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Summary: Malcolm Lowrey Self-portrait
Review: If you read an autobiography of Lowery you realize how close his own life parrallels that of Geoffery Firmin and to a lesser extent the brother Hugh. Malcolm Lowery was himself an unpleasant drunk just like his protaganist the Counsel(Geoffery). Lowrey also spent a considerable amount of time in and around the Mexican state of Oxaxaca and he spent some time as a seaman. More importantly Lowery eperienced the euphorias, the blackouts, and the hallucinations that the Counsel suffered. The action starts on the eve of the 'Day of the Dead' Mexico's annual day of mourning and celebration for the dead. M. Laurelle remembers the day exactly one year ago and the tragedy that occurred. The rest of the action took place during the previous years Day of the Dead. Laurelle is a childhood friend of Geoffery and the fromer lover of Yvonne. At the time of the action, the late 1930's, Mexico and Britain have broken off diplomatic relations and the Counsel had been releived of duty. The Counsel stays in Mexico, deeply buried inside the bottle. On this day his estranged wife Yvonne, an American born actress, arrives at the Counsel's hacienda to try to rekindle theit love.Also in Mexico is the Counsel's brother Hugh who harbors affection for Yvonne but longs to fight with his socialist brothers in the Spanish Revolution. Hugh is in Mexico ostensibly to try to save his brother from self-destruction but it is apparant from his actions and words that he has give up all hope. He warns Yvonne that you can not make a pet of an armadillo as the armadillo will dig a hole and carry the person that is trying to tame it in the hole right after.(An obvious analogy to the Counsel). Meanwhile, Yvonne arrives to find the Counsel in the same state as he was when she left- blind drunk. Throughout the day the Counsel drifts in and out of sobriety and his personality wavers between being contrite and antagonistic. The trio decide to travel by bus to another village where a rodeo is being held. During the bus ride they spy the badly beaten body of an Indian and his horse (branded with the number 7 on its rump). They also witness a local thug who steals the dead Indian's possessions. They are outraged but due to the corruptness of the regional police, could do nothing. The incident bothers the trio just the same. The horse ironically appears again during the last two chapters of the book. The Counsel who later in the day starts drinking Mexican whiskey (mescal)becomes quite belligerent and his obscenities force Hugh and Yvonne to desert him at a cantina. Hugh and Yvonne decide to hike the rugged volcano which results in tragedy. In the meantime the Counsel is accosted by local thugs who accuse him of being a communist. It is here that the Counsel meets the fate,that the reader knows early on,is his destiny. Under the Volcano is a very difficult read partly beacuse of Lowrey's brilliance and party because it is told through the eyes of a raging alcoholic.
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Summary: Mexico sensed through the skin and released in words
Review: I put this book down last year dismayed by the hero's disintegration but when I picked it up again last month, I was caught as I have hardly ever been in reading fiction. I have never known why anyone would try to write a novel. Now I do. Lowry may not have been the most disciplined writer but he is one of the most interesting I have ever read, whether we're talking about his consciousness of the English language, his sensed experience of Mexico, or his understanding of the erratic but fascinating course of the mind. I didn't expect to like a book about a financially well-off male expatriate but I'm fortunate that I wasn't put off by those traits. I'm sure I will reread parts of this wonderful novel many times.
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Summary: flawed masterpiece
Review: One thing people have not been pointing out about this version of the book is its poor proof reading. There are dozens of typographical errors. In a book like this where the language is such a crucial part of the book, each error is like getting kicked it the gut, it takes a while to get back into the wonderful flow of the narriative. I will let the reviews of the others speak for this book's value as literature, but a through scrubbing of the text is in order to not flaw such a work of art.
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Summary: Haunting rollercoaster ride
Review: The ultimate alcoholic novel, with great language and a memorable location and leading "hero" if you can call a wandering near madman a hero. Gets inside the mind of a drunk very realistically, since perhaps, Lowry wrote many of the passages under the influence himself. Another work to take your time with and savor every drop, sort of like enjoying, well, a good glass of your favorite liquor. Not for the impatient or hard to please reader. There's a reason some books remain classics.
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Summary: a bleak, desolate, entirely mournful novel
Review: This is epic tragedy over a period of a few days. Malcolm Lowry was possibly one of the greatest writers of the 20th century--who knows? He wound up similar to the main character of this novel, who wanders around Mexico remembering that his ex-wife once loved him as he awaits her showing up with her new fella to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Now of course our guy's a drunk: a washed away wastrel who had once quite probably been on the verge of being an important man. Busted romance created side-tracks and then sent him over the edge of concern and into a void of emptiness and giving him an increasing desire to taste death. The action is sparse and is related in a rambling, poetic language that gracefully lifts these sorrowful musings of a drunken failure into a fascinating insight into the very nature of self-destruction. One of the best books I have ever read.
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Summary: All the more surprising then was it form him to discovery
Review: I really can't complain enough about the editing of the Harper Perennial edition of this book. As you get near the center of the novel, typos, dropped letters, misspelled and lost words just start to multiply. The title above is just a portion of a sentence I found on page 168, which reads, in its entirety, "All the more surprising then was it form him to discovery it his duty each day to heave vast quantities of this miraculous food over the side." I think vast quantities of the NOVEL have been heaved over the side. Something happened. Whoever did the editing job was either asleep or angry, since the book reads like the task was performed either as an act of somnambulism or willful revenge. (Thankfully I have an older copy to consult when things get hazy.) That said, Under the Volcano is an otherwise extraordinary book. Just find yourself an old Penguin edition at your local used bookstore.
