Finished: Under the Volcano (Lowry). A very intense, complicated, but good book. I had hesitated to read this one because it is about the destruction of a marriage due to alcohol abuse. I was witness to a few of my dad's drinking binges as a teenager and college student. I wasn't really sure I wanted to read about something that I had lived. Pathetic, morose, rambling....those are the words that come to mind when I think of conversations I've tried to have with an alcoholic when he's drunk. There is no rhyme or reason to the person, just wild, extreme unreason. And, the main character in Under the Volcano, Geoffrey Firmin, was so spot on. His ramblings, hallucinations, conversations he held in his own head, bizarre actions, were all so cringe-worthy to read. Don't get me wrong...I adored my dad. He was a good man, a loving father, a family man to the core. He was extremely intelligent. He became an adult in the 1940's and started a family in the 1950's, back when you walked in the door from work with a cigarette in your hand and a drink waiting for you after a long day. He was just one of those people who was predisposed (I guess) to becoming addicted to the alcohol. Some of his "out there" arguments while he was inebriated were very philosophical, questioning life's purpose, God, man's duty to each other, etc. Of course, maybe those are the things all alcoholics question? Anyway, miraculously, my dad rediscovered the purity of love and joy when Jenny Cate, his first grandchild, was born and he cut way back on his drinking. I don't know how he did it, but he was able to have a drink here or there...or a couple of beers on the weekend, etc., and not fall into the old behaviors. Maybe he wasn't an alcoholic? I know one drink is supposed to make an alcoholic spiral back into the abyss, but he did not. I'd say he pretty much cleaned up his act and thankfully his beloved grandchildren never witnessed that side of him. Anyway, I only talk about my dad because as I read some of the outrageous things going on in Geoffrey Firmin's head, I wondered exactly what thoughts were going through my own dad's head when he was on one of his drinking tears.

So, back to the book....intense, complicated, sad, tragic. There are only four main characters: Geoffrey Firmin, 44, the British Consul to a small town in Mexico in 1938; his ex-wife, Yvonne, 30; his younger step-brother, Globe reporter and globe-trotter, Hugh, 29; and his estranged childhood friend, Frenchman Jacques Laruelle, 45ish, who lives in the same Mexican town. As each chapter was told from the viewpoint of one of these characters, it was difficult to read and decipher at first. There was so much stream of conscious babble put down on the pages, SO MUCH. Drunk or not drunk, the pages were just full of the ejaculation of these people's every thought. I can't think of a better word to describe it. I even tried the Thesaurus, lol. Anyway so at 15 Geoffrey looses both his parents and is taken in by a compassionate, yet hard-working and hard-drinking family. Baby Hugh is brought up by an aunt on his mother's side. At 15, Geoffrey is much more of a wimpish, bookish boy and feels very left out from the hard-drinking sons of his benefactor. It's never made clear where and when he starts drinking and becomes a raging alcoholic, because he's so averse to it as a teenager. He does meet his friend, Jacques, though and they become the best of friends...for a few months, until Jacques has to return back home for his own schooling. Flash forward to the adult Jacques in the opening chapter seeming to be lamenting the one year anniversary of Yvonne arriving back in their small Mexican town to actually take Geoffrey back. He doesn't understand how she could have come back for the downward spiraling, alcoholic. It is clear that Jacques loves Yvonne. It's also implied that Jacques and Yvonne may have had a little fling and so more than just the alcoholism led to her leaving Mexico and divorcing Geoffrey. Geoffrey pines and pines away after she leaves. He loves her more than life..but not more than tequila and mescal (nasty stuff). He never answers any of the letters she sends where she states her love and wants him back. I don't think he ever even reads them in his continuous stupor. When we finally meet him and read the first of his chapters, all he can think about is where he'll get the next drink. It's just a sad, sad reading of the desperation in this man to know that he shouldn't be drinking, but it's the only thing that can actually make him quit having the tremors because he's so far gone in it. He thinks he's walking straight, talking straight, etc., but he's really not. He thinks of Yvonne constantly and wants her back, but has never even realized her reciprocated feelings from not reading her letters. Enter the first chapter for Hugh. Hugh is good-looking, young, a globe trotting reporter who has very definite political and religious beliefs. It is unclear whether he's also a possible runner for arms to the revolutionists in the war going on in Spain at the time...or if he just WANTS to be that. Again, the stream of conscious delusions of grandeur seem to run in the family. Hugh, though, is not an alcoholic and is actually trying his best to get Geoffrey to straighten out. It becomes clear that Hugh is also in love with Yvonne and that perhaps something happened between them at one point too? It's hard to tell whether that part is just part of Geoffrey's wild imagination, or whether something really happened. However, it is clear that Hugh loves Yvonne. And, speaking of Yvonne...the day one year ago that Jacques is reflecting back on is now the day in which the rest of the novel is spent. Yvonne shows back up in Mexico to let Geoffrey know that she still loves him, can't live without him, and wants him back. By the way, they love this area of Mexico mostly because of the two "beautiful" volcanoes that are nearby, which are always in their vision as they live their lives. Geoffrey tries his best to cover how much he's drinking upon seeing Yvonne. She tells hims right off the bat she loves him and wants him back, but he can't bring himself to say that he loves her. What's more....Hugh is there and he knows how the two adore each other. Geoffrey proceeds to get drunk and pass out and Hugh and Yvonne go for a long horseback ride. She tells him she loves Geoffrey and is back to make things work. Hugh is disappointed and let's her know he's leaving the next day for one of his adventures on a boat. They have the loveliest time out on their ride. When they return back to the house, Geoffrey is up and they all decide to get cleaned up and go into the next town over for some fun. As they're walking to the bus, they run into Jacques. He insists they come in for a drink, so they do, but Yvonne is very uncomfortable. Of course, everywhere they go, Geoffrey drinks more than the others realize. Soon, Yvonne makes their excuses and they all head into town. It's made so very clear in this chapter that Yvonne and Geoffrey both remember her "thing" with Jacques, that I'm certain it happened. She's never uncomfortable around Hugh, so I'm wondering if their "thing" was just a flirtation? So, as Yvonne and Hugh stop to enjoy a little town fair before catching the bus, Geoffrey tells them to go on and he goes to a bar and drinks more. By the time they're all on the bus, Geoffrey is pretty drunk. As they get closer to the town, the bus nearly hits a man laying in the road, so they stop. Sure enough, the man has been injured, but not by the bus. His horse is nearby...a horse they had seen earlier in the day with saddlebags...but the saddlebags are gone. They begin to wonder if the man had been robbed and left to die. Hugh is appalled that no one will help the man, but it is against the Mexican law to touch someone who is down. That doesn't make sense, but Hugh at least puts a handkerchief on his wounds as the local policia are showing up. They figure the authorities will take over and take care of the man. As the bus goes on its way, Geoffrey and Hugh notice that one of the bus passengers has taken the bloodied coins that were under the dying man's hat. Still, there is nothing they can do. They continue on into the town to watch some bull riding, which Hugh actually participates in. While Hugh is riding the bull, Yvonne and Geoffrey finally have a moment together and she tells him that she loves him and wants them to go somewhere and start over. He finally tells her he loves her and admits how he's fallen so low and that, yes, he wants to go with her to start over. Afterwards at dinner, though, Geoffrey, who has continued to drink throughout the whole day, gets terribly belligerent to Yvonne and Hugh. It's like he just can't help pushing her away and ruining his life, and hers. I feel compelled to put the two contrasting, tragic scenes here. The first scene is from Yvonne's viewpoint, so any tangent thoughts are hers.

