Under the Volcano

Written by Malcolm Lowry

Narrated by John Lee

On the Day of the Dead, 1938, former British consul Geoffrey Firmin is in Quauhnahuac, Mexico, where his life has become overshadowed by the debilitating malaise of drinking. His wife, Yvonne, has just arrived on a mission to rescue their failing marriage, inspired by a vision of a life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. But Yvonne’s mission is further complicated by the presence of the consul’s half-brother, Hugh, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one day unfold against the unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical. A modern classic, Under the Volcano is a powerful and lyrical statement on the human condition and one man’s constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio
• Release date: Apr 7, 2009
• ISBN: 9781433275012

Malcolm Lowry

Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957) was born in England, and he attended Cambridge University. He spent much of his life traveling and lived in Paris, New York, Mexico, Los Angeles, Canada, and Italy, among other places. He is the author of numerous works, including Ultramarine and Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place.

Reviews for Under the Volcano

[jonfaith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Towards the nightmarish conclusion of Under the Volcano, Yvonne recognizes that the drinks "lay like swine on her soul." That poetic glimpse into Bacchic darkness is a glimpse of the novel's mastery, It is impossible to distinguish it only as a novel about alcoholism, or, even, a return to the primoridal Eden besieged by History's jackboots. Under the Volcano is so much more than that. Each of the principal characters exposes their soul, yet motivations remain dim, much like the fetid cantinas and the dubious mescal.

The novel's poetry is electrically animated and emerges from the pages like Promethean firestorms. Pedestrian brains will find themselves winded and unnerved by the pyrotechnics. I know I was. Consider me grateful for such.

[amandrake_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Maybe if I took a class in it I would have the patience to go through the allusions, metaphors, and references, but as it is I don't care enough to bother. Reading sentences like "Quauhnahuac was like the times in this respect, wherever you turned the abyss was waiting for you round the corner Dormitory for vultures and city Moloch!" makes me want to say "Dude... calm down."

