سنگ جهنم

by Malcolm Lowry, محمد حیاتی (Translator)

داستان لاوری همچون جعبه یا عروسکی چینی است که جعبه یا عروسکی دیگر در دل خود دارد. کلیت «سنگ جهنم» جهان کبیری است که جهان‌های صغیر متعددی درون خود تعبیه کرده و این جهان‌های صغیر هم جهان‌های کوچک‌تری را در بر می‌گیرند که به گونه‌ای تمثیلی همان کلیت را بازنمایی می‌کنند. فصل خیمه‌شب‌بازی، و داستان‌هایی که گری، بتل و کالووسکی تعریف می‌کنند نمونه‌هایی از این جهان‌های صغیرند. حرکت نوولا مثل کشتی رانی در خطِ مایل است. خط مایل خطی است که کشتی طی آن، طول جغرافیایی حرکت مستقیم را قطع می‌کند. این حرکت زیگ‌زاگی و مارپیچ را در روان آشفته و زمان پریش شخصیت‌ها، در حرکات خودشان و کشتی‌ها، و همین‌طور در سیر روایت داستان می‌توان دید.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, 20th Century, Novels, Literature, British Literature

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Malcolm Lowry was a British novelist and poet whose masterpiece Under the Volcano is widely hailed as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Born near Liverpool, England, Lowry grew up in a prominent, wealthy family and chafed under the expectations placed upon him by parents and boarding school. He wrote passionately on the themes of exile and despair, and his own wanderlust and erratic lifestyle made him an icon to later generations of writers.

Lowry died in a rented cottage in the village of Ripe, Sussex, where he was living with wife Margerie after having returned to England in the summer of 1955, ill and impoverished. The coroner's verdict was death by misadventure, and the causes of death given as inhalation of stomach contents, barbiturate poisoning, and excessive consumption of alcohol.

It has been suggested that his death was a suicide. Inconsistencies in the accounts given by his wife at various times about what happened at the night of his death have also given rise to suspicions of murder.

Lowry is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist in Ripe. Lowry reputedly wrote his own epitaph: "Here lies Malcolm Lowry, late of the Bowery, whose prose was flowery, and often glowery. He lived nightly, and drank daily, and died playing the ukulele," but the epitaph does not appear on his gravestone

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lunar Caustic is an alcoholic detox experienced by the author at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He brought this tale to the height of a shattering work of art that contains all the themes that make Malcolm Lowry one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malcolm Lowry is always going to be best remembered for Under the Volcano, yet this much lesser known novella I thought was the better book. Again we get the demons of alcoholism, and I thought the Bellevue Hospital, New York, made for a really good setting. The writing I thought was really good, capturing a delirium fuelled bleak hopelessness that not many other writers could match when it comes to drink. It's little surprise that Lowry choked to death on his own vomit in 1957.

[Hossein Mashali]

«با خود اندیشید، خدایا، من این‌جا چه کار می‌کنم، در این مکان ماتم‌زده؟ و بدون اینکه بداند که چرا، احساس کرد که به درون هسته‌ی متعفن جهان خوایش سفر کرده است؛[...]»

سنگ جهنم، مالکوم لاوری سنگ جهنم، مالکوم لاوری

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Pentagrams/3 Swords/3 Goatheads

At 76-pages, Lunar Caustic is slim by anyone’s measure. Maybe it can serve as a crash course for the uninitiated to Lowry as it touches upon all his hallmarks: booze, madness, the sea, booze. It really is quite fantastic and contains some goddamn harrowing passages regarding delirium tremens that left me shaking with memory’s ghost. If you’ve ever had to detox from a long bender, this slender book will have you doing that hebejebe move with your head/neck/shoulders. I honestly had to put it down and walk away more than once. Yikes!

As the novella is set inside of Bellevue, you can figure out how swimmingly the proceedings play out. Based on Lowry’s real life stay at that august institution, Lunar is interesting in that it was actually published in a French magazine long before he died. Paginating the sucker to 76-pages may have been a cash grab on the part of the estate, but, hey presto, the more Malcolm the better. I haven’t read a word yet by the drinkist that isn’t damn near perfect.

