subject of extreme dissolution.I found that to be reason enough to read this novel.One can look for Christian parallels in the book, and especially to his final hours on a kind of Calvary at the end.Hell is alluded to quite openly, as well.Some have called this the best depiction of alcoholism ever written.Others have said that this is a thinly-veiled autobiography of Lowry himself, adding to the sense of tragedy.

Fascinating author
This is the kind of book that you either love or hate. There are already tons of reviews on this site about the book itself from both camps, but if you want to learn more about the author, Malcolm Lowry, the National Film Board of Canada has a fascinating documentary about him called Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry. It's available for (free and legal) viewing online at NFB.ca [..]

Like Joyce's "Ulysses," except with Mexicans
While I read this book I was constantly reminded of Joyce's Ulysses. I have never heard of this author before, but I really enjoyed this book and can highly recommend it. In fact, I think this book would be a nice starting point if you want to read Ulysses but think you might not like the structure of it. Both books use "stream of consciousness," both take place during one day, both have two men and a woman as the main focus, both women are "entertainers," and there is a good deal of drinking in both books. If you've already read Ulysses and like the idea of a "Ulysses in Mexico," by all means pick this up. All in all, a much better book than I expected.

Dense but ultimately rewarding on it's own terms.
I would like to provide my impressions on "Under the Volcano" as they relate to some of the criticisms I have read in other reviews. I found "Under the Volcano" to be an easier read than either "Moby Dick" or "Ulysses", with less lengthy digressions into the hardcore, cosmic philosophy ofthe former and less of the jarring transitions and (admirable) nonsense of the latter ( I admit I have yet to finish "Ulysses" despite repeated attempts). The characters in "UtV" were very well rounded and the extensive inner monologues of each made them live and breathe for me. I am not usually enamored of lots and lots of descriptions of settings, architecture, and geography, and "UtV" is literally full of it, but if you can get through it, the landscape that Lowry paints for the reader stays in the one's mind as the novel progresses and creates an immersive experience where one can "see" the action unfolding in this dense and beautiful setting. I have read some reviews that criticized the bleak subject matter, but the story of an addict killing himself with all manner of alcohol is not going to uplifting, is it? Nevertheless, the book had some darkly humorous passages that I really enjoyed;" It was already the longest day in his entire experience; a lifetime; he had already missed the bus, he would have plenty of time for more drinks. If only he were not drunk! The Consul strongly disapproved of this drunkenness." Throughout the novel, the Consul explains very convincingly to both himself and the reader his reasons and excuses for almost every drink; such a searing depiction of a true addict could only have been created by one who was very familiar with the experience of being one. The Consul is as advertised; an extremely well wrought character, both admirable and contemptible. He is the main reason to read and enjoy "UtV" and the main reason I won't forget this novel anytime soon. Recommended reading for those desiring an authentic experience that demands sustained attention from the reader.

Unquestionably a masterpiece.
There can be no question that this book is a masterpiece. Most people don't like Wagner or his music, but regardless, The Ring Cycle is a masterpiece. "Not getting it" does not change the fact. The journey is the message; in art as in life.When you "see" - this book is an amazing journey. The writing is thrilling. It's the story of a complete life in the richest and most intricate sense. It's sad and telling that there only two reviews and one missed it. ... Read more

Product Description

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life—the Day of the Dead, 1938—his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.

Customer Reviews (89)

Something new about hellfire
Discovered the novel through a weird inadvertence in 1973, confusing Malcolm Lowry with the unfortunate, but equally damned, Donald Crowhurst...Spent nearly a year tracking the book down--it was not nearly so well-known or accessible 37 years ago--and then spent one entire year reading it closely & attentively, but also with a deep sense of its blackness, its power, and its depths ("There are depths,")--The first time I read its conclusion I had a little anxiety attack as tho' in a horror film that has become a bit too intense without sufficient warning ahead of time...From there I began sifting through its multitudes of 'correspondences' and in 1976 even managed to check out the original holograph MS of the 2nd or 3rd draft at UT-Austin's Humanities Research Center manuscript collection...By the time of the resurgence of interest in UTV in the early-mid 80s it was as though the book had become a significant part of my own psyche, and that has not much altered in the years that followed.
I've never found the book anything but a miracle of highly polished darkness--sharp & flinty--and yet it is a very funny depiction of Marlovian hell, too.As funny as "Macbeth" or "The Revenger's Tragedy" anyhow. Somewhat funnier than the Old Testament, that is...