[antao-3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(Original Review, 1981-03-15)“The Consul reached forward and absentmindedly managed a sip of whisky; the voice might have been either of his familiars or - Hullo, good morning. The instant the Consul saw the thing he knew it an hallucination and he sat, quite calmly now, waiting for the object shaped like a dead man and which seemed to be lying flat on its back by his swimming pool, with a large sombrero over its face, to go away. So the 'other' had come again. And now gone, he thought: but no, not quite, for there was still something there, in some way connected with it, or here, at his elbow, or behind his back, in front of him now; no, that too, wherever it was, was going: perhaps it had only been the coppery-tailed trogon stirring in the bushes, his 'ambiguous bird' that was now departed quickly on creaking wings, like a pigeon once it was in flight, heading for its solitary home in the Canyon of the Wolves, away from the people with ideas.”"They were all plodding downhill towards a river - even the dog, lulled in a woolly soliloquy, was plodding - and now they were in it (...) The dog swam ahead, fatuously important; the foals, nodding solemnly, swayed along behind up to their necks: sunlight sparkled on the calm water, which further downstream where the river narrowed broke into furious little waves, swirling and eddying close inshore against black rocks, giving an effect of wildness, almost of rapids; low over their heads an ecstatic lightening of strange birds manoeuvred, looping-the-loop and immelmaning at unbelievable speed, aerobatic as new-born dragon-flies.""He lay back in his chair. Ixtaccihuad and Popocateped, that image of the perfect marriage, lay now clear and beautiful on the horizon under an almost pure morning sky. Far above him a few white clouds were racing windily after a pale gibbous moon. Drink all morning, they said to him, drink all day. This is life! Enormously high too, he noted some vultures waiting, more graceful than eagles as they hovered there like burnt papers floating from a fire which suddenly are seen to blowing swiftly upward, rocking. The shadow of an immense weariness stole over him...""Nothing in the world was more terrible than an empty bottle! Unless it was an empty glass.""What is man but a little soul holding up a corpse?""God, how pointless and empty the world is! Days filled with cheap and tarnished moments succeed each other, restless and haunted nights follow in bitter routine: the sun shines without brightness, and the moon rises without light."All quotes above taken from “Under the Volcano” by Malcolm LowryWarning: there are nearly 400 pages of this “sort of thing”...I'm with everyone on the importance of reading, but we must also consider writing. While one must read a book, someone had to spend much more time writing it, and that writing is a process which I believe is fundamentally different than how we read, although another writer might read it quite differently, using a different process.Whatever we do, our subconscious is always doing it with us since it is part of 'us'. It's not true human beings are all the same, but it's statistically true enough for us to all live mass consensual hallucinations which even, in some measure, across cultures. The book I am reading on Byronic Heroes for instance addresses the author's and other writer's response to certain kinds of reading from the days of Milton's Satan on. And I find the REPORT of his reading to accord with some of my own, and then I can comment on it and have it make sense to someone else (although not necessarily), even if that person disagrees. I don't worry though if my readings are idiosyncratic, or in what degree. I hope I am open minded enough to abandon ship, or change course, if I can be shown to be wrong or there's is a bigger picture involved I don't seeing, or just a strong alternative.I am at an age, probably past the age, where devout household Buddhists, leave the world to become monks or nuns. They have raised the kids, and arranged their affairs and do a Flitcraft, with the exception of actually changing their lives. Me, I am religious. I see the world, and the human Being as a geography which has produced some deep caves and some high mountains. For some it is religion, others have seemed to penetrate into the most astounding complexities and depths of science or math, and a few more. I feel like I have my own mountain/caves in Literature. I mean LITERALLY that I have available to me one of the mightiest of those domains and I mean/hope to take as much advantage of it as I possibly can. Like the ageing Buddhist Monk I do it because I believe LITERALLY and PRACTICALLY that. That is the best thing I can possibly do, and that I can do, to make the absolute best of being human with the rest of my little lifetime. I wish I could do it better. That leads me too, to read all kinds of lateral texts, like Genesis, Plotinus, “Under the Volcano”, and so much the better. I know I get enthusiastic about texts, and one can always be bashful about one's enthusiasms or one’s ability to articulate them, but if one is as old as I am, feeling enthusiasm (look up the etymology) is just fine, and if I don't do it now when I am going to. In my view there is the bonus that age, before it eats your mind, can actually enrich your literary understanding. It's not the only way to read, not even the only way I read, and it sometimes puts people off, but it's my end of MY life and I'll do what I see fit with it.This is probably my favourite book of all. I've read it 4 times: each time discovering much more, and will read it again. I don't think you need to know the other works that are alluded too in the story. They certainly don't intrude and the Consul's accelerating and willful descent carries you, or carried me, along regardless. Certain language ambiguities are worth considering as the Consul stumbles along. The cigarettes called "Alas" - "wings" in Spanish - which appear at odd moments crying "Alas!" I agree that the Consul becomes a heroic figure, rejecting all help as he embraces the dark. And Lowry was pretty heroic in his dedication to this novel. One of the things I like about Lowry is the way he notes and records the wild juxtapositions and incongruities of life in Mexico without comment generally. In other words he accepts all that and uses it symbolically without remarking on the exoticism.I am reminded of Andre Breton visiting Frida Kahlo and co. and saying something like "Mexico is the most surrealist country in the world." Not to Mexicans, I want to reply. Somehow Lowry completely avoids being patronising...[2018 EDIT: Thinking about this novel now, one thing that bothers me, and that didn't bother me when I re-read it all those years ago, is the almost complete absence of Mexican characters, apart from the odd pantomime walk-on part. This is really an ex-pat novel, with almost no engagement with the contemporary Mexican culture, life and politics. A few sound bites in Spanish, the backdrop of Popocatapetl and, the interiors of cantinas provide an exotic backdrop for an English upper middle class love triangle and a drink problem beyond control. The Festival of the Day of the Dead is of course central to the novel, but more as symbolism than as an expression of South American belief systems. So in light of the above, I would say, I’ll have at “Under the Volcano” for another 20 years to see whether I’m able to understand it.]

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

To early to say what I got out of this book..I need to read more about is symbolism and allusion. Well regarded

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ik hou wel van een intellectuele uitdaging, en dit is er zeker eentje, in de lijn van Joyce en andere modernisten. Maar de gelaagdheid en de vernuftige fragmentering gaan in deze roman schuil onder een flinke laag alcohol, en dat werkt op zijn zachtst gezegd erg benevelend. Het boek bevat zeker magnifieke passages, maar het bekoort niet, zelfs niet als je het leest als een allegorie van een wereld die ten onder gaat, kort voor de tweede wereldoorlog.

[ma_washigeri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A long read - every page full of words, thoughts, emotion, places and people. Not sure if this is stream of conciousness or a long prose poem. The single day of Geoffrey Firmin has taken me nearly a month to read but the writing is so vivid and the content so enthralling I never lost track of where we were.

