Oscuro como la tumba donde yace mi amigo – Malcolm Lowry

Is this an Argentinian edition of Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend Laid?

Home Movie In Mexico 1945-1946

I have been re-reading Malc's Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid and I have been digging out images, video and music to illustrate references in the book.

A theme which runs through the Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid and La Mordida is Malc's contempt for American tourists who invaded Mexico after the WW2.

However, there is a certain irony in Malc's inferred criticism of US tourism in his work as he and Margerie behaved in many ways like the average tourist in their sight seeing.

There is an obvious tension in any writer visiting a country and using the visit as material for a novel. Malc was accused of adding too much "local colour" to Under The Volcano by one of Cape's readers before publication of the novel. It is interesting to note in the edition of La Mordida which has been published that Lowry's notes from a tourist guide to Mexico are included.

I have posted the above home movie from YouTube which gives a feel for US tourism in Mexico in the late 40's.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I am currently re-reading Lowry's Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid and came across Lowry's reference to the above song. Lowry's alter-ego Sigbjorn Wilderness lies in bed in Cuernavaca:

"It was still quite early, early enough, he thought, waking slightly more, for the sounds of the party, the posada, still to be going on next door, or over the barranca, wherever it was: the clarinet soared. "Smoke gets in you eyes," (I'll say it does.)The clarinetist had made quite a good break; it was as significant tune, had, indeed been Ruth's (Lowry's first wife Jan Gabrial)favourite tune..."

Jan Gabrial probably liked the song by Irene Dunne who sang the song in the 1935 film adaptation of the original Broadway play for which the song was written by Jerome Kern. I would think that Lowry would have preferred Tommy Dorsey's version which is nearer in spirit to the version of the song Wilderness hears in Cuernavaca.




Here I am reading Dark as the Grave wherein my Friend is Laid in Jeake's House, the former home of Lowry's mentor and friend Conrad Aiken in Rye, Sussex. I am currently preparing a post on my recent visit with my wife Barbara to Ripe, Chalvington and Rye in pursuit of Lowry's spirit.