Malcolm Lowry's Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning

by David Markson

Malcolm Lowry’s Myth, Symbol, David Malcolm Lowry’s Myth, Symbol, Times FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Times Books, 1978. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with light edgewear. Dust jacket is very good with light shelf wear. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 363004 Literature We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!

241 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

David Markson was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson in Albany, New York. He is the author of several postmodern novels, including This is Not a Novel, Springer's Progress, and Wittgenstein's Mistress. His most recent work, The Last Novel, was published in 2007 and received a positive review in the New York Times, which called it "a real tour de force."

Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."

Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.

In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.

The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.

Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.

Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhaustive, obsessive; authoritative and passionate - an inspiring extended thesis on symbolism and literature from an avid Lowry fan and an intelligent, gifted and stylish writer in his own right. Markson's love of Under The Volcano is matched by his articulate and rigorous writing and insight -

'Markson holds Under the Volcano to be the greatest English language novel after Ulysses'...

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a somewhat dry, exhaustive elucidation of the mythic and symbolic structure of Under the Volcano. The fact that such a staggering amount of references and allusions are uncovered (Vedic literature, the Kabbalah, Dante, Goethe, Marlowe, Marcus Aurelius, Virgil, Lucretius, Aztec/Mayan codices, Lewis Carroll, the Bible, etc., etc.) actually hinders rather than helps interpretation. Markson has been thorough in his investigation, but by apparently going too far in his sometimes rather casual associations, and by attributing equal importance to anything he finds, he also brings the whole enterprise into question. One is left wondering if the Under the Volcano's strangeness, attributable at first to Firmin's dipsomania, is not really due to Lowry's obsession with literary allusion and the distortions it brings to dialogue and plot; as well as whether many of these should not just be ignored in favor of a couple symbolic vectors that really seem to have bearing on the actual meaning of the work itself.

One is grateful for the work this book must have taken to write, but i found it really hard to finish. The Reminiscence at the end of the Lowry's one week stay with Markson in the 50s has the charm and pathos of personal recollection, but also a vague taste of lamented voyeurism, of things seen that unfortunately cannot be unseen.

[Dionysius the Areopagite]

Packed with masturbatory, encyclopedic knowledge. The best part of the book was after having forgotten it existed for five years, picking up an edition untouched since 1978. The reader, admirer, fanatic of a text such as Under the Volcano is going to find his mythology, symbolism, meaning, and doesn't necessarily need a guide. Still, a great collegiate prose-bud piece for fans of Lowry and, to an extent, Markson. The closing pages, entailing Lowry's post-Volcano life, are brief enough. In a biography such as Pursued by Furies, one with any sense of sympathy for our beloved, posthumous = terminal alcoholic one-hit wonder, w/ abnormally small penis to boot, in that case will get to wondering just what is the price of critical literature? What is it? A mediocre book can move mountains if the proper tragedy's involved. Lowry approved of this book and soon after befriended Markson. Markson was far from the books our ghosted underground shall remember him by, and Lowry was beyond sanity and reason. Where does one go after the Volcano? When one has poured his soul simultaneously through gallons of gin at a time, liters of ink distributed through the pen, the typewriter, the telegrams. Markson knew Thomas and Lowry, both who died several decades, and prematurely, [and] suspiciously - before him. If Markson had went along with these legends, would he too have been anthologized? And is it worth it? That is up for you to decide. Sustained work, studies, little-known books and extended health - or, swing like a grand piano through sky-light into life, pour out the Inferno of one's unrelenting, lyrical soul, perishing too soon, and go down immortal? The choice is yours.

[Pete Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent companion piece to the novel.

[Moira]

AUGH WHY DON'T I HAVE THIS


ETA 6/22 NOW I DO MINE MINE MINE. ahem.

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