[Side note: Fitting that this will be my last review before my daughter’s birthday, as had I continued down my own Lowry she probably wouldn’t be alive. Happy birthday, sweetheart. Now shut the fuck up and let Daddy read his goddamn Vollmann…]

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found most of this difficult to follow and quite rambly, the stream of consciousness thing due to drunkenness doesn't help. I did however enjoy the talk between the main character and the doctor, that was pretty depressing in a good way.

[Anahita Solot · Rating 4 out of 5]

دائم‌الخمری که به امید رهایی از اعتیادش توی آسایشگاه روانی بستری شده و نمی‌تونه تشخیص بده کجاست.
وقتی فکر می‌کرد دریاست من نمک هوا رو بو می‌کردم و وقتی می‌فهمید در بیمارستانه بوی بیمارستان به مشامم می‌رسید.
تجربه‌ی خواندن کوتاه و جذابی بود.

[Mark Easton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A drunken sailor, Plantagenet, staggers through the streets of New York, his mind torn and ragged, and his only hope of salvation the city's mental hospital. Inside the hospital, and in-between bouts of delirium and horrific visions, he makes friends with a few of the inhabitants, all of whom are struggling to understand their place in the institution, as they once struggled to understand their place in the wider world.

Plantagenet's immurement gradually reveals the degenerate behaviour of the patients and the staff, and he is forced to confront the truth that sanity is little more than a mask. He insists to the doctor his problem is not alcohol but something deeper and more ingrained in his psyche, shortly after which he's unceremoniously let out onto the street to fend for himself. He staggers through the streets, confused and worn, his only hope of salvation: a bottle.

[Philip Fracassi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, fascinating read that makes you muddle through some dark waters before shining a terrifyingly bright light of malice and melancholy in your eyes. I was happy to finish it - like walking out of a fun house when the power's gone dead.

[Il Pech · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sotto il vulcano è l'inferno
Caustico lunare il purgatorio
L'incompiuto Verso il mar bianco avrebbe dovuto essere il paradiso.



Atmosfere da Burroughs e Cronenberg l'alcool è fonte di tutto l'orrore dell'anima che 

Rolla e beccheggia dentro l'ospedale gabbia

Tra matti che biascicano pensieri sconnessi-incubi di incomunicabilità

Gocce di sudore, lenzuola lerce e piedi strascicati 

Continui ritorni di fantasmi e scene martellanti.


Il protagonista Plantagenet

Spingendosi giù fino all'osceno oceano cuore del suo mondo in cui spazio e tempo significano nulla inghiottiti dalla grigia infelicità, stanco patrimonio d'irrecuperabili conseguenze,

riscopre che non si possono affidare all'uomo i fili del suo destino 

mentre è alla ricerca di un avamposto tra se stesso e la morte regala Sprazzi di abbaglianti lampi lattescenti che subito scompaiono nelle tenebre avvolgenti della degenerazione,

Tra il bisbiglio delle occasioni perdute,

 il rimorso l'angoscia il delirio le voci le voci levocilevoci

[Francisco Barrios · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malcolm Lowry escribió «Piedra infernal» (Lunar Caustic) tomando como punto de partida su propia experiencia —no olvidemos que era un dipsómano que luchó contra su adicción al alcohol toda su vida— en el Bellevue Hospital, institución psiquiátrica en NY. Esta obra sería “el Purgatorio” de la fallida trilogía cuyo “Infierno” es «Bajo el volcán». Si bien nunca concluyó la obra a cabalidad, en 1956, un año antes de su muerte, autorizó la publicación de esta versión como “nouvelle” o novela corta. Justamente como él se refirió a esta, estamos frente a “una obra de arte, o por lo menos una obra de arte en potencia”.

Desafortunadamente casi la totalidad de las obras de Lowry se encuentran descatalogadas (mi ejemplar lo adquirí, de segunda mano, en la Feria Internacional de los Libros de Puebla 2020). ¿Qué tiene que pasar para que recuperemos a este autor que exploró, como pocos, los recovecos de la condición humana en el s. XX? Auténticamente fascinante.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novella about an alcoholic finding himself in a mental hospital in New York after a binge. I assume it's based on the author's own experience as he had a serious alcohol problem, and this certainly has the kind of quality of harsh truthfulness about it that's hard to fake. An obsession with Melville is evident throughout - the doctor's even called Claggart. There's little in the way of story, but the writing's brilliant, although Lowry's hyper-poetic style won't be for everybody. "Under The Volcano" is the one to read, but this is well worth it if you enjoyed that and want a bit more.

