Forests of Symbols: World, Text, and Self in Malcolm Lowry's Fiction

by Patrick A. McCarthy

Overview

Malcolm Lowry’s reputation as a novelist rests primarily on the masterpiece Under the Volcano. Lowry is also well known for what he did not write; that is, for his anguished inability to complete his works. Under the Volcano is one of only two novels published in Lowry’s lifetime; the bulk of his writings were still in various stages of composition when he died in 1957. In Forests of Symbols, Patrick A. McCarthy addresses the central enigma of the writer’s life: his dependence on writing for his sense of identity and his fear that the process of composition would leave him with no identity apart from his work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820341699
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	09/01/2016
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

PATRICK A. MCCARTHY is a professor of English and the the editor of James Joyce Literary Supplement at the University of Miami. His books include The Riddles of "Finnegans Wake," Olaf Stapledon, "Ulysses": Portals of Discovery, and an edition of Malcolm Lowry's La Mordida.

Editorial Reviews

McCarthy shows extensive knowledge of secondary sources on Lowry and any critic could learn something from his account of patterns of correspondence at work in Lowrys' texts. . . . Forests of Symbols provides a substantial investigation of the question it raises concerning the relationship between Lowry's life and his works.

Yearbook of English Studies

In a rare mix of diligent scholarship and insightful criticism, [McCarthy] offers us, very likely for the first time, a sense of the novelist's life work, of its continuity and its considerable worth.

Journal of Modern Literature

Showing excellent judgment, McCarthy reads as a metafictionist. . . . Inspired as well as painstaking, McCarthy explains the influence of Marlowe, Shelley, and Jung on his man; he describes the 'highly textual existence' of the people in Under the Volcano; finally he concludes his distinguished study with fifty pages of meaty back matter.

Choice

McCarthy treats his subject with dignity, elegance, and depth. . . . In sum, Forests of Symbols is to be praised for its lucidity and insightfulness. It will prove to be necessary reading for Lowry scholars, yet will also be of interest to students approaching Lowry's dark yet illuminating fictions for the first time.

Modern Fiction Studies