This book consists of thousands of explanatory notes to Malcolm Lowry's brilliant but labyrinthine novel. The notes are arranged in chapters corresponding to those in Under the Volcano. Each note is headed by page references to the Penguin and Signet Plume paperback editions as well as the Reynal & Hitchcock and Lippincott hardback editions. The Companion features maps of Cuernavaca and the Morelos Valley, a glossary of Spanish, French, German and Latin terms found in Under the Volcano, an index and a bibliography.

Malcolm Lowry liberally used obscure and archaic words and double entendre in his writings. He frequently employed foreign phrases as well. The Companion defines, translates, explains and contextualizes all of these unfamiliar terms. Throughout Under the Volcano, Lowry weaved in allusions to mythology, religion, literature, history and pop culture. Sometimes the allusions are direct, but more often than not, they are hidden. The Companion is very useful in identifying and understanding these allusions. For example, Lowry repeatedly uses the term "coxcox" as an adjective. The Companion offers plausible interpretations for the passages containing this term, points out that Coxcox was a figure in Aztec mythology corresponding to Noah in the Bible and provides verifiable references.

The Companion takes particular care in explaining the recurring motifs and allusions, such as the abyss, the stray dogs which seem to follow the Consul everywhere, Los Manos De Orlac, the horse with the number 7 branded on its hip and "no se puede vivir sin amar." In this respect, the Companion is well worth its price. The explanatory notes are fascinating and, occasionally, poignant. Don't be surprised if the Companion leads you to explore some of the obscure and long-forgotten literary works to which Lowry alluded.

I heard excerpts of this book at a symposium for Lowry in 1996. The person reading this memoir said it would only be available after Gabriel's death so I'm assuming she has passed on. I was very moved during the reading in 1996 and I was no less moved when I finally was able to read the entire book. Gabriel has a very poetic and flowing style of her own. She is very honest throughout the book as she writes about her tragic relationship with Lowry. This book won't make you happy but it will give you insight into their relationship that you can't find anywhere else. On that level, it is as equally important as Pursued by Furies. In the end, we get to see a sympathetic character in Jan Gabriel that counters Lowry's portrayal of her in Under the Volcano. We also get an insights on Lowry from the most important period of his creative life.

It is no doubt Lowry initiates, scholars and afficianados at whom this book was and, therefore, this review will be, primarily aimed. I have no inkling as to why only Volume II is included here. It may be simply a slip on Amazon's part (I didn't realize myself that there were two volumes amounting to almost 2,000 pages until I ordered it) or that the first volume is listed as out of print. But this review applies to both volumes which, by the bye, may be ordered as one, if not from Amazon, from Edward R Hamilton booksellers.

It is difficult to put into words the boundless joy that accompanies the reading of these letters. Here is Lowry at his most winkingly self-deprecatory, literarily allusive and, above all, charming and downright funny. For anyone who values the English Language and English literature highly; as, in fact, necessary to life, as Lowry did, these letters will hold you spellbound. Here is indeed the record of a man who, quite literally, lived and died for language and literature. As his most famous letter here, the one to his publisher which ultimately led to the publication of Under The Volcano, has it, "...but just the same in our Elizbethan days we used to have at least passionate poetic writing about things that will always mean something and not just silly ... style and semicolon technique: and in this sense I am trying to remedy a deficiency, to strike a blow, to fire a shot for you as it were, roughly in the direction, say, of another Renaissance: it will probably go straight through my brain but that is another matter."

It is clear from almost every letter here, that Lowry was trying his damnedest,in all his writings, to live up to this manifesto; that, despite the continual tragedies of his life, he was always picking himself up and wringing from his life "passionate poetic writing", which, it is clear from these letters, was, to a great extent, lived as a literary endeavour.

That the shot did eventually go through his brain, so to speak, was not entirely unexpected by Lowry or anyone who knew him. - But neither was Sir Walter Ralegh's unjust execution. - Ultimately then, these collected letters live up to the title: Sursum Corda!-Lift up your hearts!-Here is page upon page of writing about things that will always mean something: Love of life, literature, words and a delight in language in and of itself.-

Unrealistic though my expectaation of their reading of these two massive tomes may be, I would recommend them to anyone who suffers from the peculiar fate of being human.

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!

Hear Us O Lord contains a variety of story forms which Lowry attempted, and some themes which will be familiar to readers of his other works. Such stories as The Forest Path to the Spring and others are an integral part of his ouevre. A wonderful story about the dungeons of Pompeii - forgive me forgetting the story name for I've lost my copy - is the other highlight of the book. Even where the story is secondary to the form, as in Through the Panama, Lowry achieves some success - we must remember the time at which these stores were written, and I don't think I've seen this type of experimentation dating from this period. On the whole HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, I've only given just 3 stars because of its flaws. If you;re lucky enough to find a copy, maybe you;ll get the beauiftul cover of a woodcut with Christ ushering in the rainstorm in the distance.

Although I read this book years ago I still think of it often. The Forest Path to the Spring, read today, is very much a story about how to live out of the media, out of consumerism, out of materialism that consumes contemporary society. And suggests how to be content; suggests alternatives to corporations or churches defining your life and your happiness for you(Selling you a life, as Marcuse would say). And this is exactly why we read isn't it? We read to seek the answer to lifes most important question - "What is worthwhile?". In a beautiful story Lowry tells us what he found worthwhile on The Forest Path to the Spring.

