Quotes from book
Under the Volcano

Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry

Under the Volcano is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead, 1 November 1938. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl. Under the Volcano was Lowry's second and last complete novel.

“Suddenly he saw them, the bottles of aguardiente, of anís, of jerez, of Highland Queen, the glasses, a babel of glasses—towering, like the smoke from the train that day—built to the sky, then falling, the glasses toppling and crashing, falling downhill from the Generalife Gardens, the bottles breaking, bottles of Oporto, tinto, blanco, bottles of Pernod, Oxygènée, absinthe, bottles smashing, bottles cast aside, falling with a thud on the ground in parks, under benches, beds, cinema seats, hidden in drawers at Consulates, bottles of Calvados dropped and broken, or bursting into smithereens, tossed into garbage heaps, flung into the sea, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Caribbean, bottles floating in the ocean, dead Scotchmen on the Atlantic highlands—and now he saw them, smelt them, all, from the very beginning—bottles, bottles, bottles, and glasses, glasses, glasses, of bitter, of Dubonnet, of Falstaff, Rye, Johnny Walker, Vieux Whiskey blanc Canadien, the apéritifs, the digestifs, the demis, the dobles, the noch ein Herr Obers, the et glas Araks, the tusen taks, the bottles, the bottles, the beautiful bottles of tequila, and the gourds, gourds, gourds, the millions of gourds of beautiful mescal...”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. X (p. 292)

“How, unless you drink as I do, could you hope to understand the beauty of an old Indian woman playing dominoes with a chicken?”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano

“What beauty can compare to that of a cantina in the early morning?”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. II (p. 49)

“There was something in the wild strength of this landscape, once a battlefield, that seemed to be shouting at him, a presence born of that strength whose cry his whole being recognized as familiar, caught and threw back into the wind, some youthful passage of courage and pride — the passionate, yet so nearly always hypocritical, affirmation of one’s soul perhaps, he thought, of the desire to be, to do, good, what was right.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. IV (p. 124)

“And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 36)

“Christ," he remarked, puzzled, "this is a dingy way to die.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 373)

“What is man but a little soul holding up a corpse?”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. X (p. 287)

“I want your life filling and stirring me. I want your happiness beneath my heart and your sorrows in my eyes and your peace in the fingers of my hand.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 346)

“There was no mistaking, even in the uncertain light, the hand, half crabbed, half generous, and wholly drunken, of the Consul himself, the Greek e’s, the flying buttresses of d’s, the t’s like lonely wayside crosses save where they crucified an entire word.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 35)

“I wake to a darkness in which I must follow myself endlessly, hating the I who so eternally pursues and confronts me. If we could rise from our misery, seek each other once more, and find again the solace of each other’s lips and eyes.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 346)

“How alike are the groans of love, to those of the dying.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 351)

“And yet, in these old women it was as if, through the various tragedies of Mexican history, pity, the impulse to approach, and terror, the impulse to escape (as one had learned at college), having replaced it, had finally been reconciled by prudence, the conviction it is better to stay where you are.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. VIII (pp. 248-249)

“"What for you lie?" the Chief of Rostrums repeated in a glowering voice. "You say your name is Black. No es Black." He shoved him backwards toward the door. "You say you are a wrider." He shoved him again. "You no are a wrider." He pushed the Consul more violently, but the Consul stood his ground. "You are no a de wrider, you are de espider, and we shoota de espiders in Méjico."”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 371)

“How shall the murdered man convince his assassin he will not haunt him.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. III (p. 79)

“God, how pointless and empty the world is! Days filled with cheap and tarnished moments succeed each other, restless and haunted nights follow in bitter routine: the sun shines without brightness, and the moon rises without light.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. XII (p. 346)

“For a time they confronted each other like two mute unspeaking forts.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. III (p. 75)

“But my lord, Yvonne, surely you know by this time I can’t get drunk however much I drink.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. III (p. 85)

“Nothing in the world was more terrible than an empty bottle! Unless it was an empty glass.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. III (p. 86)

“You can´t live without loving.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

No se puede vivir sin amar.
Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 6)

“The howling pariah dogs, the cocks that herald dawn all night, the drumming, the moaning that will be found later white plumage huddled on telegraph wires in back gardens or fowl roosting in apple trees, the eternal sorrow that never sleeps of great Mexico.”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. I (p. 35)

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