Pursued by Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry

I bought this large, six hundred page book because I got a deal on a cheap copy. But I couldn't help noticing the impressive effort to produce so thorough a work, and on such a complex subject. It crossed my mind more than once that Gordon Bowker had not been paid his due, at least not by me. But "Pursued by Furies" has received a significant amount of attention and praise. It is deserved, in my view. Still, at least some editing is in order in relation to Lowry's years at Dollarton (two hours drive from where I now sit.) Episode after episode of abusive, maniacial drunkness (with little literary output to show for it) seemed excessive. Paired with Lowry's extraordinary ability to deny reality -- including to those in the publishing world who supported him -- the downward spiral felt repetitive, and brought me close to abandoning the book. I noted with irony Lowry's conceived (but unfinished) novelic cycle "The Voyage That Never Ends." Mired in the book's latter third, I could only nod affirmatively. Which is to say that twenty drunken, despotic episodes wherein Lowry lies to everyone he knows -- including and especially his wife, Marjorie -- while collapsing as author and man are hardly different from, say, fifteen. Lowry's forced relocation to Ripe, England -- the pastoral countryside -- helped the book pick up. It is here that Lowry undergoes comprehensive treatment for alcoholism (shocking as these "treatments" were.) One gets the strong impression that this deeply inspired, fury-chased man is readying wings, about to claim both his literary gifts and independence. But Lowry's furies are not so forgiving. At times a who's who of 20th century literati, "Pursued By Furies" concerns itself chiefly with its subject. By its end, one disregards neither novelist nor man. Bowker summarizes the matter this way: "But he did return from hell and the gutter, often enough and for long enough periods, to create one, and possibly more, masterpieces wherein anyone who has ever caught up with Lowry in the toils of human confusion can find a kind of grace and a kind of release."

This is one of two biographies of Malcolm Lowry that I have read. The first was Douglas Day's biography--a sort of psycho-literary look at Lowry's life. It's not bad, but Bowker's book goes far beyond Day's. This book is much richer in detail--detail that casual readers might find overwhelming, but that Lowry afficionados will wallow in. Also, Bowker has tracked down Lowry's first wife, Jan Gabriel, who adds to the story of Lowry's life a dimension absent from Day's book.Anyone who has read Lowry's work has certainly suspected that his art mirrored his life, that much of what he wrote was autobiographical, in spirit if not in detail. This book confirms those suspicions, showing how truly excessive Lowry was in pretty much all aspects of his life: his drinking, fear, childishness...A great biography of a great writer.

I read this because I remain convinced that Mr Lowry's novel UNDER THE VOLCANO is one of the great tragic works of literature of the 20th century and its power remains with me after 30 years. In this biography the alcoholic writer's creative process is revealed in detail as well as his determination to destroy himself - in detail. I've often thought of Geoffrey Firmin/Malcolm Lowry as the essential 20th century man - we came close to destroying the world last century but failed. This is a solid well written biography and suits the general reader.

This is a much needed improvement on the Douglas Day bio of some years ago (though, I admit, a bit less fun to read). It's been covered in all the major reviews, of course, and I'm sure all you Lowryeans out there have a copy and love it for the wealth of information it contains that was absent from the Day bio and other sources...But, as a long-term Lowryean myself, I thought I'd add my bolus of criticism: Mr Bowker has a great advantage over previous writers on Lowry: He has found that the great author's first wife, Jan Gabrial, is not only alive and well, but eager to discuss all aspects of her relationship with her former spouse (with Bowker anyway). This revelation colors Mr Bowker's entire biography. It also, however, leads to the greatest flaw in the book: The simplistic polarization of Conrad Aiken vs. Nordahl Grieg as the Dark Angel and Light Angel, respectively, in Lowry's psyche. Ms Gabrial obviously detested Conrad Aiken and credited the dissolution of her marriage to him. No doubt she has cause to do so. But nobody who has spent any time reading Conrad Aiken's beautiful and much-neglected poetry can believe he was as consumately evil as Ms Gabrial, via Mr Bowker, makes him out to be. Still, this is a minor quibble for such an obviously painstaking and thorough work. It's refreshing to see the greatest poetic novelist of our century getting some attention toward the end of it!