Malcolm Lowry

Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid

El Día de Muertos de 1938 es una jornada aciaga para el ex cónsul británico en México, Geoffrey Firmin, un hombre alcohólico, arruinado por los fantasmas de su mente y de su pasado y cuyos oscuros sentimientos de culpabilidad alimentan una soterrada voluntad de autodestrucción. Incapaz de reaccionar al regreso de su ex mujer, Yvonne, el cónsul deja que ella se acerque de nuevo a su hermanastro Hugh, trotamundos implicado en actividades políticas. Y durante las veinticuatro horas en que transcurre la novela, en un México que simboliza al tiempo el paraíso y el infierno terrenales, se suceden alejamientos, malentendidos y encuentros conflictivos, y hasta violentos, con personajes de toda índole. Un funesto augurio —un indio moribundo al borde de un camino— da la primera señal de alarma. Mientras Geoffrey, cada vez más ensimismado, naufraga lentamente en sus delirios etílicos ante los ojos de Yvonne y Hugh, éstos asisten impotentes a los estragos de su trágica caída.

Bajo el volcán

Sotto il vulcano

An autobiographical novella that tells the story of Bill Plantagenet, a piano player and ex-sailor who has lost his band and his mind drinking in New York.

Lunar Caustic

Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place and Lunar Caustic

October Ferry to Gabriola

Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry

1938ko Defuntuen Eguna Mexicoko Quauhnahuac hiri asmatuan (Cuernavaca alegiazko bat?) beste edozein egun bezalakoa izan daiteke Geoffrey Firmin britainiar kontsularentzat, haren azken eguna izango den arren. Mozkorti baten eldarnio alhoholiko etenbako bat duzu eleberri hau, alde batera, delirium tremensaren menpeko izaten zen idazle batek sortua. Aldi berean, baina, argikusmen distiratsua erakusten du kontsulak, eta era berean esan liteke Lowryk testu jori, barroko, jostalari, iradokitzaile eta askotariko bat ondu zuela, tintaz ez ezik, alkoholez eta are bere odolez ere izkiriatua, literaturaren historian bitxi bakan gisa geratuko dena.

Sumendiaren azpian

A quartet of the British novelist’s finest works of fiction, including “Lowry’s masterpiece,” Under the Volcano (Los Angeles Times). Malcolm Lowry was an author who poured his soul into his prose, including his struggle with his own demons. Of his most famous work, Under the Volcano, Dawn Powell wrote: “You love the author for the pain of his overwhelming understanding.” In the New YorkHerald Tribune, Mark Schorer commented that few novels “convey so feelingly the agony of alienation, the infernal suffering of disintegration.” D. T. Max wrote in the New Yorker: “[Lowry’s] portrait of an unravelling drunk was unnervingly intimate.” Honored by the Modern Library as one of the one hundred best English language novels of the twentieth century, Under the Volcano is widely acknowledged as “Lowry’s masterpiece” (Los Angeles Times). In this novel and the other works of fiction gathered here, the reader follows Lowry as he confronts the abyss, but also shares in his eternal hope for transcendence. Ultramarine: Lowry’s debut novel, and the only book, other than Under the Volcano, published in his lifetime, is the coming-of-age story of Dana Hilliot, who escapes the bourgeois provincialism of his upper-class British upbringing by joining a crew of weathered, world-weary sailors on a freighter bound for South Asia. Part Moby-Dick, part A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ultramarin draws on Lowry’s own early experience on the sea. Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place: Published posthumously, these seven stories and novellas include “Through the Panama,” in which a burned-out, alcoholic writer on a voyage from Vancouver to Europe tries to make sense of the literature that has kept him afloat, while the pulse of his life grows harder to distinguish, and “The Forest Path to Spring,” about a couple that has been through hell finding new life in the beauty and seclusion of a vast forest. “[These] stories and novellas afford glimpses of the whole toward which Lowry was striving.” —The New York Times Under the Volcano: Former British consul Geoffrey Firmin lives alone with his demons in the shadow of two active volcanoes in South Central Mexico. Drowning in alcoholism, Geoffrey makes one last effort to salvage his crumbling life when his estranged wife, Yvonne, arrives in town on the Day of the Dead, 1938. “One of the towering novels of [the twentieth] century.” —The New York Times October Ferry to Gabriola: Edited by Lowry’s widow and frequent collaborator, and released more than a decade after his untimely death, October Ferry to Gabriola is the story of a married couple striving for renewal, sanity, and transcendence in the deep seclusion of the British Columbian forest. “What awaits [the reader] is worth the effort: a species of ecstatic, lyrical prose that has all but gone out of existence.” —The New York Times

Ultramarine, Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place, Under the Volcano, and October Ferry to Gabriola

