Under the Volcano

published	May 1st 1971 by Plume
binding	Paperback
isbn	0452255562 (isbn13: 9780452255562)
ebook
description	Beneath the twin shadows of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl in Mexico, a fateful series of events unfolds. Set against the backdrop of Europe during the...more [close] Beneath the twin shadows of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl in Mexico, a fateful series of events unfolds. Set against the backdrop of Europe during the Spanish Civil War, and in the course of one day, an entire life is chronicled. [close]
date added	05-26-07 edit book

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Trane rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

11/24/07

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: drunks, fantasists, modernists, beatniks, ex-pats, visionaries, wannabees

Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano is a cult piece of literature (if there can be such a thing) that I've been meaning to read for a long time. A friend's effusive praise convinced me to take the plunge, and after finishing the book I can say that the experience was one of long-drawn-out bouts of disappointment interspersed with brief, exciting, and instructive encounters with brilliance.

Part of the problem for me is that Lowry relies for a large portion of this book on the free indirect dis...more Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano is a cult piece of literature (if there can be such a thing) that I've been meaning to read for a long time. A friend's effusive praise convinced me to take the plunge, and after finishing the book I can say that the experience was one of long-drawn-out bouts of disappointment interspersed with brief, exciting, and instructive encounters with brilliance.

Part of the problem for me is that Lowry relies for a large portion of this book on the free indirect discourse of an alcoholic visionary — in other words, the reader is forced into the point of view of a delusional and confused main character who is constantly referencing Hindu mythology, Dante, the Bible, the Aztec deities, and etc., but never really makes any sense at all. It's a bit like being stuck at a bar next to a really smart guy who's been reading Carlos Castaneda and Hero of a Thousand Faces and insists on putting the two of them together as the central core of a theory of life, the universe, and everything that's centered smack in the middle of his 18th martini. I think we've all been there before, and had cause for regret.

The novel is primarily the story of Geoffrey Firmin, a former English Consul who is busy dying of alcoholism in Mexico. The central struggle of the novel is that between a transcendental idealism, on the part of Firmin (a sort of quest for Truth, with a capital T), and the deadening realities of life — including his inability to have a decent relationship with his ex-wife, his inability to write the book that will Explain It All, his own alcoholic debilitation, and the interwar rise of fascist sympathies in Mexico. Firmin's ex-wife Yvonne arrives to give him a second chance, and his half-brother Hugh, who is planning on sailing for Spain to help the Republicans fight Franco, also drops in. As you pretty much can guess from the beginning of the novel, tragedy ensues. Popular tropes include the Garden of Eden, the idea of a descent into the inferno, moments of absurdist madness, visions, and, of course, a bar that is named El Faralito (The Lighthouse).

Lowry can be a fantastic stylist when his prose doesn't get too far gone into the sodden consciousness of Firmin and there are superb jolts of perceptual clarity: "He [Firmin] was reaching the edge of the fair. Mysterious tents were shut up here, or lying collapsed, enfolded on themselves. They appeared almost human, the former kind awake, expectant; the latter with the wrinkled crumpled aspect of men asleep, but longing even in unconsciousness to stretch their limbs." That's nice, indeed. Several passages like this, where you can be given a nice perceptual jolt that really brings you inside the moment, are to be found in the sections that focus on the consciousness of Yvonne or the consciousness of Hugh. With Firmin, however, all too often we're lost in a confusion where myth, philosophy, whether it's 1924 or 1934, and whether or not he should have another drink all blend together. In fact, there are pages and pages where he agonizes over/justifies/rationalizes about the next drink. Maybe interesting if you've never known a true alcoholic, but really dreary if you have.

Okay — there are a few great sections in this book. The bull riding/fighting sequence rivals anything in Hemingway and the sequence where the bus stops and they try to help a dying peasant is unforgettable. These sections are as good as anything I've seen. But there is a lot of wading to be done to get to them. If you're a scholar of modernism, or just really like this sort of thing, then this book is definitely for you. It's an interesting book, just not for everyone. I definitely don't regret having read it, but I probably won't pick it up again.

