Under the Volcano

by Malcolm Lowry

Paperback, 1984

Status

Available

Call number

813

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Penguin Books (1984), Paperback, 384 pages

Description

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life-- the Day of the Dead, 1938-- his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical. "Under the Volcano" remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member clogbottom

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 dogs. And take one long drink, just for the sake of it.

If you do this right, you will end up passed out in a ditch somewhere between Hemingway and Nabokov, and you will have a fair idea of what 'Under the Volcano' is like.

Show Less

24 more

LibraryThing member andreablythe

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member buffalopoet

Astonishing. One of the most extraordinary novels I've read in years. Neither an easy read nor redemptive in any particular sense of the word, Under the Volcano is nevertheless a work of art that will haunt you long after finishing it. It's no wonder that it has had a reputation as a 'writer's

book' – one that is most appreciated by those who best understand how hard it is to make something like this work.

Under the Volcano is a tightly-focused narrative that, after being framed as a flashback from a year later by a friend of the main character, covers less than 24 hours in the lives of its principals. Incredibly, it manages to imply and evoke their lives leading up to this day, and the state of the world during their lifetimes, leaving you feeling as if you've read their complete histories before their day is up. The central character, and the fulcrum for everything that happens, is Geoffrey Firmin, often referred to as 'The Consul.' He is in fact the former British Consul to a central-Mexican town near the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, but now an ex-pat who refuses to go home as World War II is busy getting underway. The novel follows the Consul's alcoholic sprint towards his doom, and watching him come to pieces, and the shrapnel damage it causes to those closest to him, is terrifying. The final hundred pages feel like an out-of-control downhill run through a lava field – and in spite of being able to see the brick wall waiting at the end of the run, there's nothing you can do to slow down and prepare. Because of the framing at the book's opening, you can see the brick wall all the way, but you are shocked nonetheless when you run into it.

It's hard to find redemption in addiction and alcoholism, and none at all is provided by Lowry – regardless, it now has a place on my 'all-time' list of novels.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ToddSherman

“Their house was dying, only an agony went there now.”

—Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Alternately frustrating and beautiful. Discursive and illuminating. Drunk and sober. Efflorescent and dissolving. Ascetic and dissipated. This book can only be described by how I understand it in

opposites. I’d imagine it polarized readers upon its release as much as it variably affected the different personalities within myself. Its challenging linguistic forays forced me to learn the correct pronunciations of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccíhuatl, translate Spanish and German passages, brush up on mythology and biblical parables—all while the narrative is intercut with lines from menus, advertisements and multiple inebriated bursts of dialogue. It could be confusing, it is confusing, but then the protagonist is a “lucid drunk” (to steal an idea from Stephen Spender’s brilliant introduction). Though moments may have been frustrating and downright annoying, there are blocks of this text that will stick with me forever, images seared into memory, ideas that will most likely never be drowned in a decade of reading more straightforward fiction. The local drunk who stinks, needs to shave and showers your face in spit while gesticulating—sometimes that dude sees something the rest of us don’t and he’s got something worth listening to.

Sometimes. I mean, he is living between a pair of goddamn volcanoes, after all.

Show Less

LibraryThing member TheBentley

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member js229

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.

LibraryThing member giovannigf

I avoided reading this novel for a long time for two reasons: firstly, because I knew that its protagonist dies at the end, which I thought would spoil reading the novel; and secondly because William Gaddis said he had avoided reading it because he had been told it was so close to The Recognitions,

and excellent as Gaddis’s novel was, it was torture to read. It turns out that the first reason didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book; knowing the ending didn’t lessen the impact of the tragedy one bit. But the second reason was justified – Under the Volcano is just as dense and obscure as The Recognitions. Thankfully, like The Recognitions, it’s also an amazing achievement. But I’m not going to go on about the literary merits of Volcano, as it’s already considered a masterpiece and I would just sound like an idiot. I’m just going to talk about the drinking.