But, it is an expression from a different period of human history in which lives, and life itself, had different values...A period both more and less barbaric than ours; more & less attuned to horrors ("portioned to a giant nerve!"); more and less hypocritical.
Nonetheless, it is a work for those who love words; their flavor, feel, taste, texture, mass...and most certainly it is NOT for those with the short, brittle attention-spans better suited to the imbecile-media of our day.For such this book would indeed constitute a kind of horror of another type; they are advised to pursue simpler, less difficult works, or the flashier (& emptier) sophistries that pass for "substance" nowadays.
UNDER THE VOLCANO will always remain "caviar to the general" and that is asit should be...One may as well be thankful that its complexities and subterranean nuances will rebuff The Vulgar and The Stupid, who in any case have no business attempting it.Perhaps the book will re-discover a more fitting readership one hundred years from now; I don't see much hope for that, frankly, but, like the Consul recovering from one of his binges or falls, or the inspiration behind the foolish inscription "that estupido" painted on M. Laruelle's tower ("No se puede vivir sin amar") one may always dream.

God rest Malcolm's poor bedevilled sodden old soul, and may Heaven bless him for giving us this titanic masterpiece of darkness visible, in which the adept reader will find "something new about hellfire" and in those flames perhaps see his or her own image briefly reflected...

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
This is a most discouraging and yet thoughtful novel.Set in 1938 in a small Mexican village it tells of one day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, a perpetually inebriated ex-British consul, his estranged wife, his half-brother, and his friend, a French film director.At the simplest level the day consists of the relationship among these characters.But the narrative leads one to consider any number of more complicated issues.The social conditions of rural Mexico, the abuse by the legal establishment, the social/economic/political upheaval in Europe, questions of individual self-respect and motivation, trudging group nihilism, apparent drug-induced lucidity, the futile efforts of marital reconciliation are but a few.It is a bit like Hemingway, but not as direct; more complex, like Joyce.One comes away defeated, what's the use?"Someone threw a dead dog after him down the ravine."

Have a discussion group handy, and maybe a grade on the line, to help you get through this
Maybe I'm being a curmudgeon, but I think this Malcolm Lowry tale of a broken man during his last days is "literary" in the worst sense.It dismisses narrative elements such as pacing, conciseness, engagement of the reader, and anything else smacking of craft as banal commercial considerations for the masses, preferring instead to content itself with- I imagine- an appreciative audience of college professors, graduate students, and the like, who can happily discuss its possible meaning amongst themselves.

To be sure, there are moments of clarity, well-drawn imagery, and moving characterizations as the story of British Consul to Mexico Geoffrey Firmin, his ex-wife Yvonne, and Geoffrey's world traveler brother Hugh moves forward, but too often the book is confusing, hard to follow, and dull.And it doesn't help that frequent stretchs of the novel aren't even in English.Every worthwhile novel doesn't have to be an easy ride, but I'm immediately suspicious of a novel so unapologetically willing to be a chore.

Not to be lazy, but maybe I should have just watched the well-regarded 1984 film adaptation, directed by John Huston and starring Albert Finney, instead.Mr. Huston and Mr. Finney presumably did the hard work and distilled this meandering book down to an economical, meaningful narrative.

Gorgeous Fiction for a Cold Day
Lyrical language to help you forget about our disgusting political climate of Glenn Beck, and Limbaugh.

literature at its best
Under the volcano is a great novel though very demanding in terms of vocabulary and construction. For a foreigner like me it helps a lot one's understanding to read and listen at the same time. John Lee's interpretation of the text is perfect : good voice, excellent prononciation, the right tempo. Whether you want to discover or revisit this masterpiece of literature, I highly recommand this recording well presented in a box of 14 CDs. Jacques-François Piquet ... Read more

Product Description
Malcolm Lowry was a rare talent whose ambition was equaled only by his problems. Struggling with alcoholism and singularly unable to manage his own life, he "believed himself to be hopelessly unlucky"; and as volume editor Nicholas Bradley points out, "the evidence suggests that he was right."
This collection of short stories reveals a world of crashing prose in which Lowry draws heavily from his turbulent life to forge a tale of both heaven and hell onearth. From the rich paradise of British Columbia and the echoing beauty of Italy, to the unrelieved suffering of Mexico, Lowry's stories are layered, interwoven tales that speak to an unrealized literary potential.
This new edition includes an introduction, chronology, and notes, providing key insight into one of the underappreciated literary minds of the twentieth century.
An exciting and offbeat addition to Oxford's Outlooks on Canadian Literature series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Surprisingly Good
I have read Under the Volcano and a number of his other works by Lowry.
Clearly, and most agree that Under The Volcano is Lowry'sbest novel but he has a number of other interesting works including this collection of short stories.