Finally, this book has one of the most incredible final sentences of any novel I've read. It's shocking in its finitude. BUT YOU'VE GOT TO READ THE WHOLE THING TO GET THE EFFECT OF IT.

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Alex V. Cook rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

09/01/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

http://alexvcook.blogspot.com/...

Done! I took advantage of an afternoon off and finished it.

Don't get me wrong, this is an amazing book but I am glad to be done with it. Lowry has a very real-time approach to his hallucinatory sense of human suffering, so there are points when it trundles along at the speed of actual life when you want him to jut forth, cut to the chase, but he ne...more http://alexvcook.blogspot.com/...

Done! I took advantage of an afternoon off and finished it.

Don't get me wrong, this is an amazing book but I am glad to be done with it. Lowry has a very real-time approach to his hallucinatory sense of human suffering, so there are points when it trundles along at the speed of actual life when you want him to jut forth, cut to the chase, but he never does it. He makes you suffer the consequences of your voyeurism.

And it managed to surprise me in how it ended. Neither you nor the Counsul see it coming quite the way it comes. More dogs, more noseless peons, more dead and alive intermingling in darkened bars. So much of this book takes place in bars. In fact, it seems the only time we are not in a bar in this book is when we are heading to another bar. Makes you want some mezcal dribbled out from an elephantine gourd while a three-legged dog scampers around the room.

It also makes me (almost) want to see Peter Lorre's 1935 film The Hands of Orlac, since the poster of it is plastered everywhere in the town of Quauhnahuac as the characters and their triangles stumble and stagger around. Almost.

This story is not one that unfolds, it winds itself up into a tight ball and then unravels into nothing. Also, this book is barely about the characters, who in many ways are just thinly-veiled, slightly more heroic variants of those in his own biography. In that regard, its very much like the best work of Charles Bukowski and John Fante, where horrible people get a degree of elevation from the fact that they manage to persist through their own annihilation. Poetically, though, this book plays on the same fields as Ulysses (it bears many structural similarities to Ulysses) and One Hundred Years of Solitude and even Patrick Suskind's Perfume, where time and persona bends around an unseen abyss , a vacuous negative space created not only by human cruelty and indifference, but hollow romanticism and idealistic projection that are the flip sides to that same cruel, indifferent coin.

I'm glad to be done with it, but I suspect this is one of those with which I will never be really done....less

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crito rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

08/04/08

A cornucopia of literary allusions, numerology, Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy and Tarot symbolism. Chapter One of the book is, admittedly, tedious to get through. Once one has read the entire book, however, the apparent tediousness of Chap. One becomes understandable. It is the rest of the novel essentially summarized in one chapter. The book opens one year after the events of the rest of the novel; actually, it's one year and one hour after the 7am to 7pm day which transpires from Chap.2 thr...more A cornucopia of literary allusions, numerology, Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy and Tarot symbolism. Chapter One of the book is, admittedly, tedious to get through. Once one has read the entire book, however, the apparent tediousness of Chap. One becomes understandable. It is the rest of the novel essentially summarized in one chapter. The book opens one year after the events of the rest of the novel; actually, it's one year and one hour after the 7am to 7pm day which transpires from Chap.2 through Chap. 12, the Day of the Dead.

Each chapter is written in a pseudo-stream of consciousness from the perspective of each of the main protagonists of the novel, i.e. the Consul, his ex-wife, his brother and his friend and cuckolder Jaques Laruelle (Chap. One only). I agree with other reviewers who find the perfectamente borracho mind of the Consul sometimes hard to follow, sometimes an invitation for the reader to get drunk himself. But the journey through drinking oneself to sobriety, as the Consul does, brings the careful reader to a startling sense of lucidity. And the "wheels within wheels" of total drunkeness is the structure, the movement, the 'theme' of the novel itself, similar to Joyce's 'eternal return' in Finnegans Wake, yet uniquely Malcolm Lowry.

