Pod vulkanom

Malcolm Lowry's only great work is a magnificent novel of escape and end, in which perhaps modernism itself has come to an end. A book about decadence, but also a negation of decadence. Its author himself succumbed to ruin, but with this achievement he redeemed himself and entered the list of triumphant creators of the 20th century.

Written as World War II was beginning in Europe, the novel Under the Volcano begins on All Souls' Day 1939 in the Mexican town of Quauhnahuac. In a country where the cult of death reigns, that day is not only an occasion for remembrance and prayer, but also a day of folk customs, public carmines and fairground entertainment.

The main characters are foreigners: former British consul Geoffrey Firmin, his half-brother Hugo, his wife Yvonne and a French friend, the film director Laruelle. The consul, who has abandoned his profession, who is engaged in mysticism, knows alchemy and the Kabbalah, and has the gift of creative application of the occult, is irretrievably ruined by alcohol. For him and Yvonna, that same day became a day of reckoning with life.

The writer's identification with the consul makes Firmino a more realistic character than is the case in the most famous modernist works. Lowry's language, on the other hand, with its sumptuous vocabulary, abundance of quotations, exotic names, allusions and reminiscences of archaic concepts, will yet be the subject of a systematic critical description.