[Hakas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only around 50 pages but really good, probably the best short story i've ever read. it's about insanity and degeneration.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Malcolm Lowry began writing this novella In 1936 but due to his turbulent lifestyle he didn't finish it until some years later. The main character, if he could be described as such, is Bill Plantagenet, a piano player who has drunk himself into a nervous breakdown. Bill admits himself voluntarily into hospital for treatment and it is here we pick up the story, told from his point of view.

From reading a little into Lowry's life it appears the story is semi-autobiographical in nature. Lowry himself was admitted into hospital for mental health treatment suffering with alcohol addiction.

Lowry does a first rate job of portraying the conditions inside a sanatorium as well as the patients delusions. He enables the reader to effortlessly get into the minds of the insane and I found myself thoroughly swept up into the world of confusion, utter delusion and insanity the inpatients suffer from. Unfortunately the strong point of the book is also it's downfall.

Because the narrator and the majority of the other characters are completely insane it is very difficult to know what Is actually going on. Although we see through the eyes of a madman it is for this very reason that the story is not at all coherent and rarely makes any sense. Because of their madness it is impossible to see what is really going on. I've often heard stories described as a 'journey' if this is the case then this book felt like white water rafting without a paddle. I was just swept along at breakneck speed rather than feeling like I was walking alongside the characters.

The book is interesting but at the same time infuriating.

[Leopoldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnífico. Magnífico. Magnífico.

[David]

Another piece of the Lowry puzzle, as troubling and incomplete as all the other pieces. Again, largely autobiographical, this one details a period of detox in Bellevue which has both literal and metaphorical associations with shorelines, anchorages, and shipwrecks. More sense of a controlling intelligence with this one than with the much earlier Ultramarine but still a sense of loss that shades into a sense of "lost" more often than a reader might wish.

[kate kines · Rating 3 out of 5]

again this one was only 76 pages but it still counts towards my challenge! i have decided that i do not like reading a book where the character is delirious for most of it. i feel bad for malcom lowry considering this book had an autobiographical component.

[David Partikian · Rating 3 out of 5]

British author Malcolm Lowry died so young, at age 47, that he left behind a trove of unpublished material which later saw the proverbial light of day thanks to the cult status of his Modernist masterpiece, Under the Volcano, and due to the diligent perseverance of his widow, Marjorie Bonner, and various academics, particularly Conrad Knickerbocker who passed away but also passed his torch to Douglas Day. Day became Lowry’s first biographer and helped edit much of the unpublished materials. Despite this trove, Lowry will always be remembered almost exclusively for Under the Volcano, one of the two novels he published in his lifetime. Despite Day’s objections that, of the posthumous material, the finished novella The Forest Path to the Spring (appearing in a collection in 1961) and the fragment Lunar Caustic should be considered “major works,” there are simply too many weaknesses in Lowry’s poetic chronicle of his brief stay in the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in NYC at the age of 37. The chronicle/fragment first appeared in French translation as The Last Address but was later reworked by Lowry’s widow and Conrad Knickerbocker, appearing in English in 1968.(1)

The hallmarks of Lowry’s style in the novels that were published in his lifetime are the same ones that either send a reader into raptures or pique him or her to the point of finding the book exceedingly annoying: First and foremost, there is a din of voices of the marginal and dispossessed in his inaugural novel Ultramarine where the mindless chatter of crewmates on a freighter emphasizes the degeneracy and tedium of the working class, with the frightful din serving as a distracting annoyance for a protagonist with weightier matters on his mind. This barrage of meaningless dialogue assaults the narrator and adds a musical cadence to the prose, with certain motifs being repeated ad nauseam. Unsurprisingly, this aural barrage is present in Lunar Caustic with the dialogue of two mental patients adding to musicality.

There is also a tendency of Lowry to present the inner thoughts of his protagonists much in the vein of the Modernists and pre-Modernists who influenced him.(2) Finally, there is a claustrophobic milieu, at least in Ultramarine but also--I would argue--in which largely takes place outdoors under a volcanic backdrop that portends doom. The vast panoramic backdrop of Under the Volcano does not negate the claustrophobic feeling of a private hell in which both the ex-Consul Geoffrey Firmin and his estranged wife suffer. And—of course—since Lowry is a very autobiographical writer, much of the private hell depicted is his own, especially that caused by nauseatingly excessive alcohol consumption.

