| |
Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909 – June 26, 1957) was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel, Under the Volcano.
y was born in Wallasey, in the English county of Merseyside (previously Cheshire), and was educated at The Leys School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. By the time he graduated in 1931, the twin obsessions which would dominate his life—alcohol and literature—were firmly in place.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Malcolm Lowry' Start a new discussion about 'Malcolm Lowry' Answer questions from other users |
Quotations
But my lord, Yvonne, surely you know by this time I cant get drunk however much I drink.
Page 86
For a time they confronted each other like two mute unspeaking forts.
Page 75
How shall the murdered man convince his assassin he will not haunt him.
Page 79
If we could rise from our misery, seek each other once more, and find again the solace of each others lips and eyes.
Page 357
No se puede vivir sin amar.
Translation: It is not possible to live without loving., Page 4
Nothing in the world was more terrible than an empty bottle! Unless it was an empty glass.
Page 87
Encyclopedia
Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909 – June 26, 1957) was an English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel, Under the Volcano.
Biography
Lowry was born in Wallasey, in the English county of Merseyside (previously Cheshire), and was educated at The Leys School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. By the time he graduated in 1931, the twin obsessions which would dominate his life—alcohol and literature—were firmly in place. Lowry was already well travelled, having sailed to the Far East as a deck hand on the Pyrrhus between school and university and made visits to America and Germany between terms. After Cambridge, Lowry lived briefly in London, existing on the fringes of the vibrant thirties literary scene and meeting Dylan Thomas, amongst others. Following this, he moved to France, where he married his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in 1934. It was a turbulent union, and, after an estrangement, Lowry followed her to New York (where he entered the Bellevue Hospital in 1936 following an alcohol-induced break-down) and then to Hollywood, where he tried his hand at screenwriting.
The couple moved to the Mexican city of Cuernavaca in late 1936, in a final attempt to salvage their marriage. This failed, however, and in late 1937, Lowry was left alone in Oaxaca and entered another period of dark alcoholic excess, culminating in his being deported from the country. In 1939, he moved to Canada, and the following year he married his second wife, actress and writer Margerie Bonner. The couple lived and wrote in a squatter's shack on the beach near Dollarton in British Columbia, north of Vancouver. Margerie was an entirely positive influence, editing Lowry's work skillfully and making sure that he ate as well as drank (she was no slouch herself, when it came to drinking). The couple travelled to Europe, America and the Caribbean, and while Lowry continued to drink heavily, this seems to have been a relatively peaceful and productive period. It would last until 1954, when a final nomadic period ensued, embracing New York and London, amongst other places.
Lowry died in the village of Ripe, East Sussex, where he was living with his wife. Certainly alcohol, and possibly an overdose of sleeping pills, contributed to what the coroner recorded as "death by misadventure."
Writings
Lowry published little during his lifetime, in comparison with the extensive collection of unfinished manuscripts he left. Of his two novels, Under the Volcano (1947) is now widely accepted not only as his masterpiece but also as one of the great works of the 20th century (number 11 on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the 20th century. ) It exemplifies Lowry's method as a writer, which involved drawing heavily upon autobiographical material and imbuing it with complex and allusive layers of symbolism. Under the Volcano depicts a series of complex and unwillingly destructive relationships and is set against a rich evocation of Mexico. The novel's stream-of-consciousness technique was an obvious and witting attempt to emulate James Joyce.
Ultramarine (1933), written while Lowry was still an undergraduate, follows a young man's first sea voyage and his determination to gain the crew's acceptance.
A collection of short stories, Hear Us, O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961) was published after Lowry's death. The scholar and poet Earle Birney edited Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry (1962). He also collaborated with Lowry's widow in editing the novella Lunar Caustic (1968) for re-publication. It is a conflation of several earlier pieces concerned with Bellevue Hospital, which Lowry was in the process of rewriting as a complete novel. With Douglas Day, Lowry's first biographer, Lowry's widow has also completed and edited the novels Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid (1968) and October Ferry to Gabriola (1970) from Lowry's manuscripts.
The Selected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, edited by his widow and Harvey Breit, was released in 1965, followed in 1995-6 by the two volume Sursam Corda! The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, edited by Sherrill E. Grace. Scholarly editions of Lowry's final work in progress, La Mordida and his screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night have also been issued.
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry (1976) is an Oscar-nominated National Film Board of Canada documentary produced by Donald Brittain and Robert A. Duncan and directed by Brittain and John Kramer. It opens with the inquest into Lowry's "death by misadventure," and then moves back in time to trace the writer's life. Selections from Lowry's novel are read by Richard Burton amid images shot in Mexico, the United States, Canada and England.
Bibliography
Posthumous releases
- Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961)
- Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry (1962)
- Lunar Caustic (1968)
- Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid (1968)
- October Ferry to Gabriola (1970)
- The Voyage That Never Ends (2007), selected stories, poems, and letters; edited by Michael Hofmann
Biography
Sources
- Asals, Frederick, The making of Malcolm Lowry's Under the volcano (University of Georgia: Athens, 1997)
- Bareham, Tony, Modern Novelists: Malcolm Lowry (St Martins: New York, 1989)
- Bowker, Gordon, ed, Malcolm Lowry Remembered (Ariel: London, 1985)
- Bradbrook, M.C., Malcolm Lowry: His Art and Early Life (CUP: Cambridge, 1974)
- Cross, Richard K., Malcolm Lowry: a preface to his fiction (Athlone Press: London, 1980)
- Miller, David, Malcolm Lowry and the voyage that never ends (Enitharmon Press: London, 1976)
- Smith, Anne, The art of Malcolm Lowry (Vision: London, 1978)
- Stevenson, Randall, The British Novel Since the Thirties (Batsford: London, 1986)
- Vice, Sue, Malcolm Lowry eighty years on (St. Martins Press: New York, 1989)
- Woolmer, J. Howard, Malcolm Lowry: a bibliography (Woolmer/Brotherson: Pennsylvania, 1983)
External links
-
-
- of the preface written in 1948 by Malcolm Lowry for French readers of Under the Volcano.
-
-
|
