Malcolm Lowry Eighty Years On

Since the publication of "Under the Volcano in 1947, controversy has raged around the figure of Malcolm Lowry.

Both the novels and their creator have remained enigmatic: is "Under the Volcano", his major work, a realist novel, autobiographical, sybolist?

Is it best approached linguistically, psychoanalytically, when set in its cultural context?

Lowry has also defied definitive comment, partly due to myths he propagated about himself, which help confuse the historicl record.;In these essays, specially written for this collection to mark the eightieth anniversary of Lowry's birth, ten writers give their own angle on the man and his work, offering new views to counteract the old.

The biographical area is reassessed by a contemporary of Lowry's and by an examination of the very methodology of biography.

Lowry is compared with Joyce and with "The Lost Weekend", and read in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin.

He is examined in relation to his many father - figures, and to the characteristics of his language.

He is placed in the Modernist context, and his "Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy Dwelling Place" has its shapes examined.

Fittingly finally, a poem is offered at his graveside.