Lunar Caustic [Hardcover]

Malcolm Lowry (Author), Earle Birney (Editor), Marjorie Bonner Lowry (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 1977 | ISBN-10: 0224013467 | ISBN-13: 978-0224013468

'Staring out at the river his agony was like a great lidless eye'In this stark, compelling and greatly autobiographical novella, Malcolm Lowry tells the story of Bill Plantagenet, a piano player and ex-sailor who has lost his band and his mind drinking in New York. As Plantagenet commits himself to a Psychiatric hospital to suffer his recovery, Lowry writes with eloquent ferocity on the delusions of madness, and the true meaning of sanity.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (March 3, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0224013467
• ISBN-13: 978-0224013468
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,246,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Not His Best, April 6, 2009

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lunar Caustic (Hardcover)

I read Under the Volcano, and have a read a number of his other works.
Clearly, Under The Volcano is his best novel but he has a number of other interesting works.

Lowry fought alcoholism much of his adult life and this is reflected in his writings including Ultramarine, Under the Volcano, and in the present work. The present novel was started in 1934, after the publication of Ultramarine. It is shorter than Ultramarine, just 76 pages. He worked on it for over two decades and it was still a work in progress when Lowry died 24 years later. It was first published until 1963 in the Paris Review. If you like Lowry, I recommend the collection of short stories Hear Us O Lord From Heaven They Dwelling Place in addition to Under the Volcano. There is a good sea story in that collection "Through the Panama" which is the source of the title of the collection.

The present story comes from Lowry's own life. Here the protagonist is finishing a sea voyage, landing in the summer heat of New York. The character checks into a New York mental hospital. It is about alcoholism and the time spent by the character, Bill Plantagenet, in the mental hospital - similar to Lowry's experience at Bellevue mental hospital in New York.

The novel lacks symmetry and the coherent structure of a conventional novel - similar to the rambling style of Ultramarine.

This is an interesting and chaotic book about the characters in the hospital.

Probably, it is not as good as some of his other works and Under the Volcano is his best.