Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" --- Impressive, Depressing.....

After some joking back and forth by email about the importance of drinking in writing, which an editor friend called, "the grand texture," he suggested I read Brit Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano," a book with an alcoholic character set in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I thought it was quite apt since I have been in Mexico drinking and writing for several years.

I ordered the book and mentioned it to a respected writer friend here who stated flatly, "Absolutely my favorite book ever." My anticipation and interest piqued, I pressed him for an explanation, especially since this man has read almost every notable book ever written. He said, "That book will do three things for you: make you fall in love with writing (again); make you fall in love with Mexico (again) ; and make you fall in love with alcohol (again). It is written so exquisitely so as to defy description. You will see."

When the book arrived I spent several days just holding and admiring it, like prize game I'd killed in the wild and couldn't wait to feast upon, but relished in the hunger before the meal.

It didn't disappoint. Then again, it did.

To explain: it is simply so well-written that it showed me the unknown heights that I have yet to scale; and then again, it was SO good, so detailed, so perfectly crafted that I felt like an ignorant idiot even trying to write anything ever again. What am I doing? Who do you think you are, you hack? Why even try, you fool!

As I marveled at the poetic and lavish phrases, the lyricism, the symbols and the weight of it all, I became more and more discouraged, since it seems that no one should ever write anything again. It has been done; perfectly.

It is a slow-moving story, as the entire book takes place in one day, the Day of the Dead, and much of the detail is in the main character's (the consul) head. The kind of crazy crystalline thoughts that pass through the drunken, aware mind, that kind of detail was so spot on and at times hilarious it kept me reading and reading and not wanting to finish this delicious meal.

I could never write that well if I studied and wrote for 100 years. Lowry was a true genius.

Then I wondered what the publishers and editors and agents of today would think of all of Lowry's sidetracking and tangents, his beautiful details that made the book so rich. Today's established publishing powers would say whole chunks of the book do not move the story along, that there is not enough action, and they would have hacked it to death until there was nothing left but a carcass of a story. It seems there is no "literary" in literature any longer. Everything has to open with a murder or kidnapping and then go-go-go fast-paced action and spectacular made-for-TV twists for a book to make to bookshelves today. Ugh.

Down, and near to the precipice of writer's despair, the next day I re-read a little of Bukowski's "Ham on Rye" and (laughing) I realized (again) that there is room for many different styles, different voices, and there always will be. Buk is so simple, so clean. Lowry is erudite and lyrical, Fitzgeraldian more than Fitzgerald, and "Volcano" is like reading poetry or hearing music, page after page, in prose form. Both styles have their place.

So I resolved (again) to keep writing my truth, my style, my way, and to keep growing and changing and learning from the masters.

Three cheers for Malcolm Lowry!