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Under the Volcano
Under the Volcano - Spine 2014
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Questions, Resources, and General Banter - Under the Volcano
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I thought this was an American novel from the 60's. It's not...I seem to remember Vollmann mentioning this book on multiple occasions. I'm pretty sure it turns up in Imperial. (And he's written an introduction for one of the editions - I wish I had that one.) I don't know where else I've heard about it, but I do hear about it pretty often. I think it's one of those books that turns up on a lot of lists. Oooh yeah, there was also a film adaption that was recently released on DVD.
IMDB page for the film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088322/?...
Anyway, I've heard nothing but good things. Looking forward to it!
Maybe I'm crazy, but this seems like an absolutely astounding coincidence. I just started this book today, and I got two paragraphs into it, and then it dawned on me... This book involves Mexican volcanoes. My mom and sister are in Mexico right now, on a trip they've been planning for half a year, to climb Pico de Orizaba and Iztaccihuatl. The latter is one of the two volcanoes in this book... They reached the summit TODAY. I'm freakin' ooooouuuuut
Mod
So long as they go easy on the mezcal, they should be fine....
échec! The library that has a copy of this book is closed for the vacances scolaires. I cannot get my mitts on it until Tuesday. (picture me, running behind you, arms pumping, trying desperately to catch up, a long trail of "nooooooooooooooooooooooooo............" in my wake.)
Mod
(picture me, running behind you, arms pumping, trying desperately ..."
I'm getting a graphic of that right now, but don't panique! We'll be discussing for at least four weeks...
Mod
It works best in Mexican suburbs...
Mod
Yes, and he does name-check 'Lord Jim' on page 39.
Sosen wrote: "I thought this was an American novel from the 60's. It's not...I seem to remember Vollmann mentioning this book on multiple occasions. I'm pretty sure it turns up in Imperial. (And he's written a..."
Yes,Vollmann wrote the afterword for the 2007 edition. You can access it via Amazon's look inside feature,only one page is not part of the preview.
Vollmann has mainly focussed on the political background of the novel many of which were merely alluded to by Lowry. He has also disagreed with a few of Spender's points in the intro & I think Vollmann's interpretation of those points is a better one.
Btw,Bill shares his b'day with Lowry–28th July!
@ Jim: Thanks for the hypertextual companion link,Jim.So how do we combine it with the reading of the book- after finishing each chapter,we peruse it?
God,I feel like I'm back in school!
Mod
So how do we combine it with the reading of the book- after finishing each chapter,we peruse it?
God,I feel like I'm back in school!"
We really need to talk about your grades. Stop by my office hours next Tuesday and we'll see if we can't find a way to salvage your semester....
I haven't been using the Ackerly notations yet. It's there for reference if you'd like to use it.
Jim wrote:We really need to talk about your grades. Stop by my office hours next Tuesday and we'll see if we can't find a way to salvage your semester....Have you been drinking Mescal,Principal Sir?
Grades be damned,I see no one during or after office hours hee hee!
I intend starting this soon, but I'm suffering from fiction-overload at the moment - my fiction/non-fiction balance is off, so I need to read some non-fiction next...I watched the film a few years ago. I remember liking it but can't remember a damn thing about it!
succès! I have the book in my grubby little mitts even as I type this. Also, this copy of the book clearly dates from a time of stricter librarians here, as there is a notice glued to the title page which reads: "ATTENTION Un livre n'est pas un cahier, Ne pas souligner, Ne pas écrire sur les pages du livre MERCI"
Would that our librarians were still in this mode, as I often find the English language books filled with someone's scribbled attempts to increase their vocabulary, and it irritates me.
But I digress.
Now I all the remains is to actually read the book.
Mod
étape par étape...
To kick off; I thought the Gass quote in the hypertextual companion (link above) about Lowry constructing a place (Mexico) rather than describing one was interesting. It took me a little time to orient myself into the feel of the book (a couple of chapters); realising the importance of the numerology was important and there was a bit of an Aha moment at the end of chapter one with the mention of Doctor Faustus
Nicole wrote: "(picture me, running behind you, arms pumping, trying desperately to catch up, a long trail of "nooooooooooooooooooooooooo............" in my wake.)"That's me now. Joined in late. I'm having flashbacks to how many times in the past I've tried to slip unnoticed into class, face red, breathing hard, hair mussed. The unnoticed part is more difficult when you're the teacher.
Mod
Thanks for the food pairing tips! I was thinking more of a lost weekend (or at least a few hours) kind of experience, but you're right, it's going to cost an arm and a leg, and possibly a hip to buy a good Mezcal here, so I might as well work it into an aperitif situation with some friends. But wtf! This is for literary research purposes, so I'll do both.
