Under the Volcano

Dec 20, 2012 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Readers of 20th Century Classics

Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Modern Library

Shelves: favorites-contemporary, 20th-century, mexico, british, stream-of-consciousness, modern-library-100, time-100, favorites

“You like this garden? Why is it yours? We evict those who destroy!” -- Under the Volcano, 1947, at 135

On the Day of the Dead in 1938, Geoffrey Firmin sits in a bar in Mexico, drunk again on mescal. He has resigned his post as British consul to drink himself to death. “I propose to disintegrate as I please.” (57) This is his final day in the shadow of the volcano.

On this day, Mexicans mourn their dead by holding mock funerals by day and partying at night. The early death of the consul’s parents...more “You like this garden? Why is it yours? We evict those who destroy!” -- Under the Volcano, 1947, at 135

On the Day of the Dead in 1938, Geoffrey Firmin sits in a bar in Mexico, drunk again on mescal. He has resigned his post as British consul to drink himself to death. “I propose to disintegrate as I please.” (57) This is his final day in the shadow of the volcano.

On this day, Mexicans mourn their dead by holding mock funerals by day and partying at night. The early death of the consul’s parents, his court-martial from the navy, and the desertion of his wife last year all cause a great deal of grief in the consul's life:

Though my suffering seems senseless I am still in agony. There is no explanation of my life. Please let me believe that all that is not an abominable self-deception. Deliver me from this dreadful tyranny of self. I have sunk low. Let me sink lower still, that I may know the truth. Teach me to love again, to love life. Where is love? Let me truly suffer. Give me back my purity, the knowledge of the Mysteries, that I have betrayed and lost. Let me be truly lonely, that I may honestly pray. Let us be happy again somewhere, if it’s only together, if it’s only out of this terrible world. Destroy the world! (300)

Malcolm Lowry writes with lush evocative language in imitation of the riot of exotic vegetation. Each of the twelve chapters offers a different point of view that rotates among the main characters: the consul; his step-brother Hugh; and the consul’s wife Yvonne. Whenever the author uses the consul’s point of view, the story becomes harder to follow (as you would expect from a drunken man), and the consul's repeated hallucinations make it difficult to discern between reality and fantasy.

One year earlier Yvonne left the consul, but today she has returned, proclaiming that she is there to save him. Yet, Yvonne spends most of her day with the consul’s half-brother, Hugh, who dreams of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, while the consul drinks mescal.

In addition to alcoholism, the consul suffers from acedia, spiritual despair. “Without you I am cast out, severed. I am an outcast from myself, a shadow.”(379) Is he speaking of his wife Yvonne or of God? (379) Author Malcom Lowry, an alcoholic who died of an overdose at age 47, wrote that his novel was "principally concerned with the guilt of man, with his remorse, with his ceaseless struggling toward the light under the weight of the past, and with his doom."

The air is stagnant and drips with portent. This novel is set one year before the outbreak of the Second World War, which metaphorically is the volcano under the shadow of which the town now lives. The drunkenness of the consul is symbolic of the drunkenness of human beings stumbling toward their destruction. “What was life but a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn? Revolution rages too in the tierra caliente of each human soul. No peace but that must pay full toll to hell.” (113)

The novel has a strong sense of place regarding Quahnahuac (Cuernavaca)in south central Mexico which is traversed by mountains, valleys, plateaus, jungles and volcanos. “Wherever you turned an abyss was waiting for you around the corner.”(16) A plunging ravine, which reminds us of Dante’s Malebolge, features prominently in the novel’s landscape and plot. The ravines are rich with symbolism that will challenge the reader. “Read history! Go back a thousand years. What is the use of interfering with its worthless stupid course? Like a barranca, a ravine, choked up with refuse, that winds through the ages and peters out.” (323)

Another challenge for astute readers will be the rich intertextuality and references to Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, and Baudelaire to name a few. Sophisticated readers agree that "Under the Volcano" is one of the finest novels written during the 20th Century. Though Lowry is not a household name like some of his contemporaries, The Modern Library ranked this the 11th Best Novel in English in the 20th Century and Time Magazine ranked it in the Time 100 Greatest Novels.

Can the life and death of this shipwreck of a man somehow be turned into an affirmation of value? Says the consul: “to an Englishman it’s such terribly bad form to be a bona fide martyr.” (341) However, Lowry may have had a different idea if we are to judge by one of the book's epigraphs from Goethe: “Whoever unceasingly strives upward…him can we save.”

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Mar 16, 2013 Nick Craske rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Under The Volcano.
I thought The Tunnel was the most exquisitely drawn book title. But no. Under The Volcano. A fiercely poetic title. Terse in form and rich in mythic imagery.

Under: Beneath and covered by. Below the surface of. At a point or position lower or further down than. In the position or state of bearing, supporting, sustaining, enduring, etc….

This is an incredible book. I'm experiencing an incredible run of great reads and discovering writers who I want to read more of but Malcom Lowr...more
Under The Volcano.
I thought The Tunnel was the most exquisitely drawn book title. But no. Under The Volcano. A fiercely poetic title. Terse in form and rich in mythic imagery.

Under: Beneath and covered by. Below the surface of. At a point or position lower or further down than. In the position or state of bearing, supporting, sustaining, enduring, etc….

This is an incredible book. I'm experiencing an incredible run of great reads and discovering writers who I want to read more of but Malcom Lowry's book stands out as the most memorable - its imagery and symbolism are imprinted in my mind.

