Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Who could better describe the fear and confusion of an alcoholic than someone who has experienced this addiction? In the preface to the edition of Under the Volcano I have been reading (Penguin Classics, 1963), Michael Schmidt notes that "the whole book is a denouement." I had to get to the end of the third chapter to understand what he meant. Under the Volcano is a deeply personal story of addiction.
Malcolm Lowry was one of the most interesting authors of the 20th century and a raging alcoholic. He started drinking at the age of 14 and died by a mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills. Some say it was suicide; I don’t know and I am not sure it matters, anyway. Lowry has been an alcoholic all his life. He wrote only two books, the first was a failure, the second is the reason I am now sitting in my desk, drinking coffee (my addiction), and writing this long post, reaching out to you dear reader, hoping that you will become excited by it, and then, perhaps, go to your public library or to your local bookstore and ask for it.
The title comes from the town of Quauhnahuac, which is located next to two volcanoes in Mexico. The whole story takes place in just one day, 2 November 1938, the Mexican Day of the Dead. Geoffrey Firmin, or the Consul, is an alcoholic and at the edge of death. He is so drunk that he can’t put his shocks up. He literally tells “I love you” to a bottle of Jonny Walker. In the morning of this particular day, while Geoffrey is in a state of numbness and apathy from his last night drinking, his ex-wife Yvonne arrives. She a desperate and broken woman, yearning to rekindle her death marriage with Geoffrey. It seems like a lost cause, but she still hopes that it can be saved and with her marriage she also hopes to save Geoffrey. Saving Geoffrey gives Yvonne purpose, in a way she is addicted to the idea that she must save Geoffrey. Along comes Geoffrey’s half-brother Hugh; it is suggested that he and Yvonne share an attraction and, possibly, an affair. There is a huge amount of hidden tension and at the same time an interdependence between these three people. But nothing can save their relationship; it is completely broken.
As the day progress, we are given account to bizarre events that surround these three people. The tragedies of Mexican history, the revolutions, the shabby characters, the silent and motionless women, who look like they are made of stone. There are plenty of allegorical, religious and literary references. From Marcus Aurelius to Shakespeare and from Baudelaire to Marlowe. Everything and everyone is here. It’s brilliant and sad and beautiful. There is no other book like this one.
Malcolm Lowry is an amazing exception in the literary world. He wrote one of the best books of the 20th century while in a state of self-destructive intoxication. And yet, how else could one understand the beauty of the women who were sitting silently between their chickens in the market playing domino without giving up prudence for one more glass of mescal? Only Frida Kahlo with her restless and passionate soul and her severe long-term pain has succeeded to depict the tenderness and the beauty of these women.