For those who desire to delve into the allusions and symbols which permeate the novel, David Markson's Malcolm Lowry's Volcano: Myth, symbol, meaning is extremely rich and helpful. For those wishing to understand Kabbalah and Lowry's use of it in the novel, Perle Epstein's The Private Labyrinth of Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano and The Cabbala is invaluable. And for all readers of the novel, Douglas Day's Malcolm Lowry: A Biography is a crucial guide to what Lowry hoped to achieve in writing this first book in his hoped for trilogy. Day's biography includes many excerpts from letters Lowry wrote to his publisher which shed a great deal of light on the 'meaning' of the novel.

Under the Volcano is a novel which can be analyzed and studied for a lifetime and more enjoyed and more dreadful upon each reading. ...less

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Micheledbraun rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

08/17/08

One of the things I can't figure out is the nationality of this writer. I'm finding lots of places where the author is considered Canadian, not British (he was born in England, but lived for the longest stretch (and died) in Vancouver). But he also lived in South American for much of his life. Very international life.

The point of view most frequenly adopted in the text, what Mieke Bal calls "focalization" is that of a drunk. He interprets everything around him through a haze of al...more

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Steven rated it:

07/18/08

bookshelves: novels

As with all the great modernist novels, of which this is certainly one, the reading experience is exceptionally difficult and apt to be frustrating on a casual read, yet richly rewarding to an immersive read. Lowry has made the immersive read even harder to attain because the Consul--whose day-in-the-life (his last actually) this novel is about--is perfectamente borracho throughout the novel. So dipping into the passages portraying the Consul's conscious life is a slide into his slurry of...more

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Siobhan added it (review of isbn 0060955228)

04/12/08

bookshelves: gave-up-in-shame

Read in April, 2008

UPDATE: I GIVE UP.

The endless walk to the bus station! The endless portentous references to THE HANDS OF FATE! I CAN'T TAKE IT! GAHHHHHH111111!!!!!!1111!

It is taking me a long, long time to read this.

Not because it isn't good. Every time I pick it up I fall into this kind of weird, semi-amazed trance that makes me a.) wish I was drunk, b.) feel slightly drunk, and c.) feel like I haven't had a drink in years and could really use one RIGHT NOW. All at the same time. Which is n...more

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Paul rated it:

04/07/08

Read in April, 2008

There's a thin (red) line between tragic and pathetic, and this book definitely walks it. The story concerns a day in the life of an alcoholic named Geoffrey who is, depending on your viewpoint, incredibly tragic or else absolutely pathetic. Yes, just one single day, a day which takes, in this edition, 376 long pages to describe. The writing is very good, the characters are well drawn, but unfortunately if I had to use one word to describe this book, it'd be: boring. Because the writing is so go...more

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Mark rated it:

(review of isbn 0061120154)

01/28/08

Read in January, 2008

I probably didn't read this book attentively enough — it requires a great deal of tab-keeping given the fabric of interwoven backstory allusions and symbolic imagery motifs — so rather than look at Lowery's shifts in perspective and chronology; his modernist incorporation of films and newspaper fragments and tattered signs and other texts; (hindsight-aided) embodiment of prewar politics in his characters and Mexican politics in his milieu; etc., I'm just going to focus on his sentences. Thos...more

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Lewis rated it:

(review of isbn 0061120154)

11/02/07

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: those who drink

Having known the reputation of this book as classic of 20th Century literature and having had a friend of the author tell me how great the book is, I may have expected something different than what I got. Not that I didn't like the book. The prose, imagery, characters, and depiction of setting are first rate, and at times the idea of being a drunk expatriate in Mexico becomes appealing as an occupation. But the flaws of this work are notable, most of which I won't spoil for anyone wishing to ...more

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Adam rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

02/08/08

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is a mad prophet’s dream of rising dangers, a masterpiece of symbolism (the animal imagery, Dia de los Muertos, the Volcanoes), a great intertwining of voices (radio, letters, movie posters, remembrances), an encapsulation of the era’s political thought and literature, a surreal, hypnotic journey into the night, and a breathtakingly beautiful book; a sad, half-demented augury. The last 50 or so pages are especially worth it. One the most chilling last line...more

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Karyna rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