The book chronicles Geoffrey Firmin’s last drunken day of life. The plot is simple, but the writing is baroque and full of allusions to everything from Mesoamerican mythology to the Kabbalah, from the Spanish Civil War to contemporary Mexican politics. Basically, Firmin’s ex-wife visits him in Mexico, where he just lost or is about to lose his post as British consul due to the political situation there. He’s ambivalent about her because she was unfaithful to him, and his way of dealing with it is by being stinking drunk all the time.

The story is told from the point of view of a few characters: Firmin, his ex-wife, his brother (who is in love with Firmin’s wife) and a French film director (who had a brief affair with Firmin’s wife). The chapters from Firmin’s point of view are the most effective, though because they depict his drunkenness, they are also the most difficult to parse.

Firmin’s inner monologues include frenzied arguments with himself (mostly about whether he should have another drink) and labored attempts at piecing together what has been happening around him. The chapters in which he finds himself drinking at various establishments are particularly convincing, as in his inebriation time seems to slow down or speed up – a feeling that anyone who has ever overdone it can remember.

Even knowing the inevitable end, the tension is unbearable when a shit-faced Firmin finds himself at the last bar, drinking even more as he’s questioned by rogue policemen. And if you still think that knowing Firmin’s fate is disappointing, take heart: the penultimate chapter holds another big surprise that no one seems to write about.

One thing that won’t surprise is finding out that Malcolm Lowry was a life-long alcoholic. He died from what a tactful coroner referred to as “death by misadventure.”

If you enjoy Joycean logorrhea you’ll probably enjoy this. If you don’t, you might try the 1984 John Huston movie adaptation; I found it unbearably boring, but it won two Oscars, so what the hell do I know.

Show Less

LibraryThing member mattviews

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member kwohlrob

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member piefuchs

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member elyreader

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member P_S_Patrick

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member SeriousGrace

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member waldhaus1

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

LibraryThing member gazzy

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.

LibraryThing member Petroglyph

Detailing the final hours of a lucid drunk, Under the Volcano takes place over the course of a single day. Its main character, Geoffrey Firmin, is a British ex-consul to Mexico in the 1930s, and on his last day he’s at the end of a years-long journey towards near-constant inebriation, a process

in which he’s lost his job, his wife, and his coherence. The day opens with his wife returning, ready to give it another shot, and takes the reader through the Garden of Eden, musings on comparative mythology, a bus ride interrupted by a dead, police-beaten Indian, a bullfight, and a wander through the jungle. All of it takes place on the Day of the Dead, and all of it is drenched in sweaty delirium tremens and unrelenting psychosis, punctuated by blackouts. The text veers wildly across the pages, from memory to hallucination to overheard dialogue to inner self-strangulation -- the prose is a veritable frenzy. Coherence and understanding are kept at arm’s length. Stretches of rule books, tourist folders, radio announcements, letters and street signs are incorporated into the prose without warning, and fragments of memories and dialogue are given in multiple untranslated languages (especially Spanish, but also French and German. I love that kind of thing, but I can imagine not everyone does).

This was not a pleasant read, nor was it intended to be. Lowry’s depiction of the inner life of a long-term alcoholic is very impressive, and it is worth reading.

I’m only giving this three and a half stars, though, because I thought Lowry overdid things in other aspects of the book. The many ways in which he tried to throw in Kabbalistic elements, or Biblical references (and Goethe, and various philosophers, etc.), I felt, were a stretch: they did not work for me. Then there was the insistence on grandeur and universality that the book wants to lend its story. I thought was overdone, too: Under the Volcano is the story of a wealthy Western drunk in Mexico: there really is no need to pretend this is particularly poignant among the poverty, the oppression and the corruption regularly at display in 1930s Mexico. I think what I disliked most about this book is that Lowry seemed to be aware that he was writing a masterpiece and tried to make it An Important Book -- hence the literary references and the grandeur.

Show Less

LibraryThing member leslie.98

3.5* for the book itself

I 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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member chrisadami

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.

LibraryThing member BayardUS

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member abirdman

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.

LibraryThing member jorgearanda

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

LibraryThing member Sandydog1

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.

Show Less

LibraryThing member marti.booker

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.

Show Less

Fewer