Lunar Caustic is a firsthand account of the author’s stay in a New York mental ward after a bout of severe drinking. These bouts were to plague Lowry his entire life. The Lowry protagonist, the stand-in is a jazz musician obsessed with Herman Melville (a side plot that—regrettably—is never fully developed), Bill Plantagenet, finds himself, inexplicably, in a mental ward with seemingly sane inhabitants (they are not). He gazes out a window obsessively at the East River ruminating on his maritime past and the scenery. (3) These interior monologues mixed with hallucinations depicting the “reality” of the protagonist and omniscient narrator are the strongest in the work:

. . .He had thought, ‘Let us be free to suffer like animals.’ And that cry was perhaps more human than the one he now heard. The lightning has become nearly continuous that the heavens seem full of flaming tress and icebergs. The moon had gone. A forked tree of light shot up diagonally. Somewhere there was a long hiss of shattering glass. An iceberg hurled northward through the clouds as it poised in its onrush, tilted, he saw his dreams of New York crystallized there in an instant, glittering, illuminated by celestial brilliance, only to be reclaimed by dark, by the pandemonium of an avalanche of falling coal. . .

Despite flashes of brilliance, as with most fragments, the best scenes are incomplete or only allude out the potential of the never-completed work, e.g. the meeting between the erstwhile sailor and dipsomaniac Plantagenet and the psychiatrist in charge of his case, Dr. Claggart (yet another nod to Melville). This dialogue is ultimately very revealing and should be the point of departure for a finished novel. Yet in Lunar Caustic it remains a mere tease for a reader yearning for more vintage Lowry prose presented with his exquisite ear for dialogue. Alas, a 76-page fragment is not enough!

Lowry’s first Biographer, Douglas Day, diligently tracked down the psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Lowry. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelmed psychiatrist had no recollection of the troubled novelist who was evaluated for a mere week because he was a foreigner; the state was unwillingly to foot the bill for an indefinite stay of a non-citizen. Persona non grata numerous times during his brief peripatetic life, Lowry found himself in the ridiculous position of having been kicked out of a mental institution. (4)

As with the two novels published in his lifetime, there is no clear linear plot, just interior monologues mingling with exterior dialogue rendered with the precision of an author with a musician’s ear. Those readers obsessed with Lowry and accustomed to his allusive plotless meanderings will welcome Lunar Caustic in the Lowry canon, one weighted down by Under the Volcano, due to the snippets of brilliance and the depiction of the effects on alcoholism on a still relatively young author who was to go on and write of alcoholism with literary eloquence that is virtually unmatched among 20th Century authors. However, those readers who prefer a finished finely crafted novel that both depicts the Bellevue mental ward and the psychological degeneration of a protagonist suffering from Furies and substance abuse would be better serve digging up one of Richard Yates’ better but more forgotten novels, Disturbing the Peace (1975).

****************************

1 According to Knickerbocker’s introduction, no words were added. The material was suitably rearranged. Those obsessed with Lowry and textual analysis will have to check for inconsistencies with the French translation of the initial fragment, The Last Address. The French translation precedes the English version.
2 This would include Herman Melville, whose ghost is present throughout Lunar Caustic as well as T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, whose influence runs throughout Ultramarine though Lowry claims to have not read Ulysses when he wrote his first novel.

3: Although Lowry only sailed once as a crewmember, in the lowest unlicensed position, his reminisces of this voyage color all his writing. His characters often present themselves as seasoned mariners. Lowry, always one to obsess over certain word choices, first uses “caustic” in Ultramarine to describe the protagonist having to use burning abrasives to scrub various parts of the ship.

4 Lowry was also asked to leave Mexico, at let twice, the U.S.A. and also Canada. This list is by no means complete.

[Héctor]

Estamos frente a un borrador, lo que me lleva a omitir nota y a recomendarlo solo a aquellos interesados en Lowry tras "Bajo el volcán".
El primer capítulo y la primera mitad del segundo son de notable calidad, pero luego todo el desarrollo y simbolismo se quedan a medias.
Los personajes que se cruza el protagonista en el hospital tienden un puente posmoderno curioso.
El capítulo 9 es un conflicto ideológico inspirado en Dostoievski (escena febril y dramática con diálogo socrático) que pudo llegar a ser interesante.
Sin duda tendré que leer la otra versión de esta obra, titulada "Swinging the Maelstrom", y comparar.

[Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing in the way of mind blowing. A few sad, profound observations on loneliness and damaged people. The chapter between Bill and the doctor is the real highlight. There is something damning in the response from the doctor that "This is only a city hospital.." to accusations of cruelty and filth. No denial on his part.

I really liked this bit:

"But you see I remember well the last few days before I came here and I was drinking heavily. I remember every movement, every slow lurch, every place where I welched ten cents, every evil face, each bright one. Notices on walls, names of taverns, conversations about baseball, or heaven. Every man I meet stands out in my mind like a Dürer. It is only before that time that the memory is like an abyss, like an imagined look backward before birth."
"Are you sure you never wanted to be a writer?"
"I had rather be a bacon scrubber, a watcher of manholes, wanderer under trains in stations to see that nobody is using the toilets."

An interesting read from the man who unloaded Under the Volcano, a decent way to spend the morning, but it is a minor work.

[David S. T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its hard not to approach this book knowing that it was written by the guy who wrote Under the Volcano (which very well might be my favorite novel) and just because he wrote UtV, I wanted to give this novella a bunch of leeway (but it actually set my expectations too high). Originally I was going to give it 3 stars, but truthfully I didn't enjoy it very much. The drunken stream of consciousness of UtV was replaced with a story about his time in a mental institution, and the bulk of the story focuses on the dialog between himself and two other patients, most of it wasn't my type of stuff. So while the success of UtV made Lowry famous, I have to wonder if it also set a standard which he could never reach again (if this book is any indication of his later stuff). Of course I'm being unfair by comparing it to UtV. Also as short as this was, it probably would have been better placed in his short story collection, not as a standalone edition.

I have a few more of his books, so hopefully I'll be less disappointed with them.

[Alessandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guardò fuori, verso la città immensa e nervosa sopra la quale l’ultimo aereo della giornata si tirava dietro uno striscione pubblicitario delle Gomme Goodyear mentre più in alto, nella luce del sole sempre spietata ma declinante, una parola andava spiegandosi nella scia di un velivolo invisibile: Furore. Aveva paura. Paura di lasciare il dottore e tornare al suo reparto. Aveva paura… « Gli orrori » disse bruscamente. « Be’… la vede, New York? Ecco dove sono. Son là fuori che aspettano, gli orrori della guerra… tutti… già… E tutto quel delirio, come dei primitivi, come la discesa di Cristo nell’inferno. E la coscienza tattile, l’anima solitaria che precipita implume nell’abisso! Oso dire che lei non sa di cosa sto parlando. »

[Frederik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ce petit bouquin sur la maladie mentale a sûrement été lu par ceux qui ont fait la music video «Basket Case » de Green Day ou bien encore le film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. La matière tragi-comique est cependant mieux traité dans ces œuvres mentionnés, car le livre ne réussit jamais á décoller et fait plutôt penser á un très mauvais trip.

[Roman Sonnleitner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really my cup of tea...

After a promising beginning, that novella descends into a tedious mess of overly symbolic, but completely pointless stream-of-consciousness ramblings, without any hint of a plot. The end is good again - if only the whole book had been written like that!

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting story of a man staying at a psych ward to treat his alcoholism. His own mind becomes the prison as he experience visions of his time as a sailor mixed with his experiences in the ward.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat confusing.

[Domagoj Čavrak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lowry makes death smell like lilies of the valley.

[Santiago Quijano · Rating 4 out of 5]

No es una obra maestra como Bajo el volcán, eso está claro. Pero tiene momentos emotivos y sumamente poéticos que la convierten en una pequeña y entrañable historia.

[Book2chance · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/4
Η οριστική μορφή αυτής της νουβέλας κυκλοφόρησε αρκετά χρόνια μετά τον θάνατο του συγγραφέα. Το Κάτω από το ηφαίστειο, που γράφτηκε το 1947, θεωρείται δικαίως ένα από τα κορυφαία μυθιστορήματα του 20ού αιώνα (σας το παρουσίασα πρόσφατα). Αν, λοιπόν, εκείνο σας φάνηκε πνιγηρό και ασφυκτικό, σε τούτο εδώ ο συγγραφέας φτάνει στα άκρα.
Χάος, παραλήρημα, ζοφερό αδιέξοδο∙ αυτοί θα μπορούσαν να είναι εναλλακτικοί τίτλοι του.