08/14/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in August, 2008

Gah! I can't fucking do it. I just can't. I stuck it out to about page 90 hoping the book would eventually make it worth my while with some sort of Black-Orpheus-meets-drunken-Fitzgerald carnivalesque squalor...and maybe it still would have, but I just couldn't hang around any longer to find out. This book is one big potluck of of my least favorite literary occurrences: sentences that are next to impossible to parse (I think this is supposed to add to the feeling of displacement and drunken con...more

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Kira rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

10/10/07

Read in October, 2007

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I did not finish a book and this was it. I persevered for as long as possible - after all, it has been called one of THE books of the 20th century by someone somewhere - but it was just too hardgoing. Trying to get through the writing is like trying to wade through a big vat of tar. Dense, shifting back and forth from past to present, from one character's perspective to another's, filled to the brim with deliberately obscure references, with a plo...more

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Irene rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

08/29/08

So many years ago I made a pact with this book. Hope is there. As the dog dies, as he dies, I rise, hope resurrects into a spiritual triumph. Dogs in ditches, alcohol shutting one down then lifting skyward. Can anyone any really match the breathless scope of this novel, that leaps skyward rather than earthbound and can not anyone wish his (Malcolm's) tortured spirit the peace he richly deserves with this masterpiece. My breath stopped for a second when I finished this book and now 35 years later...more

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Will rated it:

(review of isbn 0061120154)

01/25/08

This one was tough, and I'll admit that I skipped around a bit. I'm not sure that I got everything out of it that I was supposed to, either, but here's a brief run-down:

The beginning is stunningly beautiful. The setting is wonderful, as is the language. It made me want to visit Mexico.

Later, though, the book slows down and gets deeply into the process of the main character's alcoholic habits, which seem tedious and sometimes asinine. I didn't like this as much. And it gets really,...more

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Bill rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

04/24/08

Read in April, 2008

I really tried to read this book, but I gave up about 3/4ths of the way through. The story of the last day of an unrepentant alcoholic should have been interesting, but the style of this book just annoyed me entirely too much.

I do suppose I can see why it's considered one of the classics of 20th century literature in that it heavily uses a stream of consciousness narrative, often with a single page representing 3 or 4 conversation threads (the one aloud, the one that each of the two speakers ...more

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Roland rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

03/05/08

bookshelves: 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, modern-library-s-100-best-novels

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: People who liked Ulysses and wondered what it would be like 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 g...more

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Tom rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

06/12/08

Read in June, 2008

Reread this strange and disturbing novel. It's a stream of consciousness (with an introductory flashback chapter) set in exotic Mexico, more or less about a man drinking himself to death, which has achieved a certain "cult status". Some will love it, others will find it weird or boring. The novel was the basis for a rather good film (dir. John Huston, who knew something about drinking, starring Albert Finney and Jacqueline Bisset, 1984). Unusually, I recommend seeing the film first... ...more

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Matilda Lou rated it:

(review of isbn 0060955228)

05/18/07

this book must be read more than once to understand it. the first time, the reader struggles through the alcohol, the hurt and mexico. the second time, the reader understands the alcohol, the hurt, and mexico. the third time, the reader (me) falls into the book, stays there and appreciates what lowry did as a writer, he let go of everything, understood that he is in no way like the writers of his time (joyce...etc.) and he just writes. His characters are completely flawed and are in no way looki...more

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Mark rated it:

(review of isbn 0061120154)

01/11/08

i thought this book was incredible--one of the top 20 books i've ever read. it's about regret and guilt and shame and beauty, and most of all how the main character's alcoholism triggers and is triggered by these things. the whole story takes place in one day and nothing of what happens feels the least bit contrived. what most impressed me was lowry's exacting, freewheeling prose and those scenes that showed the moment-by-moment, all or nothing war of the soul that can go on inside people who ar...more

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David rated it:

(review of isbn 0061120154)

05/04/08

Of course it's about so much more than alcoholism: love, idealism, fate, myth, environmental issues, the Spanish Civil War. But, considering how many alcoholic authors there have been, how many have actually captured drunkenness this well! A staggeringly vivid tropical world (30s Mexico) refracted in Joycean fashion through the mezcal-addled consciousness of the doomed, raging Consul. I always put off reading this because it just sounded SO depressing, but Lowry's volcanic prose and the themati...more

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