Certainly the centerpiece of this collection is the novella "The Forest Path to the Spring," perhaps Lowry's only work to offer redemption. It's the counterpoint of his Under the Volcano, the Paradiso to Volcano's Inferno. In a "northern paradise" like that daydreamed by Yvonne in Under the Volcano, (and like the Lowrys' own Dollarton beach shack) the narrator faces his demons and routs them. Like Thoreau, he learns to live deliberately, to see the world itself. Lowry's descriptions of the Canadian wilderness are lyrical without being fanciful; instead of the internal phantasmagoria of Geoffrey Firmin's haunted mind, "The Forest Path to the Spring" gives us a real forest, real stars, a real spring. The story can be read as fiction and as a meditation on the nature of reality. It's Lowry's most mature work and, if not his best, a close second to UTV. The other stories in the collection, often featuring Lowryesque writer-protagonists, play with conjunctions of art and life. In the metafictional "Through the Panama," snippets of history, travelogues, poems, and children's songs weave throughout a journey through the Panama canal. In other stories, an author unexpectedly meets, in a zoo, the elephant who inspired his best-selling comic novel, and a disillusioned writer finds "strange comfort" in the impoverished and unhappy lives of Keats and Poe. Ironically, most of the pieces in "Hear Us O Lord" were not published in Lowry's lifetime. Those that were ("The Bravest Boat") are the weaker links in the collection, tamer and more traditional than one would expect from a writer of Lowry's wild talents. Perhaps, again like Poe, he was an artist in advance of his time.

Ultramarine, the first published novel by Malcolm Lowry, tells the story of a young man's disillusioned coming of age at sea. Much of the raw material for the novel comes from notebooks Lowry kept during his own stint as a deckhand. Dana Hilliot, the young Lowryesque hero, faces the contempt of many of his fellow seamen, who view him as a spoiled upper-class poser incapable of doing a real man's work. He affects a grimly stoic front while engaging in elaborate fantasies of revenge. Lowry's description of life at sea reveals the boredom and discomfort of a long voyage, relieved only by exhausting labor, sudden danger, and occasional nights of drinking and whoring ashore. His young hero's Conrad and Melville-inspired dreams of adventure at sea are replaced by the grimy reality of a deckhand's daily life. The realistic dialogue, the description of the sea and the port cities, and the hero's fevered inner monologue hint at the richness of language that was to inform Lowry's greatest novel, Under the Volcano. The young hero's moral agonies as he struggles to remain faithful to his fiancee at home may seem comically overwrought to present-day readers, but Ultramarine's rewards certainly outweigh its few flaws. This work of Lowry's youth shows an unruly genius already testing its limits

Under the Volcano, the second and finer of Malcolm Lowry's novels, focusses on the story of an ex-British consul in Mexico at the end of his rope. The entire action of the novel takes place during a single day - the last day of the consul's life, though the narrative is filled out through flashbacks from several characters. The consul, an unrepentant (or barely so) alcoholic, stumbles through life in the grip of Mescal, Tequila, and whatever else he can get his hands on. He has come to the point where he no longer wears socks - not, as a Mexican barman assumes, because he can't afford them, but rather his drinking has made wearing socks unbearable. The intercession of the consul's ex-wife, returned from the States to save him, and his half-brother Hugh are powerless in the face of the consul's will to drink. The novel provides a frank portrayal of the suffering not only of he who is afflicted with alcoholism, but also of those that he loves. The setting, pre-war Mexico, provides a relatively peaceful backdrop against which to measure the tribulations of Europe, specifically the Spanish civil war and the politics of Franco's fascists and the International Brigade. Under the Volcano offers a depressive portrait of the desctrution wrought by addiction and the senselessness of life wasted. Well worth a read.

Under the Volcano chronicles the last day in the life of the British Consul to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. The surface story recounts how his ex-wife, Yvonne, and his half-brother, Hugh, try to pull him from the alcoholic funk he's fallen into, and in the course of the day, they visit several locations in and around Quauhnahuac.

The descriptive prose makes the setting come alive, and you're left with the feeling of actually seen some of these places. The mini parks, the ruins of Maximilian's Palace, the cinema, the backyard of the Consul's house, and the great volcano, Popocatepetel, which keeps appearing and disappearing, growing and shrinking, as they wander around the landscape - all these things become very real under Lowry's brilliant examination.

Inspired by Joyce, Lowry's book has several parallels with Ulysses. Except for the first chapter, it all takes place in a single day -- November 1, 1938 (the Mexican holiday called "The Day of the Dead.") There are three principal characters, two male, one female, who wander around the landscape, etc. However, Ulysses is an extremely difficult read, and all the interesting parts are below the surface; Under the Volcano is an easy read, and quite satisfactory without looking deeper.

A lot has been written about the deeper meanings of the book, of course, but the most obvious seems to be the allegory to Europe on the edge of war. In this view, the Consul represents the old Europe heading to its destruction despite the efforts of idealists to save it. Or perhaps more accurately, the senseless decline of the Consul to his death parallels the senseless descent of Europe into the destruction of World War II. Likewise as the day proceeds the bright hope of the morning darkens as the sun declines into the hopeless dark and storms that come with the night. And the very first chapter - the one set exactly one year later - is darkened by a tremendous storm -- a storm which seems to represent the European war then already in full career.

A powerful book, thoroughly enjoyable, and meriting repeated reading.

Under the Volcano is an amazing novel of despair with some of the most stunning and evocative writing I had ever read. The novel charts a single day in the life of an alcoholic consul in Mexico who is beyond believing in the redemption of life, love or religion. The pace of the novel fits perfectly with its content, slowly tracing the unsteady steps of this incredibly insightful man. I was amazed by the beautiful writing and was transported by its vivid imagery. Stay with this book...it will stay with you.