[js229 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Drunks are boring. Clever, educated, intermittently lyrical drunks deserve respect for staying sober enough to tap out a novel. But the terrible, gnawing underachievement behind the alcohol? Personally I'm not reliant on drink to underachieve.

[jorgearanda_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Thoroughly unsatisfying. Lowry's Mexico is superficial and his style, though lyrical at times, unfitting.

[thebentley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I respect it. Not only is it a shockingly good stream-of-consciousness study of a hard-core alcoholic, but it's also an astute analysis of the world "between the Wars." But I'm really glad it's over, and I'm really glad I don't have to read it again. Lowry himself reportedly considered the book a test of fortitude and staying power. That's pretty much what it feels like for a reader, too. That said, I think it has much more redeeming importance than Joyce, whose stream-of-consciousness is just as difficult to get through, but much more self-indulgent.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Living in Quauhnahuac, Mexico as a drunkard, Geoffry Fermin, former British consul, is surprised by the sudden arrival of his estranged wife, Yvonne, on the Day of the Dead. She's come back to him in the hope of pulling him back to her, of freeing him from that which has him trapped in a daze of liquor, of whisking him off, taking him away from Mexico to some other place, any other place, where they might once again be together and happy. But things are complicated with the inclusion of Hugh, the consuls' brother, and Jacques, the consul's old friend, both of whom who are equally wrapped up in an emotional tangle with Yvonne and Geoffry. Under the Mountain is a richly textured novel. Mexico is made both beautiful and terrifying in the way the author slips from the streaming consciousness of one character to another. Each character is a little lost and each is trying desperately to hang on to some home they are sure they've lost. They keep telling themselves, if only, if only, if only. Yet, the fact that they cannot speak so openly with each other, and if they do speak, it becomes lost in the chaos of the day and forgotten, means that their chance for hope is fleeting. Yvonne is both straightforward and subtle, trying to open up forgiveness to Geoffry, trying to make him see that she loves him, that she will not abandon him again, that she will not become a shrew intent on restraining him. Meanwhile Geoffry, who has hoped so long for her return, seems trapped in a spiral of despair. It's like he's stuck on a carousel, and he can see her waiting, but it just keeps going around and around and he is too terrified to simply jump off. The writing in this book is deeply beautiful and it carried me through to the end, though I must admit that in terms of pure story standpoint, I was deeply disappointed by the ending, having been brought around to love all of these characters so much, I had hoped for more.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The multi-layered structure of the prose contrasts with the further descent of the main character. Terrifying and vivid imagery. A masterfully planned novel of wandering and slouching to oblivion. Definitely should be reread.

[dmarsh451 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"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 soldiersI 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, was how identification isn't always enough. I didn't understand the sub-categories, by which I don't mean the difference between the scotch drinker and the Night Train aficionado; I mean the few who could charm me anyway, in spite of what I knew. They always loved this book because it understood them. They would want me to read it so that I could understand them too. But all I could do was think, "Fuck you, Malcolm Lowry," and not read it.I am really glad I waited. My five-star albatross is neatly written with all characters on point; there are beautiful evocations of the BC landscape, and the drunk is the sun. All lives revolve around him, all day, every day and night, until the end. I have never met one yet who could really see this. They always think they're being ignored, but it's way too hot in their presence for that. Who wrote this book? There are plenty of drunkard's tales that throw the bottles against the local colour, but what half-divine artist sprite inside the drunk made him raise one owly eye to see the planets burning around him and write it down? Surely, there was an angel speaking over his shoulder, or maybe he's just one of the kind that can charm me. Thank God I'm too old for all that.Fuck you, Malcolm Lowry.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I know I once said that I could listen to John Lee read the phone book. Although I'm not saying that listening to his narration of Under the Volcano is the same as listening to a recitation of a directory listing, I think I understood and enjoyed this book about the same amount. The story is the final day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, the former British consul to Mexico. The day is the holiday, the Day of the Dead, and Geoffrey's ex-wife, Yvonne, has returned to Mexico to try to renew their marriage. But there are skeletons in the closet that are revealed - past infidelities and broken promises, not to mention the fact that Geoffrey is a drunk who is in complete denial that he has a problem with alcohol. This seems like the type of book I would love, but much of the book is a stream of consciousness rambling of a man in a drunken stupor. Although I really did not understand this book, the writing is well done and I definitely had glimpses of the turmoil in Geoffrey and Yvonne's life. I might give this book another shot, maybe in print. There were many symbols and mythological references that I did not understand. There are also many phrases (including the very last sentences of the book) that are in Spanish and maybe in print I could figure it out. In audio, I was a bit lost. Thank goodness for John Lee's beautiful voice - I stuck through the whole book. Maybe another time.