Lowry fought alcoholism much of his adult life and this is reflected in his writings including Ultramarine, Under the Volcano, and in Lunar Caustic. The present set of stories was started towards the last decade of his life, and includes Through the Panama, based on a trip by boat approximately 10 years before his death. It is a more conventional story and one of the seven in this collection.

Most of his early works lack the coherent structure of a conventional novel -similar to the rambling style of Ultramarine or Lunar Caustic. The present stories contain that element but some are more conventional and have a beginning and end. In addition to the seven stories, there is an excellent foreword covering the works of Lowry by John Donatich.
Through the Panama is a narrative using a diary style to describe a trip, often through rough seas from California to England, taking the Panama canal. It is my favourite and one of the longest stories. It has a beginning and end and includes a side trip to Curacao. There are many references to other writers such as Kafka in this story. It has a well written storm at sea section, and there are many references to other writers and alcohol.

The title for the collection comes from an ancient Manx fisherman's hymn. The phrase appears in two of the stories.

The other stories are:

The Bravest Boat: this is about a small boat launched by a child with a written message for an unknown finder.
Strange Comfort Afforded by the Profession: a very short story of a writer visiting Rome.
Elephant and Colosseum: about a writer reunited with an elephant after many years.
Present Estate of Pompeii: a man and his wife visit the ruins of Pompeii and think about life and time.
Gin and Goldenrod: about a couple out for a walk in an area under development.
Forest Path to the Spring: this is a highly creative and well written piece based on the author immersed in the wonders of nature and his new life with his new wife. I think this is Lowry's best work.

Strange yet comforting
Although I read this book years ago I still think of it often. The Forest Path to the Spring, read today, is very much a story about how to live out of the media, out of consumerism, out of materialism that consumes contemporary society. And suggests how to be content; suggests alternatives to corporations or churches defining your life and your happiness for you(Selling you a life, as Marcuse would say). And this is exactly why we read isn't it? We read to seek the answer to lifes most important question - "What is worthwhile?". In a beautiful story Lowry tells us what he found worthwhile on The Forest Path to the Spring.

Over the Volcano
Certainly the centerpiece of this collection is the novella "The Forest Path to the Spring," perhaps Lowry's only work to offer redemption.It's the counterpoint of his Under the Volcano, the Paradisoto Volcano's Inferno.In a "northern paradise" like thatdaydreamed by Yvonne in Under the Volcano, (and like the Lowrys' ownDollarton beach shack) the narrator faces his demons and routs them. LikeThoreau, he learns to live deliberately, to see the world itself.Lowry'sdescriptions of the Canadian wilderness are lyrical without being fanciful;instead of the internal phantasmagoria of Geoffrey Firmin's haunted mind,"The Forest Path to the Spring" gives us a real forest, realstars, a real spring.The story can be read as fiction and as a meditationon the nature of reality.It's Lowry's most mature work and, if not hisbest, a close second to UTV.The other stories in the collection,often featuring Lowryesque writer-protagonists, play with conjunctions ofart and life.In the metafictional "Through the Panama,"snippets of history, travelogues, poems, and children's songs weavethroughout a journey through the Panama canal.In other stories, an authorunexpectedly meets, in a zoo, the elephant who inspired his best-sellingcomic novel, and a disillusioned writer finds "strange comfort"in the impoverished and unhappy lives of Keats and Poe.Ironically,most of the pieces in "Hear Us O Lord" were not published inLowry's lifetime. Those that were ("The Bravest Boat") are theweaker links in the collection, tamer and more traditional than one wouldexpect from a writer of Lowry's wild talents.Perhaps, again like Poe, hewas an artist in advance of his time.

ambitious short stories that experiment with form
Hear Us O Lord contains a variety of story forms which Lowry attempted, and some themes which will be familiar to readers of his other works. Such stories as The Forest Path to the Spring and others are an integral part ofhis ouevre. A wonderful story about the dungeons of Pompeii - forgive meforgetting the story name for I've lost my copy -is the other highlightof the book. Even where the story is secondary to the form, as in Throughthe Panama, Lowry achieves some success - we must remember the time atwhich these stores were written, and I don't think I've seen this type ofexperimentation dating from this period. On the whole HIGHLY RECOMMENDED,I've only given just 3 stars because of its flaws. If you;re lucky enoughto find a copy, maybe you;ll get the beauiftul cover of a woodcut withChrist ushering in the rainstorm in the distance.