I do remember a camping trip when I was about 17 and I had a bottle of Mezcal and some coke (not cola, 'nuff said). It was a lovely sunset with quite vibrant colors!!!
My apologies; I shoulda opened the mezcal discussion here, rather than Week One. It is available for order on the web, but it's likely illegal. I'm not sure how recognized and globally-enforced Mexico's rules are. I know France and Italy are pretty good at enforcement, but I bet they have more sway at the W.T.O.
The plus on the aperitif/lost-weekend end of things is that the hangover is not nearly so egregious and it goes down much more smoothly straight than tequila does. Unfortunately after one small shot I must switch to beer lest an arrest appear in the cards.
I'd kill for a painting of that sunset!
Mod
It is available for order on the web, but it's likely illegal. I'm not sure how recognized and globally-enforced..."
I'd probably get a better price in Spain, which is not too far away. Cuban cigars are also much cheaper in Spain.
I have a nice chaise lounge and a view of a big sky from my garden, so I'll have to do a mezcal meditation and then see if I can recreate the effect in paint.
BTW, I don't know where you are in the text, but in chapter 5, Geoffrey does mention the different effects he gets from beer versus whiskey versus tequila. He seems to place mezcal at the top of a dangerous alcoholic pyramid, though Lowry hasn't specifically described a mezcal session just yet.
On a related note, during my first visit to this area back in 1990, I had dinner with some friends at a kind of French hippie commune place where they grew/made everything they served for dinner. For an after dinner drink, they brought out a bottle of "Spirit of Artemis" which was a full-strength homemade absinthe. There is a reason why the stuff was banned - it's a total narcotic!!
Fave quote so far: "There's nothing like beer to straighten you out..." (!) (ch 3)
Gregsamsa wrote: "Fave quote so far: "There's nothing like beer to straighten you out..." (!) (ch 3)"I like:
In the war to come correspondents would assume unheard of importance, plunging through flame to feed the public its little gobbets of dehydrated excrement.From p157 of the Penguin edition.
I first read this book in French in 1978. I remember thinking "hrmm. . . I must no know French as well as I thought I did, cuz I'm having a hard time following this. . ." Now that I'm reading it in English I feel better about my then-ability in French. I'm about fifty pages in, & have done a fair amount of re-reading to make sure I got it. It is a bit of a challenge, isn't it? But I am enjoying it a lot, so far. We haven't gotten to anything particularly harrowing yet. . .
that is, "must NOT know French. . ."
Worth reading:The Consul's "Murder"–
http://cinema2.arts.ubc.ca/units/canl...
Also this:
For a work this autobiographical,this feature is worth watching & Richard Burton's reading of selected passages from the Volcano is just marvellous:
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry by Donald Brittain, John Kramer - NFB
https://www.nfb.ca/film/volcano/
Jim! Did you snag any Mezcal?
Mod
Sadly, no. My one dog town has tequila but no mescal. I'll have to go to Bordeaux to find the cactus juice...
You might try wunna them innernets, but I'd advise making sure the source is actually in Mexico. But with postage and gentle-handling charges, not to mention whatever tariffy troubles, it might be cheaper to go Bordeaux.Btw, did the absinthe your hippie pals made actually contain wormwood? Like it was for reals absinthe? I've only had the non-wormwoody kind and it tasted like gin and mint mouthwash. *shudder*
If it was, what would you compare it to?
Mod
If it was, what would you compare it to? ..."
For reals - made on the premises. My friend Eric and I drank two full water glasses, sans sucre. We were very high! The room we were in had a few stuffed birds on the mantelpiece, and lots of candles burning. I remember looking through a kind of prismatic vision, and a stuffed owl made me think of Poe's stories. It was very dreamy and like drinking a case of cough medicine. Degas captured the feeling in this painting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Absi...
In some ways, it was like smoking opium, but not exactly.
Wow, thanks for the visual! (both the owl and L'Absinthe) The wiki-text describes the woman as staring "vacantly," but I think that's presumptuous. She might have been staring inwardly.
For anyone still interested, Under the Volcano is available on Amazon Kindle Special today, 4/16/2014, for $1.99. I didn't check whether there are any comments on the quality of the digitization.
I am rereading UTV, this time accessing the Ackerly as well. Great fun (?) I love this book although it was like an explosion inside me.
If I prefer Greene, it's because he's more restrained-not as brilliant (although wonderful), not as dangerous.
No wonder Lowry didn't write prolifically.
Jim wrote: "Gregsamsa wrote: "Btw, did the absinthe your hippie pals made actually contain wormwood? Like it was for reals absinthe? I've only had the non-wormwoody kind and it tasted like gin and mint mouthwa..."I'm jealous.
