Under the Volcano
by Malcom Lowry
Book Read on 9 / 8 / 2007
I enjoyed his portrayal of the futility of colonization and his ability to
capture the hell of alcoholism. So many books glamorize it, instead of
showing it at it's most visceral and unappealing. It is a state where your body
needs poison in order to function properly.
The entire alcoholic experience is much more "Leaving Las Vegas", than Amy
Winehouse. It's not pretty, it's sad. Not sexy, gross.
Lowry is good at describing this. The book was at times pretty hard to
read, Ulysses-like. And so dense, so filled with metaphor that sometimes
you wanted to put it down and come back when the thinking was over.
The hallucinatory passages were hardest for me, especially since I read the book
when I was ill.
The book feels a bit like a David Lynch film, with strange characters that
appear, point at their mouths, and disappear without saying anything.
A violent history and a beautiful place.
Mexico, in the book is another character. Not the Mexico of Tijuana, but
the Mexico of Oaxaca. It is a place of extremes, big canyons, big
volcanoes. Incredible good and evil. Life and death. A Spanish
culture that is more indigenous than Spanish. A Roman Catholic country
where the icons are used in Mayan rituals.
The book did drag a bit. It felt a bit like the novel was a short story that got
stretched. Not that much actually happened that couldn't have been
described in a book a quarter of the size. Maybe some of the description
would have been eliminated, but after two or three pages of Delirium tremens,
what more do you have to write about it?
Probably not the 11th best novel in English, but still ... it was disturbing,
unsettling and terrific.
Some especially interesting bits, from writing, stylist standpoint:
Reviewer: William Koplitz
3 out of 5