It made an impression early on. As the first chapter draws to a close; as the initial strokes of scene setting are made with our drunken protagonist Geoffrey Firmin, staggering through the Mexican streets, past colourful characters preparing for the Day of The Dead ceremonies, as the closing passage descends down into an insular observation:

…set the writhing mass in an ashtray, where beautifully conforming it folded upon itself, a burning castle, collapsed, subsided to a ticking hive through which sparks like tiny red worms crawled and flew, while above a few grey wisps of ashes floated in the thin smoke, a dead husk now, faintly crepitant…
Suddenly from outside, a bell spoke out, then ceased abruptly...
Over the town, in the dark tempestuous night, backwards revolved the luminous wheel

Lowry embeds motifs and symbolism throughout the fine prose incorporating, philosophy, religious symbolism, literary references; tragedy and mysticsm to dramatic effect. The book's title is an example of the fine use of metaphor. I have recently read William H. Gass's essay collection Life Sentences and the chapter on metaphor certainly primed me for this novel. Feels the perfect novel to have read in succession, in fact.

And there were moments I felt I was reading a Gass novel. Personally I see many similarities in tone between Under The Volcano and Gass's debut novel, Omensetter's Luck. There's a feverish zeal in the layering of emotion and psychological drama as our protagonist journeys through the stories' increasing intensity… Which erupts in the epic closing scenes.

I'm under it's intoxicating wiles.
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Nov 03, 2012 [P] rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bitchin

According to a recent article in the Guardian newspaper this is one of the ten most difficult novels to finish. [P]'s reaction: you pussies.

Listen, difficult novels are my thing, I seek them out; I’m like a surfer looking for the biggest wave to ride, one that contains within it a great white shark. But this isn't such a wave. It starts slowly, yes, but once ex-consul Geoffrey Firmin staggers into view what we essentially have on our hands is a club 18-30's version of Ulysses. You see, it's the...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Everything that takes place in Under the Volcano exists beneath the rarefied gaze of Popocatepetl, the towering volcano that dominates the south-central Mexican plateau. It is fitting that Lowry chose to make the volcano the omnipresent entity in his watercolor novel, since alcoholism, slumbering through filmy days and slurred nights, can erupt at any time into a furious outpouring of violent emotions, freed from the ruined tatters that constitute the remains of self-control. Such molten rivers...more Everything that takes place in Under the Volcano exists beneath the rarefied gaze of Popocatepetl, the towering volcano that dominates the south-central Mexican plateau. It is fitting that Lowry chose to make the volcano the omnipresent entity in his watercolor novel, since alcoholism, slumbering through filmy days and slurred nights, can erupt at any time into a furious outpouring of violent emotions, freed from the ruined tatters that constitute the remains of self-control. Such molten rivers are capable of burning to cinders those trying to penetrate the drunken mesh and reach the sober person trapped underneath; of seizing control of the alcoholic's mind and letting loose all of the primal demons bent on destruction and irrationality that gestate in the fires of the soul's own hell.

British consul Geoffrey Firmin is on the verge of this very eruption - exiled to the lush no-where of Mexico, spending his days drinking wherever he finds himself, amongst Mexican amigos who hopelessly try to steer him towards a drier future, and longing for the return of his ex-wife, Yvonne; a reunion he both desires and dreads, as he knows all too well the true destruction that will ensue from such a piebald fantasy. Enter Yvonne and, somewhat earlier, Firmin's half-brother Hugh, each having come to reclaim him and both of whom carry their own limiting secrets: Yvonne, that of an affair with Hugh; the sibling, the affair and a deep shame at having let down his side by failing to achieve socialist heroism in the Spanish Civil War.

All the ex-pats laden with guilt, then, Geoffrey's worst of all because, deep down, where the truth resides unshriven by the bottle's temporary falsehoods, he wants to probe the bottom of the abyss; he desires to remain unredeemed, to damn himself and wound those who love him as penance for making him let them down. Thus, when Yvonne presents Geoffrey with a cherished fantasy about leaving Mexico for Canada and creating a new life in the outlier forests of Vancouver, the consul accepts with alacrity, and does his best to remain dry for long enough to set up a glimmer of hope in his former spouse and current brother. Alas, delirium tremens is a very real and horrible master, a sender of nightmares and chimeras, a sere spirit that dries out the tongue and the soul. A nip here, a tuck there, and soon Geoffrey - as all knew inevitably would happen - absconds with hope and dreams in an effort to soar wildly and deliriously happily amidst the winds of irresponsible abandon.

Firmin is, more or less, the self-based portrait of the inveterate drinker author, and his character is painted in unflattering pastels and given an impressive varnish of truth. He garners little pity, but that isn't what Lowry wants. He is simply telling the tale of another lost soul in the twentieth century, lost and damaged and careless of damaging others. It is all done with superb writing, vivid portraits of a fantastic, earthy and magic-imbued Mexico, always under the brooding stare of the conical peak. A hallucinatory and, at times, exhilarating book, though ultimately hopeless, and worthy of the high praise it has received.(less)

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Mar 20, 2011 Abailart rated it 5 of 5 stars

Under the Volcano

I read the Picador Classics edition (1967) with an introduction by Stephen Spender. Unusually, I read the introduction first, then again after reading the novel, which I read in three sittings. I like Spender, and relate to his reading of the book.

Despite its dual reputations of being difficult and about alcoholism, it is neither. As for difficulty, it’s true that understanding Spanish would be helpful, but the saturated extratextual references to mythology, mysticism, history...more Under the Volcano

I read the Picador Classics edition (1967) with an introduction by Stephen Spender. Unusually, I read the introduction first, then again after reading the novel, which I read in three sittings. I like Spender, and relate to his reading of the book.