The Collected Works Volume One

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Notorious for a misspent life full of binges, blackouts, and unimaginable bad luck, Malcolm Lowry managed, against every odd, to complete and publish two novels, one of them, Under the Volcano, an indisputable masterpiece. At the time of his death in 1957, Lowry also left behind a great deal of uncollected and unpublished writing: stories, novellas, drafts of novels and revisions of drafts of novels (Lowry was a tireless revisiter and reviser—and interrupter—of his work), long, impassioned, haunting, beautiful letters overflowing with wordplay and lament, fraught short poems that display a sozzled off-the-cuff inspiration all Lowry’s own. Over the years these writings have appeared in various volumes, all long out of print. Here, in The Voyage That Never Ends, the poet, translator, and critic Michael Hofmann has drawn on all this scattered and inaccessible material to assemble the first book that reflects the full range of Lowry’s extraordinary and singular achievement. The result is a revelation. In the letters—acknowledged to be among modern literature’s greatest—we encounter a character who was, as contemporaries attested, as spellbinding and lovable as he was self-destructive and infuriating. In the late fiction—the long story “Through the Panama,” sections of unfinished novels such as Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, and the little-known La Mordida—we discover a writer who is blazing a path into the unknown and, as he goes, improvising a whole new kind of writing. Lowry had set out to produce a great novel, something to top Under the Volcano, a multivolume epic and intimate tale of purgatorial suffering and ultimate redemption (called, among other things, “The Voyage That Never Ends”). That book was never to be. What he produced instead was an unprecedented and prophetic blend of fact and fiction, confession and confusion, essay and free play, that looks forward to the work of writers as different as Norman Mailer and William Gass, but is like nothing else. Almost in spite of himself, Lowry succeeded in transforming his disastrous life into an exhilarating art of disaster. The Voyage That Never Ends is a new and indispensable entry into the world of one of the masters of modern literature.

Fictions, Poems, Fragments, Letters

The Voyage That Never Ends

Paradise proves fleeting in this engrossing tale of a married couple who tries to chase away the past by immersing themselves in nature Edited by Malcolm Lowry’s widow and released more than a decade after his death, October Ferry to Gabriola is the sentimental story of two individuals striving for sanity, inspiration, hope, and purpose in the deep seclusion of the British Columbian forest. Once the couple finds a new home in the woods, their new, off-the-grid life together becomes their last attempt at finding stability... Illuminating and joyful, October Ferry to Gabriola is a striking ode to the struggle for hope amid the purity of the wilderness—a story made all the more poignant by Lowry’s untimely death before publication.

A Novel

F. Scott Fitzgerald

To a remarkable extent the filmscript of Tender is theNight, which Malcolm Lowry wrote in 1949-50 with the help ofMargerie Bonner Lowry, is less an adaptation of F. ScottFitzgerald's novel than an extension of Lowry's own fiction. AsMiguel Mota and Paul Tiessen show, Malcolm Lowry's script containsimportant passages which are really "cinematic" restatementsof parts of Lowry's novel Lunar Caustic, and of shortstories such as "Through the Panama" and "StrangeComfort Afforded by the Profession." The editors note also the many direct and indirect allusions toelements from Lowry's master-work, Under the Volcano(1947), a novel that is regarded by many critics as one of the most"cinematic" prose works of the twentieth century. A closestudy of the text reveals that Lowry took on the Tender is the Nightproject partly as a means of reopening his Under the Volcanonarrative, of re-exploring its plot and problems and its characters andthemes, and of carrying as far as possible the "cinematic"style he had begun to examine in that work. Lowry's Tender is the Night manuscript is important,then, not only as a completed, 455-page text in its own right but alsoas a text having a direct bearing on Lowry's own reading ofUnder the Volcano and of his sense of artistic direction afterthat work. Indeed, the editors consider the significance of thefilmscript as a key - hitherto almost entirely overlooked - tounderstanding his projected multiple volume work, The Voyage ThatNever Ends. This scholarly edition of Lowry's script presents 38 passages ofvarying length - from less than one page to over 100 pages - in whichLowry writes with a freedom and creativity that lead to a textnarratively and stylistically quite separate and distinct fromFitzgerald's original. It excludes passages where Lowry adheresmore or less slavishly, at 37 intervals, to Fitzgeralds' novel,though it provides brief narrative summaries of and comments on thoseomitted sections. Lowry's achievement in his filmscript demonstrates the nature ofhis life-long commitment to and extensive knowledge of theinternational cinema from the 1910s to the 1950s and also the nature ofhis view of the novelist's responsibility to participate in thedevelopment of film as an art. The script also illustrates Lowry's relationship with F. ScottFitzgerald as one in a series of literary kinships, and as the editorspoint out, the work becomes a criticism and analysis of bothFitzgerald's novel and of Fitzgerald himself.