[kwohlrob-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is one of those novels like Tropic of Cancer where it is hard to separate the fiction from the author. Especially considering Lowry's dark alcoholism and debauchery. In spite of the author's personal troubles, the novel is brilliant, inventive, and wraps you up in the blanket of its ever-flowing prose dragging you away into that strange small Mexican village to watch the grim slow destruction.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The very first thing you notice about Under the Volcano is the luxurious writing. Lowry's use of language is like sinking in a deep bed of velvet. You fall in and keep falling until you can't extract yourself from the words very easily. Listening to this an audio made it a little more difficult because of the various languages spoken and the switching of points of views. I can understand written Spanish much better than the spoken language.The very first chapter sets the stage for the following eleven chapters. It is November 2nd 1940 in Quauhnahuac, Mexico and two men are reminiscing about the British Consul, Geoffrey Firmin. Chapter two takes us back exactly one year and we follow Firmin's activities for one short day. Be prepared for a pathetic man's sad Day in the Life. His ex-wife has just returned to Mexico from an extended stay in America in an effort to reconcile with Firmin but ends up having a better time with his half brother. All the while the Consul is drinking, drinking, drinking. It is tragic how he argues with himself about that one last drink. There are mysterious dogs, runaway horses, bullfighting, and of course, the ever present volcanoes. Warning, but not a real spoiler alert: this doesn't end well for anyone.

[piefuchs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A brilliant piece of prose that chronicles a day in the life of an failed, alcoholic diplomat ("the Consul") and his only marginally more functioning, ex pat hanger-on in rural Mexico. The Consul's life is turned upside down when his ex wife returns, hoping to rescue him from himself. They travel make a journey in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, moving from one drink to the next, trying to determine whether a life and a love lost can be recovered. Wonderful decriptive passages on Mexican life.

[chrisadami · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest books of the 20th century, without a doubt."Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate". This is the book that made me read Dante's Inferno in the original 13th century Italian.

[gazzy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Consul, of a mexican province reunites with his wife on teh Day of teh Dead festival. Teh story is mainly told through the point of view of teh Consul, a "functioning" alcoholic.

[abirdman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Boozy, nightmarish story of a diplomat alcoholic in Mexico. Brilliant portrait of a lost mind. It will make you want to drink in the morning, I swear.

[mattviews · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book chronicles, with occasional reminiscences of its characters, events of one day in which Geoffrey Firmin, an ex-British consul in Mexico, sidled up to this inevitable fatality. His wife Yvonne arrived in Quauhnahuac to rescue him (from alcohol abuse) and their failing marriage at the inspiration of a vision of restarting a life together away from Mexico as well as the circumstances that had so inevitably driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. The presence of Hugh, Geoffrey's half-brother who had a crush on Yvonne, and childhood friend Laurelle further complicated the effort to rescue the ex-consul. Hopelessly morose and alienated, Geoffrey, who experienced a heightened sense of consciousness and the imminence of fatality, had forfeited his trust in Yvonne for she had been with Hugh under the cover of saving him. It is amazing how uneventfully all the events constitute to the entire novel. Under the Volcano is such a powerful, lyrical statement of a chronic drunkard filled with rigid but somewhat fragmented prose. It captures the human conditions and one man's persistent struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him. The prose pervades a man's battle for the survival of human consciousness. At the same time imbedded in the narrative affords hints of his imminent fatality. Under the Volcano is riddled with an air of lethargy and slowness. A ubiquitous theme is the consul's persistent temptation of getting his next drink. He frequently relapsed into a stream-of-conscious, hallucinatory conversation with a gabbled voice in his head, which pejoratively objurgated his lack of self-control. The volcano, despite its geographical location, might be thought as some abyss into which the consul descended for the harrowing. Other than the rigid prose and symbols that exemplify the main character, Under the Volcano is not a pleasurable read to say the least and it can be exhausting to one's patience. I say you will not be at a loss to pass this one.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ik hou wel van een intellectuele uitdaging, en dit is er zeker eentje, in de lijn van Joyce en andere modernisten. Maar de gelaagdheid en de vernuftige fragmentering gaan in deze roman schuil onder een flinke laag alcohol, en dat werkt op zijn zachtst gezegd erg benevelend. Het boek bevat zeker magnifieke passages, maar het bekoort niet, zelfs niet als je het leest als een allegorie van een wereld die ten onder gaat, kort voor de tweede wereldoorlog.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm typically not a huge fan of stream of consciousness narratives, and while there are certainly times where the style irked me in this work, Lowry uses the technique to great effect when he writes from the perspective of the alcoholic Consul Geoffrey Firmin, who serves as the main character of this book. Lowry captures the feeling of being drunk in his prose far better than any other author I've come across, and a large portion of that is thanks to his mastery of the stream of consciousness technique combined with his ability have the narrative jump between settings and time without feeling like such jumps are mere storytelling conveniences. When the book occupies the perspective of the Consul it reaches its highest points, as the passages from the Consul's point of view are usually beautifully written and original in execution.