Despite its dual reputations of being difficult and about alcoholism, it is neither. As for difficulty, it’s true that understanding Spanish would be helpful, but the saturated extratextual references to mythology, mysticism, history and so on can be taken as fragments of a disintegrating mind in a disintegrating world: the central theme is of stability versus instability, fragments against ruins, and from this erupts the permanent psychological divisions between desire’s positivity and its demonic twin of destruction. The characters are all one character, the places all one place, the times all one time, though an impossible time – that of a moment that is an ideal locus without nostalgia for past or future.

Alcohol is central of course because the character of the novel is alcoholic, and best read, therefore by an alcoholic – which is most people, for Firmin and his alternatives are merely further advanced into descent and ascent than most which makes his expression approach the ideal moment. The refusal to accept love is not a failure but an affirmation for love is part of the dreadful entanglement of contingent dual actions of affirmation and immediate denial, and it is this tangle (the novel is thick with imagery of entanglement) which is transcended by final descent into the (literal) abyss. Obviously for it could be no other, a novel of immense contradictions, impossible antipathies, and the realisation of being as antithetical to identity.

It is easy to read when one accepts its imagistic concentration. Films, stills, photographs, paintings, advertisements, thicken every paragraph to a flicker that has the paradoxical potential to, like a hollywood movie, enspectre a counterpart to diegesis – a clean, pure, fluid, immensely joyful….. illusion.

It’s a wonderful, exquisitely awful and painful novel of redemption.

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Feb 08, 2008 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 lines I ha...more

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Jun 28, 2007 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars

This seemed so promising (self-destruction! love triangles! Mexico!), but after about 150 pages I couldn't hack it. Certainly the most committed stream-of-consciousness study of alcoholism I've ever failed at reading, but in the end I just decided to not become an alcoholic and stopped reading.

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Mar 18, 2013 Ned Rifle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"However rich in precursors, the truly great work must seem to break with an old order and really is a devastating if salutary move. Such a work extends the reach of art but also complicates and burdens the enterprise of art with new, self-conscious standards. It both excites and paralyses the imagination."
- Susan Sontag

"Christ Jesus why may we not be simple?"
- Hugh Firmin C/O Malcolm Lowry (Or Malcolm Lowry C/O Hugh
Firmin, if you prefer)

I won't be saying much about this book at present, th...more "However rich in precursors, the truly great work must seem to break with an old order and really is a devastating if salutary move. Such a work extends the reach of art but also complicates and burdens the enterprise of art with new, self-conscious standards. It both excites and paralyses the imagination."
- Susan Sontag

"Christ Jesus why may we not be simple?"
- Hugh Firmin C/O Malcolm Lowry (Or Malcolm Lowry C/O Hugh
Firmin, if you prefer)

I won't be saying much about this book at present, though it has overtaken my mind. The main point to make is that it must be read. No excuses will be accepted. It has been said often that it starts slowly and, whilst I may not argue with this characterisation, it's worth bearing in mind your own opinions on whether judgements of speed and pace are qualitative. The introduction told me that people often find it hard to get started, only managing to read it on their third attempt. Acknowledging the possible wisdom here I read the first 20 (or so) pages twice before unhesitatingly embarking on my first full reading. From the outset it is beautiful, and the gentle start is necessary - for soon things will rise to such a pitch of intensity that, were one not to climb along with it, it would be easy to ridicule. Nor does it ever stop rising (and falling), it is forever rising (and falling).

A friend of a friend, I was informed by the first friend (who is now also reading Under the Volcano), has taken to simply reading it over and over. This seems to me a most sensible course of action, and one that would not lead to a lack of nourishment. I also, for the first time in a long time, feel compelled to start again immediately, though for me three readings then a break of some time might be enough to be going on with. For my second reading I am having an accompaniment of Malcolm Lowry's Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning by David Markson - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63... - which plots the allusions throughout the book. These allusions are certainly not necessary for simple enjoyment of the novel, and this I know because I surely caught very few of them; they can but help the understanding.

Possibly a more thorough review will be forthcoming after the second reading or, if not, after the third or, if not...

Also, as a last wee note, though this novel fills the silence quite remarkably, I did find myself listening to music during certain times and here are a few tracks that worked particularly well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bKOzA...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCWBXp...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rab0cc... (less)

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May 18, 2007 Matilda Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

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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Jan 15, 2009 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Despite the fact that Under the Volcano has earned enough respect to be considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, it is still a dubious distinction among many critics. Some find its inherently autobiographical essence, reprehensible. Others see so much bombastic lyricism in the novel as to make whatever remains of a plot, completely unintelligible. Many see nothing more than a novel about an alcoholic, written by an alcoholic. Of course, such criticisms have not been made w...more Despite the fact that Under the Volcano has earned enough respect to be considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, it is still a dubious distinction among many critics. Some find its inherently autobiographical essence, reprehensible. Others see so much bombastic lyricism in the novel as to make whatever remains of a plot, completely unintelligible. Many see nothing more than a novel about an alcoholic, written by an alcoholic. Of course, such criticisms have not been made without good reason. Yet Under the Volcano does have a lot more to offer.