Lowry's life on the Dollarton Flats
I have been staying for the past three weeks a few hundred yards from where Lowry wrote Under the Volcano, which I had already read and which was all I knew about Lowry, when somebody suggested I read The Forest Path tothe Spring - the last of these stories - which described this area as itwas 50-60 years ago.He and his wife were squatters, owning only the housethey had built for themselves, but not the land.The FPTTS is the story ofhow they first came here, how and why they stayed and describes many thingsthat are unchanged: the inlet, the seabirds, the trees the sky and - ofcourse - the mountains.I go home to London tomorrow, but am so glad tohave read this whilst being in this landscape.

It's self indulgent inparts, but that can happen when a writer is aiming for honesty andoriginality, there's nothing derivative about any of it, not a clicheanywhere.It's an inner journey too of course: the real path through theforest contains other journies: his work, his marriage his growing selfknowledge and sobriety.

Now the area is full of ugly suburban housingwith garages and the sound of seabirds is often drowned by the hum of powertools.Much of the forest is now covered in concrete, but the inlet, themountains, trees and sky remain of course.It's great here if you don'tlook down! ... Read more

Product Description
'Malcolm Lowry was a ferocious malcontent, freewheeling to self-destruction with the help of mescal, cooking sherry, even bottles of skin bracer ...Rarely has a writer so elaborated his own legend as did Lowry. He was mythogenic; not only could he make the wildest nonsense about himself credible, but encouraged others to add to it. This makes him a murderous subject for a biography ...Gordon Bowker is a trustworthy guide. Fabulously methodical in his research, he has traced various members of the Lowry family as well as the writer's first wife. "Pursued by Furies" is a gigantic tome, but Bowker writes well and keeps the pages turning. This is probably the last word on Lowry and a handsome achievement ...a fine, intelligent biography' - Ian Thomson, "Guardian". 'Intelligent and painstaking ..."Pursued by Furies" is a cool, thorough and not uncritical appraisal of a dreadful life and is not likely to be superseded' - Ian Hamilton, "Sunday Telegraph". 'Gripping and thoroughly engaged ...Lowry's biography won't have to be done again' - Martin Amis, "Independent on Sunday". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Still More Furies
I bought this large, six hundred page book because I got a deal on a cheap copy. But I couldn't help noticing the impressive effort to produce so thorough a work, and on such a complex subject.It crossed my mind more than once that Gordon Bowker had not been paid his due, at least not by me.

But "Pursued by Furies" has received a significant amount of attention and praise. It is deserved, in my view.

Still, at least some editing is in order in relation to Lowry's years at Dollarton (two hours drive from where I now sit.) Episode after episode of abusive, maniacial drunkness (with little literary output to show for it) seemed excessive. Paired with Lowry's extraordinary ability to deny reality -- including to those in the publishing world who supported him -- the downward spiral felt repetitive, and brought me close to abandoning the book.

I noted with irony Lowry's conceived (but unfinished) novelic cycle "The Voyage That Never Ends." Mired in the book's latter third, I could only nod affirmatively. Which is to say that twenty drunken, despotic episodes wherein Lowry lies to everyone he knows -- including and especially his wife, Marjorie -- while collapsing as author and man are hardly different from, say, fifteen.

Lowry's forced relocation to Ripe, England -- the pastoral countryside -- helped the book pick up. It is here that Lowry undergoes comprehensive treatment for alcoholism (shocking as these "treatments" were.) One gets the strong impression that this deeply inspired, fury-chased man is readying wings, about to claim both his literary gifts and independence. But Lowry's furies are not so forgiving.

At times a who's who of 20th century literati, "Pursued By Furies" concerns itself chiefly with its subject. By its end, one disregards neither novelist nor man. Bowker summarizes the matter this way:

"But he did return from hell and the gutter, often enough and for long enough periods, to create one, and possibly more, masterpieces wherein anyone who has ever caught up with Lowry in the toils of human confusion can find a kind of grace and a kind of release."

