This choice allows Lowry to use the event (Laruelle, as Mexicans do, recalls ‘his’ dead, the Consul). the novel as a whole and the story of the Consul) are linked by the repeating of the sentence “ a bell spoke out: ‘dolente…dolore’”, and by the fact that Laruelle is reminded of the Consul’s story because it had taken place on the same day of November, the Day of the Dead, of probable pre-Colombian origin, a very important holyday in Mexico. Families picnic in cemeteries, decorate the graves of their loved ones, children play with skeletons made of chocolate and even people dress up as skeletons. Laruelle recalls the Consul’s death which is the story we are going to read. The novel itself (not the Consul’s story) lasts a whole year: in the first chapter, we meet Jacques Laruelle and Dr Vigil one year after the actual events. 'Under the Volcano' is a one-day novel such as Joyce’s ' Ulysses' or Virginia Woolf’s ' Mrs Dalloway': the Consul’s story takes place in twelve hours, from 7am (in chapter 2, as Yvonne arrives in Quauhnahuac, there is a “ seven o’clock morning sunlight”) to 7 pm (in chapter 12, when the Consul is shot by the Chief of Rostrums, “ the clock outside quickly chimed seven times”). Blending a drunkard’s visions with ethylic sarcasms expressed in free reported speech interspersed with Spanish sentences and quotations from Dante’s ' Inferno', Malcolm Lowry also makes perfect use of time and space in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. What makes the difference here is that the novel works, it creates a powerful reality.

Yet, all ‘universal’ novels are not good novels. Malcolm Lowry’s cult novel portrays Geoffrey Firmin, an ex-Consul living in Mexico who slowly drowns himself in alcohol – thus consciously committing slow suicide – and yet who is unexpectedly killed under unforeseen circumstances.Īll the themes of the novel are universal: life and death, love and hatred, joy and sadness, self-determination and fate, man’s littleness and the Universe’s immensity.

Under the volcano novel