I mention the history of the reception of Lowry's book because it is such an interesting case. When it was published in 1947, this sort of novel was nothing new. There are so many aspects of Under the Volcano that nod directly to the high modernist tradition that Lowry's novel occasionally reads like a zealous sort of homage to its predecessors. The most obvious example would have to be the fact that the story is set throughout the course of one day (Joyce's Ulysses). Lowry's third-person narration sporadically gives way to digressive internal monologues (Joyce and Faulkner). Time is lamented over, as well as distorted (Proust and Woolf). The sociopolitical backdrop (the Spanish Civil War) of the story is concerned with injustice and vulgarity of war (Man's Fate by Andre Malraux). Granted, many of these similarities are probably coincidental, but it does make one wonder exactly what is so unique about Under the Volcano. It's possible that Lowry's achievement resides in his ability to write such a hermetic account of an alcoholics' descent, while simultaneously looking out into the world. After all, Under the Volcano is essentially a projected expression of Lowry's own suffering. If it lacked the language and context that Lowry utilized so well, then it would have been nothing better than the average bowery tragedy.

So, it's a rather scatterbrained read. Even writing this makes my head hurt, and I can see how it's sort of a cliche that most people put it down after the first fifty pages. My lack of knowledge of the Spanish Civil War makes me sort of less than capable of saying anything too profound about this book. I'd rather leave that to William T. Vollman or William H. Gass. (less)

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Nov 24, 2010 Hamish rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read-lit, lit

Even better the second time through. The first time you read it you're aware the entire time that the Consul will die, but the mystery is how. The second time you read it, you know how the consul is going to die and you sit there and wonder at how you missed all that foreshadowing and wince at all of the signs of the inevitability of what will happen.

The irony of the book, though, is that the fate of the consul and Yvonne is not inevitable. Everything could have been so easily avoided if they wo...more Even better the second time through. The first time you read it you're aware the entire time that the Consul will die, but the mystery is how. The second time you read it, you know how the consul is going to die and you sit there and wonder at how you missed all that foreshadowing and wince at all of the signs of the inevitability of what will happen.

The irony of the book, though, is that the fate of the consul and Yvonne is not inevitable. Everything could have been so easily avoided if they would have simply said what they were thinking (or if the Consul were willing to stop Hamleting it up, even when facing his own death. Cowardice and inaction is another theme). Lowry is wonderful in his ability to paint their inner thoughts so vividly, and it's particularly painful to be aware of these thoughts and see that our heroes are so unwilling to express them. I would argue that this is the main theme of the novel.

Lowry is also particularly talented at creating mood and ambiance. And while he is very good at general descriptions, his principle shortcoming is his inability to describe specific things. I still have no idea what he was trying to portray at the end of chapter 11, the thing that Yvonne has to climb up. Nor was I able to make any sense of what Laruelle's house was supposed to look like. It all seems very clear in his mind, but he can't quite seem to make the image appear in the reader's mind. However, Lowry makes up for this with the life he imbues on his world. It is not simply a backdrop for the characters to walk across but a living, breathing entity. Everything inter-relates. Look at the way that the horse the Consul spooks in chapter 12 impacts Yvonne in chapter 11. Notice that when Laruelle watches a group of mourners walk down the hill at the beginning of chapter 1 and how he later passes one of them as she finally makes her way home when they both enter the town later on. It's this attention to detail that I think is the heart of great art. And whatever its flaws, this is truly a great novel that warrants multiple readings.

And it still has the greatest last sentence in all of literature (don't skip ahead to it though, you need to read the whole thing to get its full impact).(less)

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Jan 10, 2009 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars

Purchase a large bottle of tequila and start walking from Ernest Hemingway's house to Vladimir Nabokov's house. As you're walking, take a drink for the sake of squandered love. Then take one for isolation. Take one drink for war, and two for peace. Take one for world-weariness. Take one for betrayal. Take a big one for fear. Take a bigger one for the allure of death. Take one for a chasm opened between lovers. Take one for connections that span oceans, continents. Take one for filthy, homeless d...more

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May 21, 2013 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Survives and yes even thrives despite referring during its horrific/ heartbreaking final chapter to someone "pharting"...Meanwhile there are good verbose books and bad verbose books and the difference between them - a difference blurred, for me at least, by the fact that I just kind of like it when writers use a lot of words - may be analogous to the one between information and noise. Lowry is remarkably high on the former; so his book despite its heft comes off as amazingly efficient: as if its...more

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Apr 18, 2008 Raegan Butcher rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: alcoholics and those wishing to be

A few years back I used to sit and drink myself quite senseless in this outdoor cantina in Cuernavaca (the inspiration for the fictonal town in Mexico here) and this novel was never far from my mind. Hallucinatory, feverish and suffused with doom, this is a heavy breakfast to tackle but worth it for the brave and interested.

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Jul 05, 2007 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dead

let's get drunk and walk around.

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Jun 23, 2012 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Nobody

Recommended to Steve by: Ted Schmeckpeper

I am not going redraft the following review yet again in spite of its offensive tone as it stands now. Just chalk it up to a propensity of mine. After reading a book that is especially meaningful for me, I tend to clutch it to my scrawny chest and try to protect it from any further readers. That is what occurred here.

* * * * * * * * * *

Upon putting a book there on the bookshelf as one that I have read and then assigning it a certain number of stars, I always feel compelled to write something abo...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Jeremy added it

Shelves: british-literature

The premise of this is simple enough: we follow the last day in the life of an alcoholic british consul in mexico, his wife, half-brother and some of their acquaintances. Yet what an extremely dark, difficult book this is to work through. Lowry spins out a dense, tar-thick mixture of allusions and symbols which don't flow as much as they ooze and congeal through each other. On top of that, the narrative perspective shifts in a blink of an eye, one minute your in the skittering thoughts of a drun...more

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May 21, 2013 Marc Kozak rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was, as some on this website like to say, a little too avant for my garde.

