Sherrill Grace shows how Malcolm Lowry's theme of a cyclical pattern of initiation, repeated ordeals with failure and retreat, followed by success and development, which in turn gave way to fresh defeat, influenced the structure, narrative style, and the symbolic pattern in his writing. The author also includes an appendix in which she examines the elements of Conrad Aiken's fiction and prose that had a significant impact on Lowry's work.
A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Notorious for a misspent life full of binges, blackouts, and unimaginable bad luck, Malcolm Lowry managed, against every odd, to complete and publish two novels, one of them, Under the Volcano, an indisputable masterpiece. At the time of his death in 1957, Lowry also left behind a great deal of uncollected and unpublished writing: stories, novellas, drafts of novels and revisions of drafts of novels (Lowry was a tireless revisiter and reviser—and interrupter—of his work), long, impassioned, haunting, beautiful letters overflowing with wordplay and lament, fraught short poems that display a sozzled off-the-cuff inspiration all Lowry’s own. Over the years these writings have appeared in various volumes, all long out of print. Here, in The Voyage That Never Ends, the poet, translator, and critic Michael Hofmann has drawn on all this scattered and inaccessible material to assemble the first book that reflects the full range of Lowry’s extraordinary and singular achievement. The result is a revelation. In the letters—acknowledged to be among modern literature’s greatest—we encounter a character who was, as contemporaries attested, as spellbinding and lovable as he was self-destructive and infuriating. In the late fiction—the long story “Through the Panama,” sections of unfinished novels such as Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, and the little-known La Mordida—we discover a writer who is blazing a path into the unknown and, as he goes, improvising a whole new kind of writing. Lowry had set out to produce a great novel, something to top Under the Volcano, a multivolume epic and intimate tale of purgatorial suffering and ultimate redemption (called, among other things, “The Voyage That Never Ends”). That book was never to be. What he produced instead was an unprecedented and prophetic blend of fact and fiction, confession and confusion, essay and free play, that looks forward to the work of writers as different as Norman Mailer and William Gass, but is like nothing else. Almost in spite of himself, Lowry succeeded in transforming his disastrous life into an exhilarating art of disaster. The Voyage That Never Ends is a new and indispensable entry into the world of one of the masters of modern literature.
The thrilling adventure of Lady Trent continues in Marie Brennan's Voyage of the Basilisk . . . Devoted readers of Lady Trent's earlier memoirs, A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents, may believe themselves already acquainted with the particulars of her historic voyage aboard the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, but the true story of that illuminating, harrowing, and scandalous journey has never been revealed—until now. Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found. From feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics, these creatures are a source of both endless fascination and frequent peril. Accompanying her is not only her young son, Jake, but a chivalrous foreign archaeologist whose interests converge with Isabella's in ways both professional and personal. Science is, of course, the primary objective of the voyage, but Isabella's life is rarely so simple. She must cope with storms, shipwrecks, intrigue, and warfare, even as she makes a discovery that offers a revolutionary new insight into the ancient history of dragons. The Lady Trent Memoirs 1. A Natural History of Dragons 2. The Tropic of Serpents 3. Voyage of the Basilisk 4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes 5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
If you could choose one person to bring back to life, who would it be? Seventeen-year-old Lake Deveraux is the survivor of a car crash that killed her best friend and boyfriend. Now she faces an impossible choice. Resurrection technology changed the world, but strict laws allow just one resurrection per citizen, to be used on your eighteenth birthday or lost forever. You only have days to decide. For each grieving family, Lake is the best chance to bring back their child. For Lake, it's the only way to reclaim a piece of happiness after her own family fell apart. And Lake must also grapple with a secret--and illegal--vow she made years ago to resurrect someone else. Someone who's not even dead yet. Who do you need most? As Lake's eighteenth birthday nears, secrets and betrayals new and old threaten to eclipse her cherished memories. Lake has one chance to save a life . . . but can she live with her choice?