A Scholarly Edition of Lowry's "Tender is the Night"

The Cinema of Malcolm Lowry

Uma das mais poderosas e belas peças literárias sobre os perigos do desejo, um retrato brilhante da luta constante de um homem contra as forças que ameaçam destruí-lo. "Malcolm Lowry dá um poderoso sentido histórico ao romance, ao mesmo tempo que sonda a subjetividade de um dos personagens mais complexos e fascinantes da ficção do século XX." — Milton Hatoum Geoffrey Firmin, ex-cônsul britânico, vive na cidade de Quauhnahuac, no México. Seu mal-estar debilitante é a bebida, uma atividade que tomou conta de todos os aspectos de seu cotidiano. No Dia dos Mortos de 1938, sua esposa, Yvonne, chega à cidade para tentar reatar o casamento, imaginando uma vida a dois longe do México e das circunstâncias que levaram seu relacionamento à beira do colapso. Contudo, sua missão se torna ainda mais difícil pela presença de Hugh, meio-irmão do cônsul, e de Jacques, um amigo de infância. Enquanto Firmin se afoga em mescal, os demais personagens assistem, impotentes, sua trágica figura. Conforme o dia passa, fica claro que Geoffrey deve tomar uma atitude drástica.

Debaixo do vulcão

Seven stories and novellas by the author of Under the Volcano, a master of twentieth-century fiction. For fans of the novel Under the Volcano, this collection of stories—many of them published for the first time posthumously—provides great insight into the author’s genius. The stories range from heartfelt tragedy to exuberant triumph. In the novella “Through the Panama,” a burned-out, alcoholic writer tries to make sense of the literature that has kept him afloat while the pulse of his life grows harder to distinguish. In “The Forest Path to Spring,” a couple that has survived hell finds new life in the seclusion of a vast forest. And in “The Bravest Boat,” a young boy sends a message across the ocean to an unknown recipient. Together, these stories reveal a writer who traveled widely, observed keenly, and maintained an engrossing literary style that still reverberates today.

Stories

Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place

Margeie Bonner Lowry

Notes on a Screenplay for F. Scott Fitzgerald's: Tender is the Night

Collects poems and letters, excerpts from "Through the Panama" and other works of fiction, and fragments of unfinished novels such as "La Mordida."

The Voyage that Never Ends : Fictions, Poems, Fragments, Letters

Ascoltaci signore

Det är De dödas dag i november 1939. Medan den gamla världen kollapsar letar Geoffrey Firmin, före detta brittisk konsul, upp ständigt nya anledningar att ta en kyld drink i en mexikansk kurort med fyrahundra övergivna pooler, åtta kyrkor och femtiosju barer. I ett gränslöst alkoholiserat delirium är han bara vagt medveten om de sanningar som börjar verka runt omkring honom. Under vulkanen är en av 1900-talets största romaner och det viktigaste av Malcolm Lowrys två fullbordade verk. Romanen iscensätter en säregen medvetandeström: »Här finns en episk uthållighet som hämtar sin styrka ur övertygelsen om litteraturens förmåga att gestalta en mycket svår mänsklig erfarenhet, att förmedla den genom att utgöra en erfarenhet i sig.« (Ur förordet.) I översättning av Erik Sandin och med ett nyskrivet förord av Klas Östergren. »Malmcolm Lowry frambesvärjer en djupt personlig vision av alkoholismens inferno, i en bok full av insikt, medkänsla och tragisk livserfarenhet.« FABIAN KASTNER, SVENSKA DAGBLADET »Under vulkanen är en drabbande berättelse, närmast omöjlig att värja sig emot. En klassisk och mäktig roman som gräver sig djupt in i själens mörkaste skrymslen.« CRISTER ENANDER, TIDNINGEN KULTUREN »En av 1900-talets största romaner.« NEW YORK TIMES »Under vulkanen är skriven med övertygelsen om att en roman kan skildra ett historiskt skeende genom en människas trasiga blick. En mäktig berättelse.« ERIK JERSENIUS, GEFLE DAGBLAD »Ett faustiskt mästerverk.« ANTHONY BURGESS

Under vulkanen

Este fiesta din ziua morților în micul oraș mexican Quauhnahuac. În umbra vulcanului, copii în zdrențe cerșesc bani ca să cumpere cranii de ciocolată, câini vagabonzi bântuie pe străzi, iar Geoffrey Firmin – fost consul, fost soț, un bărbat alcoolic și distrus – își trăiește ultima zi din viață. Hotărât să se înece în mescal sub privirile neputincioase ale fostei soții și ale fratelui său vitreg, consulul a devenit o figură tragică. Pe măsură ce ziua se scurge, devine evident că Geoffrey trebuie să moară. Este singura sa evadare dintr-o lume pe care nu o poate înțelege. Povestea lui, imaginea călătoriei agonizante a unui om spre Calvar, a devenit o carte profetică pentru o întreagă generație. Sub vulcan nu poate fi comparată decât cu marile cărți totemice ale secolului nostru: De veghe în lanul de secară a lui J.D. Salinger sau Pe drum a lui Jack Kerouac. The New York Times Sub vulcan dezvăluie acele două trăsături de geniu ale prozei lui Lowry – limbajul poetic și capacitatea de a conferi detaliilor autobiografice o valoare universală. Los Angeles Times

Malcolm Lowry

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