The eighty letters, cards and other messages in this correspondence -- produced mainly by Lowry and Gerald Noxon but also by Margerie (Bonner) Lowry -- offer a fresh introduction to Lowry, a certain 'Canadian' Lowry. At the same time they give insight into two writing careers (Bonner and Noxon) closely intertwined with his and vigorously championed by him in the 1940s. The letters observe the mind of Lowry at play on questions of literary technique, on films, and on the beauties and rigors of life in his Dollarton shack on an inlet near Vancouver. They reveal a warm, supportive, enormously sensitive and intelligent man, modifying somewhat the image of him now available.
To a remarkable extent the filmscript of Tender is the Night, which Malcolm Lowry wrote in 1949-50 with the help of Margerie Bonner Lowry, is less an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel than an extension of Lowry's own fiction. As Miguel Mota and Paul Tiessen show, Malcolm Lowry's script contains important passages which are really "cinematic" restatements of parts of Lowry's novel Lunar Caustic, and of short stories such as "Through the Panama" and "Strange Comfort Afforded by the Profession." The editors note also the many direct and indirect allusions to elements from Lowry's master-work, Under the Volcano (1947), a novel that is regarded by many critics as one of the most "cinematic" prose works of the twentieth century. A close study of the text reveals that Lowry took on the Tender is the Night project partly as a means of reopening his Under the Volcano narrative, of re-exploring its plot and problems and its characters and themes, and of carrying as far as possible the "cinematic" style he had begun to examine in that work. Lowry's Tender is the Night manuscript is important, then, not only as a completed, 455-page text in its own right but also as a text having a direct bearing on Lowry's own reading of Under the Volcano and of his sense of artistic direction after that work. Indeed, the editors consider the significance of the filmscript as a key - hitherto almost entirely overlooked - to understanding his projected multiple volume work, The Voyage That Never Ends. This scholarly edition of Lowry's script presents 38 passages of varying length - from less than one page to over 100 pages - in which Lowry writes with a freedom and creativity that lead to a text narratively and stylistically quite separate and distinct from Fitzgerald's original. It excludes passages where Lowry adheres more or less slavishly, at 37 intervals, to Fitzgeralds' novel, though it provides brief narrative summaries of and comments on those omitted sections. Lowry's achievement in his filmscript demonstrates the nature of his life-long commitment to and extensive knowledge of the international cinema from the 1910s to the 1950s and also the nature of his view of the novelist's responsibility to participate in the development of film as an art. The script also illustrates Lowry's relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald as one in a series of literary kinships, and as the editors point out, the work becomes a criticism and analysis of both Fitzgerald's novel and of Fitzgerald himself.
The 1940 Under the Volcano—hidden for too long in the shadows of Lowry’s 1947 masterpiece—differs from the latter in significant ways. It is a bridge between Lowry’s 1930s fiction (especially In Ballast to the White Sea) and the 1947 Under the Volcano itself. Joining the recently published Swinging the Maelstrom and In Ballast to the White Sea, The 1940 Under the Volcano takes its rightful place as part of Lowry’s exciting 1930s/early-40s trilogy. Scholars have only recently begun to pay systematic attention to convergences and divergences between this earlier work and the 1947 version. Miguel Mota and Paul Tiessen’s insightful introduction, together with extensive annotations by Chris Ackerley and David Large, reveal the depth and breadth of Lowry’s complex vision for his work. This critical edition fleshes out our sense of the enormous achievement by this twentieth-century modernist. Publié en anglais.
This extensive bibliography and reference guide is an invaluable resource for researchers, practitioners, students, and anyone with an interest in Canadian film and video. With over 24,500 entries, of which 10,500 are annotated, it opens up the literature devoted to Canadian film and video, at last making it readily accessible to scholars and researchers. Drawing on both English and French sources, it identifies books, catalogues, government reports, theses, and periodical and newspaper articles from Canadian and non-Canadian publications from the first decade of the twentieth century to 1989. The work is bilingual; descriptive annotations are presented in the language(s) of the original publication. Canadian Film and Video / Film et vidéo canadiens provides an in-depth guide to the work of over 4000 individuals working in film and video and 5000 films and videos. The entries in Volume I cover topics such as film types, the role of government, laws and legislation, censorship, festivals and awards, production and distribution companies, education, cinema buildings, women and film, and video art. A major section covers filmmakers, video artists, cinematographers, actors, producers, and various other film people. Volume II presents an author index, a film and video title index, and a name and subject index. In the tradition of the highly acclaimed publication Art and Architecture in Canada these volumes fill a long-standing need for a comprehensive reference tool for Canadian film and video. This bibliography guides and supports the work of film historians and practitioners, media librarians and visual curators, students and researchers, and members of the general public with an interest in film and video.
