Name: Maurice FitzGerald's review of Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Item: Under the Volcano
Rating: 5
Author: Maurice FitzGerald

Malcolm Lowry

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, struggles to surmount the forces that threaten to destroy him as he copes with alcholism, a failing marriage, and family secrets during one fateful celebration of the Day of the Dead, in a novel set in 1930s Mexico. Reprint.

A Novel

Under the Volcano

Maurice FitzGerald

I’m almost positive this is a brilliant book, however I kept getting lost with its rich, robust, and lyrical writing. The only way I could stomach any of it down was total and complete isolation. Holy shit. 

Adam Scharf

Gabe Cortez

Cristi Marian

elisa

A Novel (P.S.)

Seth Kalback

Aaron McCollough

Hilary Rose

Roman

Unter dem Vulkan

drikkes

Anthony Sabourin

Cindy Lieberman

Giovanni Garcia-Fenech 

Elliot Baker

Julia A.

One of the twentieth century's great undisputed masterpieces, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano includes an introduction by Michael Schmidt in Penguin Modern Classics. It is the fiesta 'Day of the Dead' in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac. In the shadow of the volcano, ragged children beg coins to buy skulls made of chocolate, ugly pariah dogs roam the streets and Geoffrey Firmin - ex-consul, ex-husband, an alcoholic and a ruined man - is living out the last day of his life. Drowning himself in mescal while his former wife and half-brother look on, powerless to help him, the consul has become an enduring tragic figure. As the day wears on, it becomes apparent that Geoffrey must die. It is his only escape from a world he cannot understand. His story, the image of one man's agonised journey towards Calvary, became a prophetic book for a whole generation. Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957) was born and died in England. Between school and studying English at St Catherine's College, Cambridge he spent five months at sea as a deckhand, an experience which gave him the material for his first novel, Ultramarine (1933). After marrying in Paris, he moved to New York where he completed In Ballast to the White (1936). Under The Volcano was begun in Hollywood, coloured by a short stay in the Mexico that it describes, and eventually finished in Dollarton, British Columbia. If you enjoyed Under the Volcano, you might like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, also available in Penguin Classics. 'A Faustian masterpiece' Anthony Burgess

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