Under the Volcano

So I'm back with another of my New Year's Resolution books.

This one just about did me in.  Let me just tell y'all that I've wanted to read this book since I was in Law School and have never been able to find it.  I will also tell you that I started reading it at the beginning of May and have just now finished white knucking my way through it.

I would like to say that I at least found this mostly worthwhile at the end, but I can't really even say that.  It was a bear.  Dense, wandering and (I thought) boring. 

I actually just said "Fuck it.  I'm not reading this anymore." on more than one occasion but then I just couldn't admit defeat. 

The blurbs will tell you that this is what it's about:

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life—the Day of the Dead, 1938—his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.

Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.

What I think is that this was a brutal portrait of what it means to be an active alcoholic.  I mean, it really pulls no punches and I kept reminding myself that in 1938 there probably wasn't much treatment for alcoholism and that made it all the more tragic and maddening. 

Firmin is drinking.  He's wasted.  Literally and figuratively.   He has (for the past year) blamed most of his drinking on the fact that Yvonne has left him.  But really it's just an excuse.  Because when she comes back we see that the only thing he really loves is alcohol.  She is his reason, his excuse, his justification for drinking and the drink is his only true love.  He isn't likeable or even all that pitiable.  He has no desire to stop what he's doing.  I think maybe if he'd wanted to stop I may have felt a little for him but I'm kind of glad that he didn't.  I like that Lowery pulled no punches with it. 

Watching Firmin's destruction (and Yvonne's) was difficult.  It was a tragedy in exceedingly slow motion.  At several points in the book Firmin says something to the effect of "My GOD this is the longest day of my life!"  And I had to agree with him.  It was excruciating.

The book itself is long, dense and meandering.  It jumps back and forth and there are some things that I don't know if they really happened or if Firmin just hallucinated them in his drunken stupor.  I also wanted to enjoy the description of Mexico but I didn't.  I just found it all to be too much. 

Several criticisms have suggested that the book deserves multiple readings before one is able to truly glean it's greatness but the thought of reading this again just makes me tired.  Maybe one day I'll be able to go back to it. 

What kept me going is that often, in the middle of what I thought was just a never ending, stream of consciousness, drunken drift, Lowery would throw in a sentence or a paragraph of just staggering beauty and truth.  Finding these little tidbits kept me going.  And for them, I am truly glad I read this book.  

Suffice it to say that this was my least favorite of the books on this year's reading list.  But it wasn't without it's benefits.  I'm still thinking about it, which is more than I can say for a lot of books.