    "Darling," Yvonne whispered suddenly, "Geoffrey--look at me. Listen to me. I've been...there isn't anything to keep us here any longer...Geoffrey..."
    The Consul, pale, without his dark glasses, was looking at her piteously; he was sweating, his whole frame was trembling. "No," he said. "No...No," he added, almost hysterically.
    "Geoffrey darling...don't tremble...what are you afraid of? Why don't we go away, now, tomorrow, today...what's to stop us?"
    "No..."
    "Ah, how good you've been--"
    The Consul put his arm around her shoulders, leaning his damp head against her hair like a child, and for a moment it was as if a spirit of intercession and tenderness hovered over them, guarding, watching. He said wearily:
    "Why not. Let's for Jesus Christ's sweet sake get away. A thousand, a million miles away, Yvonne, anywhere, so long as it's away. Just away. Away from all this. Christ, from this."
    --into a wild sky full of stars at rising, and Venus and the golden moon at sunrise, and at noon blue mountains with snow and blue cold rough water--"Do you mean it?"
    "Do I mean it!"
    "Darling..." It ran in Yvonne's mind that all at once they were talking--agreeing hastily--like prisoners who do not have much time to talk: the Consul took her hand. They sat closely, hands clasped, with their shoulders touching. In the arena Hugh tugged; the bull tugged, was free, but furious now, throwing himself at any place on the fence that reminded him of the pen he'd so prematurely left, and now, tired, persecuted beyond measure, finding it, hurling himself at the gate time after time with an incensed, regressive bitterness until, the little dog barking at his heels, he'd lost it again...Hugh rode the tiring bull round and round the ring. 
    "This isn't just escaping, I mean, let's start again really, Geoffrey, really and cleanly somewhere. It could be like a rebirth."
    "Yes. Yes it could."
    "I think I know, I've got it all clear in my mind at last. Oh Geoffrey, at last I think I have."
    "Yes, I think I know too."
    Below them, the bull's horns again involved the fence.
    "Darling..." They would arrive at their destination by train, a train that wandered through an evening land of fields beside water, an arm of the Pacific---
    "Yvonne?"
    "Yes, darling?"
    "I've fallen down, you know...Somewhat."
    "Never mind, darling."
    "...Yvonne?"
    "Yes?"
    "I love you...Yvonne?"
    "Oh, I love you too!"
    "My dear one...My sweetheart."
    "Oh Geoffrey. We could be happy, we could--"
    "Yes...We could."
    --and far across the water, the little house, waiting--

The next scene is from Geoffrey's viewpoint. As he, Hugh and Yvonne sit at dinner, served by the waiter, Cervantes, and Geoffrey is really plastered. They are discussing politics and war, etc. and he begins insulting and disagreeing with Hugh, and then it just turns into a nasty diatribe against them both, all the while, Geoffrey is also talking to himself.