I am a fan of both stream of consciousness narratives and related post-modern literary tomfoolery, but this ended up being one of the more difficult books I've ever read. And it's not entirely because of the crazypants techniques - I really struggled to get any kind of emotional attachment, even though I felt like it was in there somewhere. I blame myself for it - even though I am giving this 2 stars (because I really...more This was, as some on this website like to say, a little too avant for my garde.

I am a fan of both stream of consciousness narratives and related post-modern literary tomfoolery, but this ended up being one of the more difficult books I've ever read. And it's not entirely because of the crazypants techniques - I really struggled to get any kind of emotional attachment, even though I felt like it was in there somewhere. I blame myself for it - even though I am giving this 2 stars (because I really didn't enjoy it, and I found myself glazing over the longer areas of incoherent chunks of text), I have a feeling I will come back to this someday.

To recap: MAN GETS DRUNK AND STUMBLES AROUND A LOT WITH A SPANGLISH INNER MONOLOGUE.

Our main character Fermin is a colossal alcoholic - his lady left him after possibly shacking up with his half-brother and one of his friends, his position as a Consul has been rendered useless, and life is muy mal. Inexplicably, his lady comes back, as does his half-brother and friend, and they all wander around making half-hearted efforts to "save" Fermin, who is really only interested in drinking mescal.

As bonkers as the stream of consciousness style was, it had it's moments of stunning beauty. Fermin's thoughts are displayed as peppered with multiple personalities and languages, hallucinations, and no concept of time or place. It's completely disorienting, and sometimes snaps back into lucidity, leading to some particularly jarring and poignant passages:

"Though my suffering seems senseless I am still in agony. There is no explanation of my life." Indeed there was not, nor was this what he'd meant to convey. "Please let Yvonne have her dream -- dream? -- of a new life with me -- please let me believe that all that is not an abominable self-deception," he tried... "Please let me make her happy, deliver me from this dreadful tyranny of self. I have sunk low. Let me sink lower still, that I may know the truth. Teach me to love again, to love life." That wouldn't do either... "Where is love? Let me truly suffer. Give me back my purity, the knowledge of the Mysteries, that i have betrayed and lost. -- Let me be truly lonely, that I may honestly pray. Let us be happy again somewhere, if it's only together, if it's only out of this terrible world. Destroy the world!" he cried in his heart.”

Lowry's sentences, while extremely long, seem to operate as Russian nesting dolls, starting with one idea, interrupting with another, and then another, slowly working their way back to the original thought. Amazingly, most of the time it's not only comprehensible, but downright impressive. I must also say that Lowry describes his setting wonderfully. There is so much fascinating imagery about Mexico and the surrounding areas - he makes it sound magical and terrifying all at once. The scenery is not only extremely well described, but important thematically as well. A+, man.

A few issues:
-Fermin's wife, Yvonne, is gone for a year, and then comes back. But I'm not really sure why. Her reasoning for coming back isn't really discussed until almost the end, and even then it makes no sense. I just couldn't get a grasp on her motivations throughout the entire book.
-The super highbrow literary references (there were a lot - hope you've read Faust!) seemed completely incongruous to the environment. I can understand it in the narrative, but I had a hard time believing any dialogue from these characters, especially when they talked like snooty literary professors while not being able to walk in a straight line.
-There are parts that are just boring. A cardinal sin, even when engaging in clever wordsmithery.

I dunno - I feel like half of this is me failing as a reader and the other half is the book simply being a sloggy mess. It's reputation as one of the greatest modern classics makes sense - there is definitely some brilliance here - but I got the most joy out of simply being done with it.(less)

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May 07, 2011 Evan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-library-top-100-list, __in-my-collection, booze, latin-america, men-behaving-badly, 2011-reads

Ah, Malcolm Lowry, you were a batshit crazy drunken nut of a novelist at the right time to be so: the mid-20th century -- a time of Jackson Pollock and atonal music and cut-up literary narrative and horrible black box skyscrapers; a time of an artistic aesthetic that, thank God, is dead -- and your obsessively overdescriptive novel in which even the non-drunk characters spout non-sequiturs showed your critically fashionable Joycean penchant for the stream of conscious and ample obscurantist refe...more Ah, Malcolm Lowry, you were a batshit crazy drunken nut of a novelist at the right time to be so: the mid-20th century -- a time of Jackson Pollock and atonal music and cut-up literary narrative and horrible black box skyscrapers; a time of an artistic aesthetic that, thank God, is dead -- and your obsessively overdescriptive novel in which even the non-drunk characters spout non-sequiturs showed your critically fashionable Joycean penchant for the stream of conscious and ample obscurantist references that send English majors into raptures that are usually followed by unfortunate attempts at symbolic analysis that make even less sense than the novel they are analyzing. This is not at all to say that Under the Volcano doesn't make sense; it actually does, very much. I found the stream of consciousness, the time shifting, the changing centers of interest, the flashbacks, the internal character monologues and the like all very easy to follow, even if I wasn't always sure what the hell they were entirely talking about. I'm not entirely convinced that Lowry did either. I was mostly very convinced that, for most of the way, I didn't much care.

