I read this because I remain convinced that Mr Lowry's novel UNDER THE VOLCANO is one of the great tragic works of literature of the 20th century and its power remains with me after 30 years. In this biography the alcoholic writer's creative process is revealed in detail as well as his determination to destroy himself - in detail. I've often thought of Geoffrey Firmin/Malcolm Lowry as the essential 20th century man - we came close to destroying the world last century but failed. This is a solid well written biography and suits the general reader.

This is one of two biographies of Malcolm Lowry that I have read. The first was Douglas Day's biography--a sort of psycho-literary look at Lowry's life. It's not bad, but Bowker's book goes far beyond Day's. This book is much richer in detail--detail that casual readers might find overwhelming, but that Lowry afficionados will wallow in.

Also, Bowker has tracked down Lowry's first wife, Jan Gabriel, who adds to the story of Lowry's life a dimension absent from Day's book.

Anyone who has read Lowry's work has certainly suspected that his art mirrored his life, that much of what he wrote was autobiographical, in spirit if not in detail. This book confirms those suspicions, showing how truly excessive Lowry was in pretty much all aspects of his life: his drinking, fear, childishness...

A great biography of a great writer.

This is a much needed improvement on the Douglas Day bio of some years ago (though, I admit, a bit less fun to read). It's been covered in all the major reviews, of course, and I'm sure all you Lowryeans out there have a copy and love it for the wealth of information it contains that was absent from the Day bio and other sources...But, as a long-term Lowryean myself, I thought I'd add my bolus of criticism: Mr Bowker has a great advantage over previous writers on Lowry: He has found that the great author's first wife, Jan Gabrial, is not only alive and well, but eager to discuss all aspects of her relationship with her former spouse (with Bowker anyway). This revelation colors Mr Bowker's entire biography. It also, however, leads to the greatest flaw in the book: The simplistic polarization of Conrad Aiken vs. Nordahl Grieg as the Dark Angel and Light Angel, respectively, in Lowry's psyche. Ms Gabrial obviously detested Conrad Aiken and credited the dissolution of her marriage to him. No doubt she has cause to do so. But nobody who has spent any time reading Conrad Aiken's beautiful and much-neglected poetry can believe he was as consumately evil as Ms Gabrial, via Mr Bowker, makes him out to be. Still, this is a minor quibble for such an obviously painstaking and thorough work. It's refreshing to see the greatest poetic novelist of our century getting some attention toward the end of it!

Gordon Bowker's Through the Dark Labyrinth is a biography of the British author, Lawrence Durrell. Like Durrell's other major biographer, Ian MacNiven, Bowker discusses the charge that Durrell committed incest with his daughter, Sappho. Like MacNiven, Bowker regards the charge as unproven. He points out that Sappho did not make a specific charge against her father in her journals concerning physical incest, but rather spoke there (and elsewhere)of "mental" or "psychological" incest. This does not mean that Bowker defends Durrell's mean-spirited and psychologically damaging behavior toward Sappho (and many others). But it does mean that Bowker--like MacNiven--refrains from sensationalistic accusations. Durrell's behavior toward his daughters, wives, lovers, and friends sheds a lot of light on the creation of his great, four-novel opus, The Alexandria Quartet, as well as on his other works, in particular his last giant work, the Avignon Quintet. In many of his novels, Durrell is obsessed with incest as well as death, time, and the relativity of knowledge. He thought truly great thoughts, and Bowker, like MacNiven, discusses them very well. It ought to be possible to separate Durrell's ideas and art from the less appealing aspects of his personality, just as we separate Wagner's great music from his proto-Nazi ideas. Bowker helps us do this, especially in regards to the charge of incest.

Gordon Bowker's biography of Durrell is an easy read and has plenty of references to Durrell's 'dark side' to satisfy the reader who is looking for pure entertainment. As an academic biography it is hindered by not being able to quote from Durrell's own works or from unpublished materials, since it was released very shortly before the more thorough official biography. Moreoever the attention to accuracy is not nearly as close as that of Ian MacNiven's work (the official biography), and Bowker has a tendency toward omitting important details which would alter to 'glamour' of the biography. One such point of difference is the allegations of incest which were posthumously levelled against Durrell and his daughter by the *publicist* for his deceased daughter's journals. Noteably, these journals do not contain this allegation and were being published in the wake of Nin's "Incest". Bowker treats these as fact, despite the problems involved, & does not reveal that the allegations were not made by the daughter nor that the 'friend' who made them had waited ten years before raising the issue (which surely helped publicity). Bowker's biography is fun and popular, but for accuracy, detail and literary merit Ian MacNiven's new biography "Lawrence Durrell; A Biography" is a far better value. Nonetheless, anyone interesting in Durrell's works would benefit from both. Feel free to email me to discuss this book.