Ten years in the making, Under the Volcano is the best-known work of writer Malcolm Lowry. Published first in 1947, it is a brilliant, moving, and complex novel, perhaps the last fictional masterpiece to emerge from the modernist movement. As the years went by, Lowry's obsessive rewriting took him further and further into his book, which changed relatively little in the outer semblance of action and main characters but became utterly transformed in texture from the thin and mediocre version of 1940 to the rich tapestry of 1947. The numerous manuscripts allow a look at the processes by which Lowry created not only his masterwork but also his own reputation as a modernist genius. This study offers an extended examination of individual drafts as the novel slowly developed and, in a final chapter, an appraisal of the implications of Lowry's revisions for the book as published, an appraisal that suggests bases for new readings of Under the Volcano.
Providing a broad, definitive account of how the 'archival turn' in humanities scholarship has shaped modernist studies, this book also functions as an ongoing 'practitioner's toolkit' (including useful bibliographical resources) and a guide to avenues for future work. Archival work in modernist studies has revolutionised the discipline in the past two decades, fuelled by innovative and ambitious scholarly editing projects and a growing interest in fresh types of archival sources and evidence that can re-contextualise modernist writing. Several theoretical trends have prompted this development, including the focus on compositional process within genetic manuscript studies, the emphasis on book history, little magazines, and wider publishing contexts, and the emphasis on new material evidence and global and 'non-canonical' authors and networks within the 'New Modernist Studies'. This book provides a guide to the variety of new archival research that will point to fresh avenues and connect the methodologies and resources being developed across modernist studies. Offering a variety of single-author case studies on recent archival developments and editing projects, including Samuel Beckett, Hart Crane, H.D., James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, May Sinclair and Virginia Woolf, it also offers a range of thematic essays that examine an array of underused sources as well as the challenges facing archival researchers of modernism
The Kaleidoscopic Vision of Malcolm Lowry: Souls and Shamans is an interdisciplinary investigation of the multifaceted, intuitive insight of international modernist writer Malcolm Lowry through an analysis of a selection of works and correspondence. Nigel H. Foxcroft analyzes his psychogeographic perception of the interconnectedness of East-West cultures and civilizations in terms of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican customs; the Mexican Day of the Dead festival; the Atlantis myth; surrealism; and Russian literary, filmic, and political influences. He traces his intellectual efforts in pursuing philosophical and cosmic knowledge to bridge the gap between the natural sciences and the humanities. This monograph identifies Lowry’s attempts to reintegrate modernism with primitivism in his quest for an elixir of life for the survival of humanity on the brink of global catastrophe, as indicated in In Ballast to the White Sea and Under the Volcano. It also examines his sustained endeavors to attain psychoanalytical atonement with himself and his environment in Ultramarine, Swinging the Maelstrom, “The Forest Path to the Spring,” and October Ferry to Gabriola. It also discusses the odyssey on which Lowry and his literary protagonists embark to connect with the past and to gain a deeper insight into human nature in Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid, La Mordida, and “Through the Panama.” Scholars of cultural studies, history, humanities, Latin American studies, literature, and Russian studies will find this book particularly useful.
Although his literary reputation rests primarily on his novels, Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) considered himself to be a poet, and he composed an extensive poetic canon. No reliable edition of Lowry's poetry currently exists. Increasing critical interest in all aspects of Lowry's life and work prompted the preparation of this complete edition of his poetry, in which the poems are located, identified, dated, arranged, collated, annotated, and explicated by biographical, critical, and textual introductions.
Swinging the Maelstrom is the story of a musician enduring existence in the Bellevue psychiatric hospital in New York. Written during his happiest and most fruitful years, this novella reveals the deep healing influence that the idyllic retreat at Dollarton had on Lowry. This long-overdue scholarly edition will allow scholars to engage in a genetic study of the text and reconstruct, step by step, the creative process that developed from a rather pessimistic and misanthropic vision of the world as a madhouse (The Last Address, 1936), via the apocalyptic metaphors of a world on the brink of Armageddon (The Last Address, 1939), to a world that, in spite of all its troubles, leaves room for self-irony and humanistic concern (Swinging the Maelstrom,1942–1944).