Under the Volcano had its first iteration as a short story, which might be informative to read in light of the absurdly fulsome, interminable descriptions of flora and fauna that Lowry has added to pad it out to novel length. Sometimes the descriptions served a symbolic purpose -- as in the glowering, menacing, foreshadowing presence of the volcanoes dominating the setting -- but just as often I simply found them to be examples of Lowry showing off his descriptive chops to no good purpose other than to do just that. He played chicken with this reader's patience, and this reader conceded to him and skimmed through a whole lot of flora and fauna. On one end of the spectrum we have Hemingway, who described places a bit too sparely for my taste, and at the other end we have Lowry, who has writerly OCD in telling us so much about the setting that I never could grasp or visualize it. After contending with this for a number of pages I finally decided once and for all what the town and the surrounding environs looked like and settled for that in my mind and ignored the rest of Lowry's embellishments. Somewhere between Hemingway and Lowry there is a happy medium.

In Lowry's lush vegetal Mexican hell symbolic portents of tragedy are dolloped out to give the English majors plenty to write about as horses get loose, charging and frightening the innocent and disappearing into the night, dead dogs ooze life, scorpions sting themselves to death, lazy bulls drunk with happiness like Ferdinand are wrangled, made confused and goaded into rebelliousness and complacency, and a caged eagle is set free as an ineffectual gesture by the powerless Yvonne, the clingly enabling romantic interest of the alcoholic protagonist, Geoffrey Firmin. The symbolism all refers back to him and his self-fulfilling prophecy of personal doom.

The partisans of this book are probably right in calling it one of the great achievements of literature. I can't deny Lowry's herculean patience as a craftsman, his mastery of description, and his artistic integrity in creating a unique novel that is unlike any other. Despite the grotesqueries and disturbing contractions he reveals about the human condition and Mexico, his story is also imbued with compassion and wonder.

But, whatever the reason, and notwithstanding the tour de force that it may be, I found less to engage my heart in Under the Volcano than I have in other novels about western expatriates in Third World lands written by the likes of Paul Bowles and Graham Greene. I couldn't muster much sympathy for Geoffrey Firmin, the naval war hero/criminal turned diplomat, demoted over time from high to low posts in the British diplomatic corps because of his drinking, or for his hapless girlfriend, Yvonne, or for his globe-trotting leftist twit brother, Hugh. There are many flashbacks in this work that help us (to some degree) understand the characters, but the flashbacks I really wanted, to help me figure out why Yvonne and Geoffrey are so hung up on each other -- in which the nature of the couple's past relationship is clarified and fleshed out -- are virtually absent.

Having lived with an alcoholic for too long, I no longer have much patience for them or for people who tolerate their lies and manipulations and self-destructive arrogance. In romanticizing Firman to some degree (understandable, Lowry himself being alcoholic), particularly in the finale where he is seen as abandoned (rather than, say, being someone who abandoned everyone else), Lowry tries to turn Firmin into an uncompromising tragic hero of a sort, and I'm just not buying it.

I was remarking to a good friend this evening about how, as I grow older I find myself caring less about philosophy or agonizing over insoluble existentialist problems that nobody will ever be able to answer or solve anyway, but which always seem to fascinate the young (as they did me when I was discovering these weighty concepts). I think this change of priorities comes with the realization of having fewer years left, fewer years in which one will have a functional dick, for instance. Which all leads me to the following passage from Under the Volcano, which, for me, sums up my own criticism of the book, or, more precisely, why I find it more fun to live than to overthink enigmas or to read books that I do not love:

"But where does it all get you in the end?" The Consul sipped his strychnine that had yet to prove its adequacy as a chaser to the Burke's Irish (now perhaps in the garage at the Bella Vista). "The knowledge, I mean. One of the first penances I ever imposed on myself was to learn the philosophical section of War and Peace by heart. That was of course before I could dodge about in the rigging of the Cabbala like a St Jago's monkey. But then the other day I realized that the only thing I remembered about the whole book was that Napoleon's leg twitched—"
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Apr 12, 2008 Siobhan added it

Shelves: gave-up-in-shame

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 not an unpleasant rea...more

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Nov 24, 2007 Trane rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: drunks, fantasists, modernists, beatniks, ex-pats, visionaries, wannabees

Shelves: fiction

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 discours...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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Mar 31, 2012 Eric marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I almost bought a copy today; but it was printed in that unreadable Galliard; but then again the opening of chapter 3 did grab me: "...the tall exotic plants, livid and crepuscular through his dark glasses..."

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Mar 17, 2009 Patricio rated it 3 of 5 stars

