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Bill Plantagenet es un pianista de jazz britanico, alcoholizado, lector ferviente de Melville y apasionado por los grandes barcos. Cuando llega a Nueva York, comprueba que todo en su vida han sido naufragios y perdidas, como la de su grupo de musica y su compañera, Ruth. Su peregrinacion por las tabernas del puerto de la ciudad culmina en un hospital psiquiatrico, en realidad un infierno, un barco varado o, segun como se mire, una carcel, donde compartira su tiempo y su suerte con marineros, borrachos, pobres de solemnidad y personajes desahuciados como el viejo Kalowsky, el joven Garry o el negro Battle. Mientras contempla desde las ventanas del hospital el paso de los buques por el East River, Bill comprende que el doctor Claggart, el psiquiatra que lo atiende, jamas podra curar su alma enferma. Tal vez, cuando le den el alta, sus pasos le lleven al lugar de donde viene: a las tabernas del puerto, al olvido que le procura el whisky, y todo vuelva a comenzar y a repetirse, sin que sepamos donde esta el principio y donde el final./Bill Plantagenet is a British jazz pianist, alcoholic, ferving reader of Melville and passionate about big boats. When he arrives to New York, finds that everything in his life have been sinking and losses, like his own band and his companion, Ruth. His pilgrimage by the taverns of the city port culminates in a psychiatric hospital, in fact a hell, or a stranded boat, depending on how you look, a prison, where hell share his time and fortune with sailors, drunken, poor and solemnity characters like the old Kalowsky evicted, the young Garry or Battle, the black guy. While watching the boats passing by the East River Bill understands that Dr. Claggart, the psychiatrist who is in care of him, will never heal his sick soul. ... Read more

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" While James Joyce was a central figure of high modernism, Malcom Lowry spoke for the next generation of modernist writers and, despite his denials, was almost certainly influenced by Joyce. Wherever the truth lies, there are correspondences and differences to be explored between Joyce and Lowry that are far more interesting than the question of direct influence. Despite numerous differences, their works have much in common: verbal richness, experimentation with narrative structure and perspective, a fascination with cultural and historical forces as well as with the process of artistic creation, and the inclusion of artist figures who are in varying degrees ironic self-portrayals. The contributors to Joyce/Lowry examine the relationship of these two expatriates writers, both to each other and to broader issues in the study of literary modernism and its aftermath. This collection embraces a variety of approaches. The volume begins with a consideration of Joyce and Lowry as practitioners of Expressionist art and concludes with an essay on John Huston's cinematic interpretation of works by both writers. In between are explorations of nationalism, anti-Semitism, syphilis, mental illness, and authorial design.

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The general tone of this second volume of letters is considerably darker than that of the first. Though Under the Volcano (published in 1947) was behind Lowry, it would never leave him alone. The success of the novel became a curse: he could not avoid helping his translators; he longed for a film treatment of the book; he found it difficult to become fully engaged in new work; the celebrity associated with a best-seller was, as he put it in a poem, a 'disaster' akin to your house burning down.

Illnessses, the death of friends, threats of eviction from his beloved foreshore Dollarton home, and drink plagued Lowry. And yet, he made repeated attempts to escape his personal abysses. He made new friends, re-established a good working relationship with his editor Albert Erskine, began several new projects, and continued to write superb letters. The more than 400 included here, all written during the last decade of his life, reveal a man fascinated with films, bristling with plans for his masterwork The Voyage That Never Ends, eager to discuss the virtues of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Cocteau, and the work of friends like Gerald Noxon or Jimmy Stern. There is also a selection from his several hundred 'love notes' written to Margerie Lowry and pinned to places in the Dollarton shack or to trees along the 'forest path to spring.' These notes, like much else in the volume, are published here for the first time, providing interesting glimpses into Lowry's private world. The letters written just before his sudden death in England in 1957 are among his most moving; they reveal a weariness of spirit, a deep regret for the loss of his Dollarton paradise, but also the courage, self-deprecating humour, love of language, and keen intelligence that characterize everything he wrote.

In addition to a critical introduction and detailed chronologies, this volume includes photographs, many of the drawings with which Lowry illustrated his letters, and reproductions of holograph letters. ... Read more

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Love of language, literature, life
It is no doubt Lowry initiates, scholars and afficianados at whom thisbook 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. ... Read more

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Se trata de una biografía de Malcolm Lowry, escritor inglés de principios del siglo XX, cuya novela Bajo el volcán no sólo es considerada su obra maestra, sino una de las joyas de la literatura universal. La tormentosa vida de Lowry ha llamado la atención de estudiosos de la literatura, escritores, periodistas y aun cineastas. Ayudándose de testimonios, correspondencia inédita y una investigación exhaustiva, Gordon Bowker ha escrito una narración de los episodios más fascinantes de la vida de Lowry, llena de excesos, violencia y depresiones que lo llevaron a abusar del alcohol y a ser internado en centros de atención para padecimientos mentales. Bowker nos muestra aquí la forma en que la realidad vivida por Lowry lograba siempre infiltrarse en los personajes de sus obras, haciendo confusa la línea que separaba al hombre de la ficción. ... Read more