Unfortunately only about a third of the book or less is written from the Consul's point of view, the rest being written from the perspective of the Consul's wife, Yvonne, his brother, Hugh, and his former friend, Jacques. None of these characters allow Lowry to use the stream of consciousness style to its best effect, and additionally a couple of these characters seem out of place in the narrative as a whole. Jacques seems an especially large misstep: he only provides the perspective for the book's first chapter, which is an especially curious choice because he is more divorced from the action than any of the other characters and therefore can give only a semi-cogent introduction to the major characters and circumstances of the book. After the first chapter I expected Jacques to be a major, if not the main, character of the book, and I kept expecting the book to jump back to him, only to eventually realize that he is by far the least significant of the major characters. Hugh is also a character that only sometimes feels connected to the main story, since many pages of the chapters written from his perspective are dedicated to explaining Hugh's backstory, a backstory which is largely unrelated to the main action of the novel. He's an interesting character, but not one that felt essential to this book. Yvonne fairs better than the other two by a significant margin, in fact there's an argument to be made that she's the real main character of this novel. She's the one with the drive and the goal, and although the ending makes clear that this is the Consul's story, Yvonne has far more agency than her husband. Passages dealing with Yvonne's interaction with her alcoholic husband are also well done, and she always feels integral to the story.

Besides passages describing the Consul and his addiction to alcohol the highlights of this book were Lowry's descriptions of Mexico, which are vivid and beautiful. He also writes poignant individual images and scenes as well, in particular I'm sure that a scene of a one legged beggar giving a coin to a beggar with no legs will stick in my brain for many days to come. Overall, however, scenes describing Mexico and Mexican life comprise only a small portion of the book, and most of the rest of Lowry's writing is good but not spectacular. What really drags this book down for me is the fact that much of the action and a couple of the characters feel largely superfluous. If Lowry had written a tighter book focusing on the Consul and his wife in Mexico, it could have been great, but as it stands I only found this work to be pretty good. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for goodreads rating purposes.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This one was frustrating because it slips the surly bonds of earth and touches the face of god--the god of joy and the god of pathos, be they the same or different gods, and also Tezcatlipoca the Smoking Mirror and more other gods than you want me to list at this time--routinely, almost casually, but only when it's in that sweet spot where the light strikes the mirror just right and it bursts out of mere smoke and into purest mystic flame. Incredible, virtuoso writing, eliciting that sense of eternal surprised delight that to my mind must be what we mean by oneness with all things.But that never lasts more than oh a dozen magnificent, munificent pages at a time, and then it weebles and you're back amongst the upper middle class English twits being impressive (but only with the collusion of the author) in the colonies (what's that? Mexico was never a British colony? Don't be a pedant, darling), whether it's showing their more developed moral selves when they find a dead native in the road and the other natives are busy stealing his wallet, or whether it's jumping into the middle of a bullfight to show the vain, cowardly natives how it's done, casually flashing the Anglo-Saxon steel that one is sure oh so sure still lies on the level of tribal memory beneath one's degraded modern exterior. Or it wobbles and suddenly nobody's keeping it heavily light anymore, nobody's even keeping it together anymore, the banter's gone out and everyone's all lachrymose and oh lord save me from alcoholic British melodrama.So anyway, you can see why they drink.