    "If you've really read War and Peace, as you claim you have, why haven't you the sense to profit by it, I repeat?"
    "At any rate," said Hugh, "I profited by it to the extent of being able to distinguish it from Anna Karenina."
    "Well, Anna Karenina then..." the Consul paused. "Cervantes!" --and Cervantes appeared, with his fighting cock, evidently fast asleep, under his arm. "Muy fuerte, " he said, "muy terreebly," passing through the room, "un bruto."--"But as I implied, you bloody people, mark my words, you don't mind your own business any better at home, let alone in foreign countries. Geoffrey darling, why don't you stop drinking, it isn't too late--that sort of thing. Why isn't it? Did I say so?" What was he saying? The Consul listened to himself almost in surprise at this sudden cruelty, this vulgarity. And in a moment it was going to get worse. "I thought it was all so splendidly and legally settled that it was. It's only you that insists it isn't." (talking about the divorce)
    "Oh Geoffrey--"
   --Was the Consul saying this? Must he say it?--It seemed he must. "For all you know it's only the knowledge that it most certainly is too late that keeps me alive at all...You're all the same, all of you, Yvonne, Jacques, you, Hugh, trying to interfere with other people's lives, interfering, interfering--why should anyone have interfered with young Cervantes here, for example, given him an interest in cock fighting?--and that's precisely what's bringing about disaster in the world, to stretch a point, yes, quite a point, all because you haven't got the wisdom and the simplicity and the courage, yes, the courage, to take any of the, to take--"
    "See here, Geoffrey--"
    "What have you ever done for humanity, Hugh, with all your oratio obliqua about the capitalist system, except talk, and thrive on it, until your soul stinks."
    "Shut up, Geoff, for the love of mike!"
    "For that matter, both your souls stink! Cervantes!"
    "Geoffrey, please sit down," Yvonne seemed to have said wearily, "you're making such a scene."
    "No, I'm not, Yvonne. I'm talking very calmly. As when I ask you, what have you ever done for anyone but yourself?" Must the Consul say this? He was saying, had said it: "Where are the children I might have wanted? You may suppose I might have wanted them. Drowned. To the accompaniment of the rattling of a thousand douche bags. Mind you, you don't pretend to love 'humanity', not a bit of it! You don't even need an illusion, though you do have some illusions unfortunately, to help you deny the only natural and good function you have. Though on second thought it might be better if women had no functions at all!"
    "Don't be a bloody swine, Geoffrey." Hugh rose.
    "Stay where you bloody are," ordered the Consul. "Of course I see the romantic predicament you two are in. But even if Hugh makes the most of it again it won't be long, it won't be long, before he realizes he's only one of the hundred or so other ninney-hammers with gills like codfish and veins like racehorses---prime as goats all of them, hot as monkeys, salt as wolves in a pride! No, one will be enough..."

It goes on and on. :-( Obviously, things are shattered at this point. Geoffrey runs out of the restaurant and heads toward his favorite bar in the next small town over, just a couple of miles away, and closer to the volcanoes. In the next chapter, from Yvonne's viewpoint, Hugh and Yvonne go out and try to find him. As it grows darker and darker, they finally head down the right road to where he is when flashes of lightening from an approaching storm get more intense. Suddenly, a frightened, galloping horse comes from nowhere and tramples Yvonne on the path! In a horrible scene, she dies. The horse, it turns out, is the same one that had been with the dying man on the side of the road. Then, in the next chapter, from Geoffrey's viewpoint, he's in the bar that he had run to. Events are occurring in the same time frame as the chapter before. Geoffrey gets drunker and drunker on mescal. Recognizing him, the bartender pulls a stack of letters from behind the bar that Geoffrey had left there a few months back. They are all the letters written by Yvonne that Geoffrey had never read. He pulls one out to read and it is Yvonne begging him to start over....telling him that she loves him and wants to have children! Geoffrey is now despondent at his behavior earlier. He never realized she wanted to have children after all. Meanwhile, two of the policia that were supposed to take care of the dying man earlier have come into the bar. Geoffrey goes outside and notices that they have the man's horse and now the saddlebags are back. He realizes that it was corrupt policia who had actually killed the man and taken what was in his saddlebags before. As he goes to pet the horse, the policia come out and accuse him of trying to steal it. They then accuse him of all sorts of things, like being a traitor to Mexico and a spy, etc. As the lightening storm intensifies, the horse rears back and breaks loose. The livid policia shoot Geoffrey several times. As Geoffrey is dying, he feels people picking him up. He thinks he's being helped but in reality they've picked him up and they throw him in a ravine! That is the end of the book. Of course, the horse that has just run away is the one that kills Yvonne. Very sad ending. The book just ends. It never goes back to revisit Hugh or Jacques. Woe be the horrible tragedy of alcoholism.