Customer Reviews

Sursum Corda!: The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, Volume II: 1947-1957

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It is no doubt Lowry initiates, scholars and afficianados at whom this book was and, therefore, this review will be, primarily aimed. I have no inkling as to why only Volume II is included here. It may be simply a slip on Amazon's part (I didn't realize myself that there were two volumes amounting to almost 2,000 pages until I ordered it) or that the first volume is listed as out of print. But this review applies to both volumes which, by the bye, may be ordered as one, if not from Amazon, from Edward R Hamilton booksellers.

It is difficult to put into words the boundless joy that accompanies the reading of these letters. Here is Lowry at his most winkingly self-deprecatory, literarily allusive and, above all, charming and downright funny. For anyone who values the English Language and English literature highly; as, in fact, necessary to life, as Lowry did, these letters will hold you spellbound. Here is indeed the record of a man who, quite literally, lived and died for language and literature. As his most famous letter here, the one to his publisher which ultimately led to the publication of Under The Volcano, has it, "...but just the same in our Elizbethan days we used to have at least passionate poetic writing about things that will always mean something and not just silly ... style and semicolon technique: and in this sense I am trying to remedy a deficiency, to strike a blow, to fire a shot for you as it were, roughly in the direction, say, of another Renaissance: it will probably go straight through my brain but that is another matter."

It is clear from almost every letter here, that Lowry was trying his damnedest,in all his writings, to live up to this manifesto; that, despite the continual tragedies of his life, he was always picking himself up and wringing from his life "passionate poetic writing", which, it is clear from these letters, was, to a great extent, lived as a literary endeavour.

That the shot did eventually go through his brain, so to speak, was not entirely unexpected by Lowry or anyone who knew him. - But neither was Sir Walter Ralegh's unjust execution. - Ultimately then, these collected letters live up to the title: Sursum Corda!-Lift up your hearts!-Here is page upon page of writing about things that will always mean something: Love of life, literature, words and a delight in language in and of itself.-

Unrealistic though my expectaation of their reading of these two massive tomes may be, I would recommend them to anyone who suffers from the peculiar fate of being human.