Ellie wrote: "If I prefer Greene, it's because he's more restrained-not as brilliant (although wonderful), not as dangerous."I also prefer Greene, and without the caveats.
I know that the consensus in these discussions was that Lowry's prose is somehow more daring and brilliant (I assume that's what you mean when you talk about brilliance and about danger). I don't agree about the prose, but I also think it's worth mentioning other types of brilliance and other types of danger.
Looking at the reception of a book like The Quiet American when it was published, I see plenty of daring, plenty of brilliance, and something that was viewed as very dangerous indeed. Lowry's book has nothing like this, not content and not reception, and that's assuming that readers were able or willing to follow it at all.
There is stuff in there, I know, but it's all used as a metaphor for a personal struggle with alcohol and relationships. Using allusion and strings of images, Lowry compares the Consul, and, by extension, himself, to Christ and to victims of fascism and war. Not only does this not compare to the kinds of content we see in Greene (who knew very well what constitutes an appropriate way to link the personal and the political), there's a way of looking at it as actively offensive. It's true that Lowry shows a lack of restraint, but in my view, it's a bug, not a feature.
I think the danger is the perverse celebration of addiction (despite its appearance of doing the opposite, I think Lowry is part of a long line of writers romanticizing addiction). I think Greene's work is more removed from the obsession with self and larger in its view of others but (and this is not a criticism just an observation) not as intense (or self-indulgent).I find reading Lowry like poising myself on the tip of the volcano, flirting with death and destruction, getting drunk on language, and submerging oneself (despite the political explorations) in oneself, indulging in self-hatred and self-obsession.
I find Greene passionate in a more distanced way. I prefer Greene, personally, but reading Lowry is like a dangerous adventure with language and obsession.
Don't know if this makes sense. I'm certainly not disparaging Greene, who is a favorite of mine, but Lowry takes me different, and for me, more dangerous places.
Ellie wrote: "I think the danger is the perverse celebration of addiction (despite its appearance of doing the opposite, I think Lowry is part of a long line of writers romanticizing addiction)."I'm definitely with you there.
I can totally see what you mean, as your posts are smart and clear; I really don't mean to pick on you personally. I guess I just felt like the party pooper throughout the discussion, as I cannot bring myself to like the writing, and I wanted to take one more stab at trying to explain why.
And I've always loved Graham Greene, so it's good to have company there.
Nicole wrote: "Ellie wrote: "I think the danger is the perverse celebration of addiction (despite its appearance of doing the opposite, I think Lowry is part of a long line of writers romanticizing addiction)."..."
It's completely cool-what I like in this group is you can feel/think whatever and people don't (generally) take it personally.
Nicole I think you've always given completely reasonable reasons for all of your reactions, especially those about the trains of metaphoric associations that do sometimes end up having kind of a "what's the point?" feeling to the sheer weight of them. I am not always as able to give reasonable reasons for my reactions; I can't articulate support for all five stars. But at least you finished it. If I had had as many reservations as you had I'm sure I wouldn't have, as I'm much more quick to ditch a book that isn't working for me.Oddly, though, I'm less that way after joining GoodReads and it feels stupid to continue with books longer than I would just because they don't have an ABANDONED button on here.
Gregsamsa wrote: "at least you finished it."It was a very near thing, and I'm sure it was the discussion that kept me going. I always feel a little uneasy panning something that I haven't finished (though I still do it, of course), because I feel like at a fundamental level it's not fair to condemn something you haven't read. Fair like from an empiricism standpoint, not some kind of moral thing.
I still don't really know where to draw that line, either. Is half the book enough? Can I institute a hard pagecount rule (100 pages is enough? Except it wouldn't have been enough for Infinite Jest because the really good stuff starts happening after the 100 page mark). Or, like, 50 Shades of Grey, which I know I would hate, and I mean KNOW I would hate, I haven't read even one page, so how do I know? Reviews, genre, my own personal snobbery? I dug my heels in about the Harry Potter books when they came out, too, and they are actually not bad.
I guess that's really a question for a different discussion.
Anyway, I finished the Lowry, and it was actually a pretty valuable experience because it helped me articulate for myself what some of my values are for fiction (or at least where they aren't). So thanks to my fellow discusser-people for that.
Gregsamsa wrote: "Nicole I think you've always given completely reasonable reasons for all of your reactions, especially those about the trains of metaphoric associations that do sometimes end up having kind of a "w..."I made an "abandoned" shelf for just that reason.
Wikipedia page for Malcolm Lowry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_...
Wikipedia page for Under the Volcano (Caution! Many spoilers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_th...
A “Hypertextual Companion” to Under the Volcano, by Chris Ackerly:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/englishlinguis...
Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Malcolm Lowry and Under the Volcano.
Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.