[marti.booker · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I hate to give one star to a man's life's work, especially one so praised, but this book is almost completely unreadable. One of the goals of a novel is to communicate with the reader, and in this it fails utterly, unless you happen to have the author's particular obsessions and frames of reference. Without a knowledge of Baudelaire and Goethe and Shakespeare and cabbalah and goodness-knows-what-else, you're going to be very lost. If the novel had a discernable plot with some sort of theme or message, perhaps one would be justified in finding out all those things and then reading through it, but the novel doesn't reward you with those things EITHER. Instead we get a man who could save himself but won't, and his co-dependent ex-wife who is re-creating her childhood trauma of having her alcoholic father die on her. And everybody dies, the end.

[sandydog1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read subject matter that is a helluva lot emotionally tougher. But this was tough reading, worthy of intense concentration and worthy of a re-read, some day. Lowry's stream of consciousness makes Faulkner look easy. Unlike Faulkner's simple Southern folk, we're dealing with a chronically drunk intellectual's rambling thoughts. The Joycean plot (all taking place on La dia de los muertos) is crammed in here and there, and in retrospect, was fairly easy to follow.

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a dark, introverted, burning sun of a novel, spanning the final day of drinking of a former British Consul to a small Mexican city. It artistically recreates the experience of the alcoholic, the mood, the frenzy, the shabiness of it, the self-deception, his psychology. It is partly autobiographical (not the ending), incorporating much of Lowry's life and his experiences into those of his characters. The atmosphere and culture of the Mexican town is vividly brought to life, together with its inhabitants and goings-on in the late nineteen 30s. Plotwise, it is a tale of love and longing, of self-destruction, and the subtleties of relationships, however like many great literary works it is not the plot that makes this work great. It is the moods that are produced, the way that words are used to invoke reality, the symbolism and philosophical musings, and these put together which produce the whole encompassing psychological effect. As a novel this feels like is a very complete work, from beginning to end. It does not leave the reader wanting a more fitting ending, or hanging for something else.This is one of the best novels I have read in a long time, but it is not one that everyone would enjoy.

[elyreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The last day of Geoffrey Firmin is recorded in meticulous detail here after an opening chapter which is set one year on from the events of the rest of the book. Firmin, ex HM consul in Mexico, is a lost soul, adrift in life as he drinks himself into a constant stupor. On this day, the Mexican Day of Death, and under the shadow of the great volcanoes Popacatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl, he wakes from a drastically heavy drinking session the night before to find that his estranged (actually divorced) wife has returned to give him one last chance. His brother Hugh is also in town on his travels through the world as a sophisticated journalist/writer involved in the seething pre-WWII politics of the region. The depiction of Geoffrey's drinking is convincing and reveals a vulnerability in what could otherwise be a wholly rebarbative character. Indeed, Lowry's use of free indirect style and stream of consciousness invites us into Firmin's memories in which there are some poignant and powerful explorations of his early life - being orphaned in India, taken into a family of artists (the Takersons) and, above all, his painful emotional reliance on Yvonne (his wife) and then alcohol. The long journeys into the history of the characters is extended to Yvonne herself (a former child Hollywood star) and Hugh (failed song writer and merchant seaman). Both of these narratives are compelling and artfully constructed around the events of the day. No-one but the reader seems aware of a mood of impending catastrophe and amidst the fine writing and emotionally charged shifts in register and style it is easy for this to get lost even to the reader. The unfocused drifting events of the day pass by but they seem charged with levels of symbolic significance that go unnoticed. There is a compellingly simple description of Yvonne and Hugh's horse ride round the neighbourhood while Geoffrey sobers up as well as an energetic and emotive description of Geoffrey as he wanders round his garden (a symbolic Eden from which he is curiously disconnected); this even includes a comical encounter with a bourgeois neighbour who recoils at Firmin's drunkenness. Indeed, it is the sheer amount of drink consumed that amazes this reader, at least - and not only by Geoffrey but by his wife and brother, too. The climax of the novel is shocking and tragic - suiting the absurdist and nihilistic spirit of its times, but thrown into relief by the spiritual and often Christian language of the narrator and the characters. This is a very powerful and rich book which in the telling of its tale discovers something beyond the emptiness and pain of its subject matter.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5* for the book itselfI really liked John Lee's narration but found this book was very difficult for me to process in audio form. The text is often stream-of-conscience style and jumps about & rambles. Plus there's a fair amount of Spanish since it is set in Mexico.I can see why this is considered a masterpiece and I may end up changing my rating. However my initial reaction was that it was evocative but of a distasteful experience. Plus, I wished that there was a short section at the end tying back to the beginning with Jacques Laruelle.

[faradaydon_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Self-indulgent

[soraxtm-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just exceptional. Well not just that.