“In the first nineteen months of European war, from September 1939 to March of 1941, the island nation of Britain and her allies lost, to U-boat, air, and sea attack, to mines and maritime disaster, one thousand five hundred and ninety-six merchant vessels. It was the job of the Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy to stop it, and so, on the last day of April 1941 . . .” May 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter steams up the Tagus River to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa, she flies the flag of neutral Spain and is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines, and drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmö. But she is not the Santa Rosa. She is the Noordendam, a Dutch freighter. Under the command of Captain Eric DeHaan, she sails for the Intelligence Division of the British Royal Navy, and she will load detection equipment for a clandestine operation on the Swedish coast–a secret mission, a dark voyage. A desperate voyage. One more battle in the spy wars that rage through the back alleys of the ports, from elegant hotels to abandoned piers, in lonely desert outposts, and in the souks and cafés of North Africa. A battle for survival, as the merchant ships die at sea and Britain–the last opposition to Nazi German–slowly begins to starve. A voyage of flight, a voyage of fugitives–for every soul aboard the Noordendam. The Polish engineer, the Greek stowaway, the Jewish medical officer, the British spy, the Spaniards who fought Franco, the Germans who fought Hitler, the Dutch crew itself. There is no place for them in occupied France; they cannot go home. From Alan Furst–whom The New York Times calls America’s preeminent spy novelist–here is an epic tale of war and espionage, of spies and fugitives, of love in secret hotel rooms, of courage in the face of impossible odds. Dark Voyage is taut with suspense and pounding with battle scenes; it is authentic, powerful, and brilliant.
Murray Bail is best known for his internationally best-selling novel Eucalyptus, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year and winner of the 1999 Miles Franklin Award. The New York Times Book Review wrote that Bail's writing "exhibit(s) a surfeit of imagination, skill and style... (they contain) stories within stories, of enigmatic characters and sly questions with many possible answers." In The Voyage, Piano manufacturer and salesman Frank Delage travels to Vienna from Sydney, hoping to introduce a new design to replace the respected old pianos of Europe. He walks the great musical city, offering an impassioned defense of his piano's technical superiority to any who will hear it. When his ambitions are ignored by the city's staid musical elite, Delage's finds his situation suddenly transformed by a chance meeting with Amalia von Schalla, an elegant grande dame of Viennese society. Now sailing home to Australia aboard the container ship Romance with his new bride, Amalia's daughter Elisabeth von Schalla, Delage and his story begin to come to light in a hypnotic sequence of memories, voices, and snatches of conversations. Bail's prose sidewinds like a slipstream as Delage's story moves between the glittering society of the von Schalla's Vienna and the rough landscape of Australia. The Voyage is delightfully Joycean--conveying a sensuous physicality and the immediacy emotion, as well as revealing a great basin of interior life. The Voyage was a finalist for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, WA Premier's Book Awards, and the Queensland Literary Awards.
An episodic novel filled with surprises and provocative ideas, this is the story of a great exploration ship sent out into the unknown reaches of space on a long mission of discovery. They encounter several terrifying alien species, including the Ix, who lay their eggs in human bodies, which then devour the humans from within when they hatch. Reissue of a classic.
Have you ever struggled with packing for a trip? You can't decide what you'll need, so you pack for every scenario and take far too much. You struggle to fit everything in your bag, you get stressed lugging it around, and you pay a fortune in airline luggage fees. The Carry-On Traveller will teach you not only how to lighten your load, but how to pack everything you need into a single carry-on-size bag. You can apply these strategies to any trip, whether you are travelling for a week or a year, to hot or cold climates, alone or with kids. By travelling carry-on only, you'll save time at airports, avoid wasting money on checked luggage fees (which are increasingly common), and reduce the stress of hauling bulky bags. It's not an all or nothing approach. Packing light is a learning process, and you might want to take it gradually. Even if you don't travel carry-on only on your next trip, this book will help you pack lighter.