“Considera la agonía de las rosas”, frase que pertenece a los primeros capítulos de Bajo el Volcán, marca lo que será la novela hasta el final: una depresiva agonía del cónsul hasta su muerte. Ya sea por el tiro de un fusil o por los efectos del alcohol, el resultado final hubiera sido el mismo.
Es un libro donde hay que dejar fluir la lectura, en donde la trama se arma de a pedazos. A la manera de L. Durrell, cada personaje aporta su visión y su pensamiento. Posiblemente, uno denominador común d...more “Considera la agonía de las rosas”, frase que pertenece a los primeros capítulos de Bajo el Volcán, marca lo que será la novela hasta el final: una depresiva agonía del cónsul hasta su muerte. Ya sea por el tiro de un fusil o por los efectos del alcohol, el resultado final hubiera sido el mismo.
Es un libro donde hay que dejar fluir la lectura, en donde la trama se arma de a pedazos. A la manera de L. Durrell, cada personaje aporta su visión y su pensamiento. Posiblemente, uno denominador común de los cuatro personajes centrales es que están impregnados de una atmósfera fatalista, quizás acorde con el momento histórico que vivían.
Con el cónsul, nuestro antihéroe, un personaje que me hizo recordar a los de Graham Greene, se logra una descripción muy realista de sus problemas, ansiedades y atracciones que ejerce el alcohol en él. No esta claro del todo si fue la bebida, lo que lo ha llevado a divorciarse con su mujer. Porque él parece amarla todavía, la ama todavía. Aunque el cónsul es consciente del daño que ejerce por sus problemas etílicos, no parece muy dispuesto a buscarle alguna solución. Hay un sentimiento de culpa en el cónsul, por sus excesos de alcohol pero también un resto de resentimiento ya que , en el fondo no le ha perdonado del todo las infidelidades de ella.
Hugh, en cambio, es el personaje para abordar los problemas sociales que aquejaban al mundo de esos días, la guerra civil española, la guerra mundial, etc. Representa al idealista. En algún momento ha tenido alguna relación con Yvonne pero al momento del reencuentro, reprime sus sentimientos hacia ella.
El primer capitulo es el de mas simbolismo. Ocurre el mismo día pero 12 meses mas tarde, el francés ( que también ha tenido algún affaire con la mujer del cónsul ) recuerda ese día, recorre los mismos lugares donde ocurren los posteriores capítulos, en el cine anuncian la misma película ( Las manos de Orlac ) y empieza y termina en una de las tantas cantinas que hay en el pueblo.
Creo que es uno de esos libros que se van decantando de a poco, no te atrapan en el momento pero que se ponen mejor al tiempo de ser leídos. Que cuando uno lo termina de leer, piensa que es bueno y listo, pero que con el pasar del tiempo, es un libro que se valora mucho mas, que uno se acordará de ciertos pasajes, de imágenes.
Por ejemplo, me pareció muy bueno el capitulo donde Yvonne, aburrida de mirar una corrida de toros, sueña con estar con el cónsul, en una cabaña en un bosque a orillas de un mar, en un archipiélago. Como el pensamiento de ella se traslada desde las tribunas hacia ese lugar ideal al que se aferra, aun sabiendo que es casi un imposible.
Y el volcán… el volcán es una presencia silenciosa pero permanente en toda la novela, aparece y desaparece en cada vuelta de la esquina, en cada paisaje, y la comparación con el alcohol es inevitable.
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Jan 15, 2009 eric rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's a little tough to rate this one. There are parts that I'd give five stars, and parts that didn't do much for me. But most of the uninspiring parts times are pretty short. Aside from the first fifty pages, which I had to really struggle through. I've started this book a couple times over the past few years and, before now, haven't made it past page 20 or so. Travel-related necessity helped push me farther this time, and I'm glad. On the whole, I really liked this book. Once you're past the i...more It's a little tough to rate this one. There are parts that I'd give five stars, and parts that didn't do much for me. But most of the uninspiring parts times are pretty short. Aside from the first fifty pages, which I had to really struggle through. I've started this book a couple times over the past few years and, before now, haven't made it past page 20 or so. Travel-related necessity helped push me farther this time, and I'm glad. On the whole, I really liked this book. Once you're past the initial 50 pages (which I really should re-read now), there are a few short parts that many people will probably find intolerably bizarre. But the vast majority is entirely comprehensible and is written is a very interesting fashion. On very rare occasions I found it tried a little too hard to be poetic, but on the whole it was great. Enough about the writing. The story takes place over a single, long day. The principal character is a decidedly drunk forty-something former diplomat in a Mexican mountain town in the early 1950s or thereabouts. Maybe I'm misremembering times. But much of the text explores the history of the three main characters, as remembered histories. It's all pretty fascinating. And at the end there are plenty of questions left unresolved, but that have subtly suggested resolutions. I'm not making myself clear, but all of this is good in my opinion. On the whole, it's a crushingly depressing read -- near the the top of my list of most depressing books ever. An unrepresentative but memorable example of the general mood (paraphrased): 'What is man but a bit of soul holding up a corpse?' Much of the depressing nature comes for the main character's inability to control his drinking despite much loving encouragement. Also, the couple's inability to communicate with one another effectively is a damn shame. All things told, this was pretty great book. Previously I would have given it five stars, but I'm trying to be a little more discerning. Maybe too discerning. (less)

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May 08, 2013 Bill rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

Drunk Guy Dies in Mexico

Lowry, Malcolm. (1947). Under the Volcano. New York: Harper & Row.

It’s intimidating to read an iconic novel like this, one universally acclaimed as a “towering achievement in 20th century literature.” It’s as if your mind must be made up before you begin. Nevertheless, except for the hyperbolic cover blurbs, I was ignorant of the book and its author (and also of the 1984 film by John Huston), and after reading, my opinion is mixed.

The book portrays the mind of Geoffry...more Drunk Guy Dies in Mexico

Lowry, Malcolm. (1947). Under the Volcano. New York: Harper & Row.

It’s intimidating to read an iconic novel like this, one universally acclaimed as a “towering achievement in 20th century literature.” It’s as if your mind must be made up before you begin. Nevertheless, except for the hyperbolic cover blurbs, I was ignorant of the book and its author (and also of the 1984 film by John Huston), and after reading, my opinion is mixed.

The book portrays the mind of Geoffry Firmin, a self-destructive alcoholic, on a single day, the Day of the Dead, in a small town near Mexico City. He is the British Consul there and the time is 1938, just prior to the outbreak of WWII. Civilization is on the brink of destruction and so is Firmin.