Excellent Biography
This is one of two biographies of Malcolm Lowry that I have read.The first was Douglas Day's biography--a sort of psycho-literary look at Lowry's life.It's not bad, but Bowker's book goes far beyond Day's.Thisbook is much richer in detail--detail that casual readers might findoverwhelming, but that Lowry afficionados will wallow in.

Also, Bowkerhas tracked down Lowry's first wife, Jan Gabriel, who adds to the story ofLowry's life a dimension absent from Day's book.

Anyone who has readLowry's work has certainly suspected that his art mirrored his life, thatmuch of what he wrote was autobiographical, in spirit if not in detail. This book confirms those suspicions, showing how truly excessive Lowry wasin pretty much all aspects of his life:his drinking, fear,childishness...

A great biography of a great writer.

Justice done to great novelist
I read this because I remain convinced that Mr Lowry's novel UNDER THE VOLCANO is one of the great tragic works of literature of the 20th century and its power remains with me after 30 years. In this biography the alcoholic writer's creative process is revealed in detail as well as hisdetermination to destroy himself - in detail. I've often thought ofGeoffrey Firmin/Malcolm Lowry as the essential 20th century man - we cameclose to destroying the world last century but failed. This is a solid wellwritten biography and suits the general reader.

A very thorough account of the life of Malcolm Lowry
This is a much needed improvement on the Douglas Day bio of some years ago (though, I admit, a bit less fun to read).It's been covered in all the major reviews, of course, and I'm sure all you Lowryeans out there have acopy and love it for the wealth of information it contains that was absentfrom the Day bio and other sources...But, as a long-term Lowryean myself, Ithought I'd add my bolus of criticism:Mr Bowker has a great advantageover previous writers on Lowry: He has found that the great author's firstwife, Jan Gabrial, is not only alive and well, but eager to discuss allaspects of her relationship with her former spouse (with Bowker anyway). This revelation colors Mr Bowker's entire biography.It also, however,leads to the greatest flaw in the book: The simplistic polarization ofConrad Aiken vs. Nordahl Grieg as the Dark Angel and Light Angel,respectively, in Lowry's psyche.Ms Gabrial obviously detested ConradAiken and credited the dissolution of her marriage to him.No doubt shehas cause to do so.But nobody who has spent any time reading ConradAiken's beautiful and much-neglected poetry can believe he was asconsumately evil as Ms Gabrial, via Mr Bowker, makes him out to be. Still, this is a minor quibble for such an obviously painstaking andthorough work.It's refreshing to see the greatest poetic novelist of ourcentury getting some attention toward the end of it! ... Read more

Product Description
This 1975 book corrects and amplifies the record of Malcolm Lowry's early life, recording for the first time one of its crucial incidents. Lowry was an alcoholic and wanderer who turned a failed life into a success of a different order, and which has been recognised only after his death. Like Lowry, Professor Bradbrook was born in Wirral and writes of the scenes of early life with sympathetic understanding. She also knew the Cambridge of the 1930s, when Lowry read English there. Bradbrook considers the critical point of knowledge of Lowry's life, and the ways in which it is absorbed in his writings. This enquiry broadens out into a discussion of the art itself, and will serve as an excellent introduction of Lowry's life. ... Read more

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This brilliant and sympathetic account of Malcolm Lowry's chaotic and tragic life tells of the alcoholism that overshadowed his entire adult life, his wanderings through Europe and America, his two tempestuous marriages, and his constant struggle to write.As well as presenting extensive new criticism of Lowry's work, Douglas Day paints a rare and revealing portrait of this brilliant, clumsy, shy, prodigal, and outrageous genius. ... Read more

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With the publication of "Under the Volcano", Lowry became a cult hero in literary circles on both sides of the Atlantic. This collection of essays explores the life of the man and offers critical insights into his writings, including his novels, poetry and letters. ... Read more

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To find out more information about Rowman & Littlefield titles please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com. ... Read more

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A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL

Notorious for a misspent life full of binges, blackouts, and unimaginable bad luck, Malcolm Lowry managed, against every odd, to complete and publish two novels, one of them, Under the Volcano, an indisputable masterpiece. At the time of his death in 1957, Lowry also left behind a great deal of uncollected and unpublished writing: stories, novellas, drafts of novels and revisions of drafts of novels (Lowry was a tireless revisiter and reviser—and interrupter—of his work), long, impassioned, haunting, beautiful letters overflowing with wordplay and lament, fraught short poems that display a sozzled off-the-cuff inspiration all Lowry’s own. Over the years these writings have appeared in various volumes, all long out of print. Here, in The Voyage That Never Ends, the poet, translator, and critic Michael Hofmann has drawn on all this scattered and inaccessible material to assemble the first book that reflects the full range of Lowry’s extraordinary and singular achievement.

