Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957)

October Ferry to Gabriola is sort of "Malcolm Lowry's Last Novel," as it says on the cover of my copy of the first edition. It was posthumously issued, as edited by his widow Margerie from the MSS. It's hard to begrudge her hand in it, both because she assures the reader of her scrupulousness in disdaining to add any text beyond what Lowry had penned, and because the book had its origin in a short story that she had co-written with him, on the basis of their shared experience.

As with all of show more Lowry's novels, this one is strongly rooted in his personal experience, and the principal characters are recognizable as vehicles for the perspectives and sentiments of the author and his associates. The central figure (and Malcolm stand-in) is Ethan Llewellyn, a prematurely semi-retired defense attorney. His wife Jacqueline is based on Margerie. Jacqueline's father The McCandless is based on Charles Stansfeld Jones, who was a neighbor, friend, and magical mentor to the Lowrys in British Columbia.

Although October Ferry is a very modern, terribly interior novel, it is significantly oriented to its setting. While Lowry wrote two novels set in Mexico (Under the Volcano and Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid), this one stands alone as a Canadian story and a literary love letter to the British Columbia coast where he lived with Margerie.

Both the characters and the setting are threatened and in flux during the course of the novel, and the ferry ride of the title is a suitable figure for the themes of eviction and estrangement that serve as the foundation of the story. Ethan, like Lowry and his other central characters, struggles with drink. In the bus to the ferry, and the subsequent boat ride to the island that they hope will be their new home, Ethan reviews his life since meeting Jacqueline, and contemplates the difficulties he has had, feeling increasingly as if he is under a curse that must soon be relieved or drive him under altogether. He sees omens and portents for his own personal welfare, while the residential and industrial development around Vancouver menaces the wilderness he has come to love.

In an editorial afterword, Margerie Lowry notes that there were two elements of the book that she thought Malcolm had planned to develop further than was evident in his final drafts, although she didn't add anything on them herself. These were the character of The McCandless, a noble old Scottish occultist, and the question of the wrong turn in Ethan's legal career which left him with a burden of unresolved guilt. Both of these were touched on in the book as it stands, but I found both of them interesting and was in fact disappointed not to have had more about them, even before reading the editorial note about their underdevelopment. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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

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 show more 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