Much is made of Lowry’s use of metaphors. The town is dwarfed by two smoldering volcanoes, and a deep, hellish canyon runs through the center. I found Lowry’s metaphors less than insightful, often laboriously contrived. For example, the novel dwells repeatedly on the only movie playing in town, a 1935 horror picture of a woman who seeks help for her brother whose hands have been injured. A mad surgeon replaces the hands with those of a carnival knife-thrower, with the result that the brother cannot help but kill everyone around him with knives. Yvonne, the woman in the movie, nevertheless inexplicably continues to love her deranged brother through it all. The self-destructive knives represent Firmin’s self-destructive alcoholism, get it? Firmin's ex-wife is also named Yvonne, by sheer coincidence!

As Firmin drinks his life away with Mescal, he is joined by his ex-wife, Yvonne, who had left him because of his drunkenness. While absent, she sent dozens of passionate and sentimental pleas to rekindle their love and start over, but he never read any of them. She and Firmin declare their passionate love for each other, but neither seems to mean it. Firmin is always drunk, so you can’t believe a word he says, but we get the sense he is afraid, of himself. That’s why he didn’t read the letters. Yvonne seems to want the past and a future with Firmin, but not the present. This dynamic is the heart of the novel, but it is only glimpsed.

There is no plot. The characters walk around, drink, smoke, take bus rides, visit festivals and bars. Eventually Firmin is killed in a bar fight. The point of the novel is not what happens, or doesn’t happen, but rather, their Joycean streams of consciousness, especially Firmin's. His consciousness is interesting because he is erudite and voluble, so waxes poetic on multiple topics from classical literature to contemporary politics. But he is uninteresting because he is always drunk. Long sequences portraying his hallucinations and wild associations are writerly tour-de-force, but meaningless ravings that only tangentially reveal what he is about. What Firmin does not do is confront his own motivation and feelings for Yvonne, and he avoids thinking about the meaning and consequence of his addiction. All he would have to do is choose love, choose Yvonne. Why can’t he do that? He is afraid of life, and of himself, but we never get a clear picture of what part he is hiding from, what tyrannizes him. Maybe he doesn’t know, but then, why should we care either, why should Yvonne, why should anyone?

The landscape is a character in the novel. The desert below the peaks and the jungles on the slopes and nearby are portrayed in fine detail, and one does have a strong sense (all five senses) of place. That is a writerly achievement, although for a modern reader, page after page of expositional description is not as thrilling as it might have been in an age before universal access to every corner of the planet.

Much is made of the fact that the novel is quasi-autobiographical and that Lowry suffered (and died) from alcoholism, but such facts do not, in my view, justify or explain the novel, which must stand on its own feet as an artistic product. I guess we can assume, at least, that Firmin’s alcoholic mentality resembles one person’s actual experience.

Lowry’s language is creative and poetic throughout, and that is a pleasure, but since the novel lacks overall dramatic drive or characterological development, the endless pages of lyrical description, for me, quickly devolved to random wordsmithing. The long, extended stream of consciousness descriptions were mildly interesting, but personally, I would rather get to know a character through action, dialog, and circumstance, rather than by access to detailed contents of consciousness, which are, for anyone, idiosyncratic, mundane, and rarely of significance. In other words, reality, even innermost psychological reality, is boring. Fiction should offer more than reality.(less)

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Dec 25, 2012 GoldGato rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, winter

There are books to read when the winter solstice arrives and the days are at their shortest...this is one of those books. If the Druids lived today, this would be their bible. More than just an exploration of alcoholism, Lowry brings darkness to the words, each page seemingly imbued with the presence of the dark lord. The action takes place, in one day, in Mexico between two volcanoes, themselves symbols of Vulcanism and mountain depths.

"Here lies Malcolm Lowry, late of the Bowery, whose prose...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Si Barron rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a novel I keep coming back to. First read it when I was about 18, just picked it up because I liled the cover (not this cover) in a Devon Oxfam. I found it a struggle to get through, but since then I have read it 3 times and now I know the sequence of events it's easier to appreciate the true magnificence of the book.

The reason that it was difficult at first is the events take place- like Ulyesseys- over the course of one day (with the exception of the first chapter- which takes place a...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Edward S. Portman rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un libro che parla del Messico e di una storia d’amore tormentata dal rimorso e dall’alcool. Un libro ubriaco che spazia dal rammarico alla terra battuta spolverata dal sole cocente, da case a strade, guidando i personaggi con una prosa difficile, spesso imbevuta nel mescal o nella tequila, nella quale spesso alla fine ci si perde come avvolti da un mare in burrasca. Si prova a recuperare preziose boccate d’ossigeno allungando la testa per uscire fuori dalla burrasca di parole e frasi e situazio...more

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Sep 03, 2012 rmn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This book is dry, detailed, intricate, hauntingly dull, and did i mention dull? Reading this book felt like work, and while I appreciate that this is a serious piece of literature by a very talented author, it seems like something college English majors would discuss in detail to feel like they are getting their tuition's worth but not something you'd want to read for shits and giggles (especially not for giggles as this book is more humorless than an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond).

As for t...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: landscape

"He had arrived at that stage of drunkenness where it becomes necessary to shake hands with everyone."
Malcolm Lowry, 'Under the Volcano'

"You have to go to bed now or spend the night in the lawn chair. You know I can't lift you, Dad."
-the unknown soldiers

I put this book off for a very long time. It was first recommended to me with boundless enthusiasm in New York by the first alcoholic my own age that I took seriously. I was 19, and I could spot one a mile away. What I didn't know at the time, w...more

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