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Summary: Under the Volcano
Review: Malcolm Lowry's allegorical novel, Under the Volcano, is a masterpiece of self-examination, self-absorption and self-pity. Lowry follows the final day in the life of a brilliant but dipsomaniacal ambassador, Geoffrey Firmin, as he deliberately sets out to commit suicide by drinking himself into oblivion. Through Lowry's stream-of-consciousness narration, the reader participates in the internal struggles of each of the main characters in excruciating detail, including the protagonist's delirium tremens and overwhelming need for drink. Gradually, it dawns upon the reader that this book is much more than a depiction of extreme alcoholism; it is, in part, a commentary upon a world on the verge of war, about to self-destruct. It is also a spiritual lesson in the efficacy of love and forgiveness. It is a multi-layered maze of allusions which becomes more absorbing and fascinating with each reading.
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Summary: Nauseating
Review: Bad is too mild a word to define Under the Volcano; brutal would suit it better. The fact is, the book is a good idea gone terribly wrong - as many other "important" works of literature. From the very beginning there's a sense of impending doom, but not as in a Thomas Hardy novel, for, in Under the Volcano, though you know something bad's going to happen, the book is so freakin' boring that you don't really care to read on in order to find out what it is that's going to happen - as you probably would with Hardy. And, besides, you probably wouldn't care to finish the book simply because of the fact that you already know what the hell is going to happen; the introduction, the preface, the postface, the prologue, the epilogue, the forward, the afterward, the abstracts, the acknowledgments, the dedication, the excerpt on the back cover all tell you what is going to happen. Of course, I exaggerate - but you get the picture. Can't the book itself unfold its events? The man obviously has a mastery over the English vernacular but he just doesn't use it to any effect. And that's lamentable, because really all these fancy words mean nothing when there is absolutely no rhetorics to hang on to. There is little of poetry in this book and even littler of entertainment. The book is dull, slow-witted and slow-motioned - for that's how it seems everything in the book occurs, in slow motion. The characters - these Hemingway-ian animals - are teeming with tedium, to coin a term. And the one character who is SLIGHTLY interesting, the Frenchman Laruelle, seldom appears in the story. All these things make me question the credibility of most of these reviewers hailing the book a masterpiece. I guess sometimes a book's standing in literature renders the reader's opinion without any consideration of the book itself. There should be a number of editions of this book in circulation, but I would perhaps argue that the Perennial Classics edition is the most popular, it being the first one to come up on the Amazon search and all. Nevertheless, it was the edition I read and I must therefore assert that it was one of the most disgraceful jobs of editing I have seen. There is, no kidding, a minimum of twenty misspelled words. It makes you wonder if this isn't actually the rough draft of Under the Volcano, mistakenly printed and never recalled.
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Summary: Pass the Gin Bottle
Review: Over-written, self-indulgent, solipsistic, this is still one of the great novels. It's a very English book, written by an Englishman who spent most of his life on the run from the place, and an American reader might find it a bit odd. It's about a man being eaten alive by his demons, and destroyed by them, burnt up and tossed away. Those demons include drink and love, mainly, but aometimes I think that the thing that really destroys Geoffrey Firmin, that prevents him from moving on and that prevents him from escaping and letting go, is that weird notion of duty, that sense that an Englishman has responsibilities to the rest of the world that cannot be avoided. Geoffrey cannot do anything, but neither can he run. Not for nothing do we see Geoffrey half the time through the eyes of others - Americans, Mexicans, French, and his brother Hugh, who seems to symbolise the new, post-imperial Britain, naive and childlike.
Firmin is the man torn between two poles - the ide!a of Empire (look out for Jacques' remark about Geoffrey never ceasing to believe in it - he is, after all, the ex-consul!), and the idea of Tolstoy - his speech to Hugh about not playing God with small countries applies as much to Mexico as Spain, and indeed to the Empire itself.
So, sitting on his bar stool under the volcano, all Firmin can do is defiantly raise his glass to the world - and all we can do is join him, as the tears trickle down our face.
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Summary: Under the Volcano
Review: Under the Volcano follows the last day of an ex-Consul named Geoffry Firmin in the town of Quauhnahuac, Mexico. The novel slowly lays out the events that have led up to the current time in the book by entering the thoughts of the main characters Geoffry Firmin, Yvonne Firmin, and Hugh Firmin. The detail that Lowry uses to create such a clear picture of everything surrounding Geoffry Firmin is impeccable and brings the story alive. The emotion that the characters are feeling throughout the novel is so moving that at times you find yourself hating Geoffry for his drinking problem while at others you feel sympathetic towards him and his struggle to do the right thing. The novel is not bogged down with boring insights into the characters minds, but instead looking into their thoughts helps portrary the conflicting feelings that each has for the others. Definately a recommended read as it is a touching account of one mans struggle to come to grips with reality and try to overcome his alcoholism while making peace with himself and those around him.
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