The result is a revelation. In the letters—acknowledged to be among modern literature’s greatest—we encounter a character who was, as contemporaries attested, as spellbinding and lovable as he was self-destructive and infuriating. In the late fiction—the long story “Through the Panama,” sections of unfinished novels such as Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, and the little-known La Mordida—we discover a writer who is blazing a path into the unknown and, as he goes, improvising a whole new kind of writing. Lowry had set out to produce a great novel, something to top Under the Volcano, a multivolume epic and intimate tale of purgatorial suffering and ultimate redemption (called, among other things, “The Voyage That Never Ends”). That book was never to be. What he produced instead was an unprecedented and prophetic blend of fact and fiction, confession and confusion, essay and free play, that looks forward to the work of writers as different as Norman Mailer and William Gass, but is like nothing else. Almost in spite of himself, Lowry succeeded in transforming his disastrous life into an exhilarating art of disaster. The Voyage That Never Ends is a new and indispensable entry into the world of one of the masters of modern literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Mother Lode of Lowry's incredible writing!
This is by far the best collection of work by one of the greatest although sadly lesser known writers of the 20th Century. Lowry, British by birth, lived for years in Mexico and Canada, and because of his drinking his published work is a fraction of his prolific writing. This book contains a treasure chest of his lesser known work, unfinished novels, stories, letters. He is best known for his masterpiece "Under the Volcano." I read"Volcano" over 30 years ago when I was still drinking, and nothing, not even Bukowski (certainly no offense to Bukowski, a genius as well) hit me as hard as Lowry and I have always wished I could get my hands on more of his work. My wish has been granted in this definitive tome. This is the Mother Lode for Lowry fans, and anyone who appreciates truly great literature. Lowry, although at times a bit dense in language and style, is more than worth a bit of extra effort on the reader's part. His writing is impeccable, the imagery, the passion, the pain, the insights, the evocative precision of inner and outer landscapes are stunning! This book, especially in his letters, offers the reader a greater sense of the man behind the myth that has grown around a brilliant writer, who happened to be an alcoholic. Reading him at this point in my life, more than 32 years sober, I see his work in a different light and have gained a much deeper appreciation and understanding of Lowry the man, and the writer. This book is a classic; evidence of the true genius of Malcolm Lowry.- Michael Clark Lorenzo. Accidents of Birth

Over The Volcano . . . We Go?
I'm glad this is out there. I already owned 'Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place' so I'd already read the two crowns in this collection, 'Through The Panama' and "Path To The Forest Spring'. I was hoping for longer excerpts from the novels, and was more than a little annoyed there was nothing at all from 'Lunar Caustic'. But what really irritated me was the editor's all-too brief introduction, lack of any individual introduction for each of the novels relating what they are about, and finally lack of any footnotes. Reading an excerpt without any idea of what larger work it was picked out of makes it much harder to enter. You are left with a lot of nice prose but no sense of story. What were Lowry's aims with this book? Where was he writing it? How far did he get towards completion? And there are references in the letters where some footnotes would have been greatly appreciated. So while I would have given the content four stars I'm giving the book three because of the editor. I can't see anyone who isn't a fan of 'Under The Volcano' being drawn into this collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Chaotic and Original
I read Under the Volcano, and have a read a number of his other works. Under The Volcano is his best novel.Lowry fought alcoholism much of his adult life and it is reflected in his writings including Ultramarine. This is his first novel published in 1933. This novel is short, just 186 pages, and it is good, original, and entertaining for lovers of literature, but not as good as some of his other works. If you like Lowry, I recommend the collection of short stories Hear Us O Lord From Heaven They Dwelling Place.

The story comes from Lowry's own time at sea before university. The novel lacks symmetry and the coherent structure of a conventional novel - and that is the creative part. Unexpected things take place. The story involves a young man of 19, Dana Hilliot, working on a freighter ship in Asia.It is part narrative by Dana and part third person narrative, almost stream of consciousness:we are told the events in and around the sea voyage.