Η πρώτη σπίθα για το έργο γεννήθηκε το 1936, όταν ο συγγραφέας βρέθηκε κλεισμένος για δεκαπέντε μέρες σε νοσοκομείο της Νέας Υόρκης. Από εκεί ξεκινά η περιπέτεια όχι μόνο της ζωής του, αλλά και του ίδιου του βιβλίου: γράφτηκε πέντε ή έξι φορές, χάθηκε σε πυρκαγιά, ξαναγράφτηκε από μνήμης, ξαναδιορθώθηκε, μέχρι που ο θάνατός του έθεσε οριστικό τέλος σε αυτόν τον ατέρμονο κύκλο. Η έκδοση που έχουμε σήμερα συγκεντρώνει και ενσωματώνει όλες αυτές τις διαφορετικές γραφές.
Ο πρωταγωνιστής, πρώην ναυτικός και πιανίστας, μπαίνει με τη θέλησή του σε ψυχιατρικό άσυλο για να θεραπευτεί από τον αλκοολισμό. Εκεί θα γνωρίσει τον κατά τα άλλα λογικό γέροντα Καλόφσκι, τον νεαρό Γκάρι –ένα παιδί που δεν έχει κανέναν λόγο να βρίσκεται εκεί– και μαζί τους θα στήσει έναν αλλόκοτο χορό με καράβια και ναύτες, απόκληρους και φτωχούς, μισοτρελές λογικές και παραληρηματικές παραισθήσεις. Ζωντανοί και νεκροί, φαντάσματα του παρόντος και του παρελθόντος, συναντιούνται πίσω από τα κάγκελα του ιδρύματος, όπου τίποτα δεν είναι όπως φαίνεται και την ίδια στιγμή τίποτα δεν υπάρχει στ’ αλήθεια.
Η γραφή είναι αριστουργηματική, με οξύ καταγγελτικό τόνο, διαλόγους καυστικούς που σκαλίζουν τα βάθη της ψυχής και του νου. Η ελεγεία της ποίησης συναντά το πάθος της μουσικής, και ιδίως στο όγδοο κεφάλαιο η εμπειρία της ανάγνωσης φτάνει στο απόγειό της, ανταμείβοντας τον αναγνώστη με μια σπάνια λογοτεχνική μέθεξη.

[Bookfreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Αρχικά να πούμε εδώ ένα μεγάλο μπράβο στο μεταίχμιο (που δεν είναι και από τους προσωπικά αγαπημένους εκδοτικούς) για τη πολύ καλή δουλειά που έχει κάνει να βγάλει τα μπουκς του Lowry (κάτω από το ηφαίστειο, ουλτραμαρίν και αυτό, με ωραία εξώφυλλα, νέα μεταφράσεις από Κατερίνα Σχινά, προσεγμένα επίμετρα κτλ.)

Συνολικά, αξιολογότατη συμβολή, που έλειπε από το εκδοτικό τοπίο.

Το συγκεκριμένο το πήρα πιο πολύ ως φαν, να τα έχω όλα του μεγάλου τραγικού, Βρετανού συγγραφέα. Κ παρότι όπως διαβάζουμε στην εισαγωγή το αρχικό χειρόγραφο είχε καεί, ξαναγράφηκε από μνήμης, δεν ολοκληρώθηκε ποτέ κτλ. είναι μια έντονη μικρή ιστορία για τον αλκοολισμό, τον εγκλεισμό, τις παραισθήσεις, τη λογική και τη τρέλα, αλλά και τη φιλία και την αλληλεγγύη. Το δε κεφάλαιο με τον διάλογο μεταξύ πρωταγωνιστή και γιατρού απλά καταπληκτικό.

[Nick Bentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malcolm Lowry is one of the most beautiful writers I've ever encountered. His brand of soft surrealism is so expert at constructing dream-like or drunken states of being. It's obvious he's working through demons in this work, and while it takes a little bit for the book to come together (which is a little bit of an issue in an 88 page novella), once Lowry really allows himself to move off of world building and just riff the book really opens up in a tragically poetic way.