On board he is lost in time, and this sets the mood:

"But the sun hurt his eyes.Lowering his head, he tried to calculate how long it had been there. Today, or was it yesterday? Two days ago. All the days were the same. The engine hammered out the same stroke, same beat, as yesterday. The forecastle was no lighter, no darker, than yesterday. Today, or is it yesterday?"

Lowry fills the pages with anecdotes about sailors' lives and the characters that he meets. His shipmates are from Norway, England, Greece, Spain, and America. When they stop at a port, the others seek pleasures but he often stays on the ship, often drinks heavily and constantly thinks of his sweetheart, Janet, who is back in England.

He wants to be accepted as a regular crew member, not as a young man from well off family seeking adventure.

The story takes unexpected turns as Dana lives on board and then visits ports along the passage, often drunk, confused, or bored, but not as confused as the character in Lowry's later novella Lunar Caustic, set in a mental hospital.

The Detritus of Wisdom
The French Translator for Lowry's masterpiece, Under The Volcano, said that, until Lowry, she had only encoutered two types of writers:1) The philosophical intellectual, who could go on about great ideas and philosophers but couldn't tell you what street he was walking downand, 2) The observant "Naturalist" writer who observed and recorded everything around him but whose fund of ideas and original thoughts was quite in the red.-Lowry proved to her that a writer could be both, as does this book.

Here we have the young Lowry's thinly veiled autobiographical hero, Dana Hilliot (a name Lowry contrived from Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast, James Hilton, whom Lowry knew at school, and T S Eliot) remaining (sometime tiresomely) faithful toward the dialogue of the sailors on ship as well as wending his unique "Lowromancings" as he playfully called his poetic, philosophical passages through the work.

At one point in one of these extended meditations/poetic reflections, Hilliot ponders that he is engulfed in the "detritus of wisdom" rather than having discovered any pearls, but then goes on to speculate as to what he would do were he discover one of these "pearls" ----Stop writing?

Let's be thankful that Lowry kept searching and swirling and went on to write one of the greatest novels of the century.

Ultramarine
Ultramarine is a novel about sea life. A young man named Dana Hillot decides to go aboard a freight ship. The characters in this novel are so vivid. Even now I am able to think of one, Andy the chinless wonder. This novel is one of my favorites by Lowry. Lowry spent some time at sea himself, so that probably was the inspiration for this novel.

The Sea, Without Glamour
Ultramarine, the first published novel by Malcolm Lowry, tells the story of a young man's disillusioned coming of age at sea.Much of the raw material for the novel comes from notebooks Lowry kept during his own stint as a deckhand.Dana Hilliot, the young Lowryesque hero, faces the contempt of many of his fellow seamen, who view him as a spoiled upper-class poser incapable of doing a real man's work.He affects a grimly stoic front while engaging in elaborate fantasies of revenge. Lowry's description of life at sea reveals the boredom and discomfort of a long voyage, relieved only by exhausting labor, sudden danger, and occasional nights of drinking and whoring ashore.His young hero's Conrad and Melville-inspired dreams of adventure at sea are replaced by the grimy reality of a deckhand's daily life.The realistic dialogue, the description of the sea and the port cities, and the hero's fevered inner monologue hint at the richness of language that was to inform Lowry's greatest novel, Under the Volcano. The young hero's moral agonies as he struggles to remain faithful to his fiancee at home may seem comically overwrought to present-day readers, but Ultramarine's rewards certainly outweigh its few flaws.This work of Lowry's youth shows an unruly genius already testing its limits ... Read more

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Malcolm Lowry, author of "Under the Volcano", was also a writer of superb letters. Collected here for the first time are close to 800 letters spanning over 30 years, most of them never before published. Lowry's letters range from his detailed, erudite, 35-page exegis of his masterpiece to impassioned letters and notes to his wives. They include witty, ironic self-parodies, letters to younger writers full of generous advice and literary discussion, and letters with analysis and acute insights into politics and current affairs. Lowry frequently illustrated his letters with drawings, marginal sketches and symbols of good cheer, such as the seagulls which adorn many of the later letters. These illustrations have been produced in both volumes of "The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry" together with many photographs of Lowry, his correspondents, and reproductions of holograph letters. ... Read more

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