Notes on Lowry and War: A Walk in Liverpool July 2014 Part 3

HMS Hyderabad at Bristol 1918

This is the final set of notes following a recent walk I led around Liverpool's Business Quarter and Riverfront organised by The Bluecoat, Liverpool.

Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Stop 5 Canning Dock

The character Geoffrey Firmin, the Consul in Lowry's Under The Volcano was a Lieutenant-Commander of the Q-Ship S.S. Samaritan during WW 1. In the novel, Firmin is haunted by his involvement in the deaths of a captured German U-Boat crew by placing them in the furnace of the Samaritan.

HMS  Baralong

Is the above based on fact? Possible sources:

Ronald Binns [MLN 8, 6] has tracked down the probable historical source of the Samaritan incident: the so-called "Baralong incident" of 19 August 1915, after the capture of the British ship, the SS Nicosian, by the German submarine U-27. A British Q-ship, the Baralong, appeared flying the American flag, let fall its false sides, and sank the submarine. The master, Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert (whose name and rank is similar to Geoffrey's), ordered his crew to give no quarter, and twelve German sailors were shot. See Baralong Incident for further details

The above was suppressed by British Government during and after war so how could Lowry know the details?

Source 1: Coles, Alan (1986). Slaughter at Sea: The Truth Behind a Naval War Crime - discusses the myth of German sailors being burnt in the furnaces of the SS Nicosian. See Pg 167 - Cole states several sources from Liverpool that this story was common in the docklands of Liverpool - could Lowry have heard these during 1927/28 when he sailed to the Far east and later haunted the dockland pubs?

Source 2: Lowry's brother Wilfrid was then a member of the Royal Naval Reserve based on H.M.S. Eagle (Eaglet) in Canning Dock during and shortly after WW1 - Some of the Q-ship commanders were in the RNR. e.g. Ronald Niel Stuart - he survived the war and was a local hero returning to service with the Canadian Pacific based in Liverpool. Stuart had been a member of the Royal Naval Reserve before the war and became a leading member when he returned.

It isn't impossible that Wilfrid may have heard stories/yarns or quite conceivably unpalatable truths of the Q-ship war, due to his access to sailors who had fought in the war. He may have related these stories to Lowry or Lowry may have heard them first hand and adapted them later from memories of an impressionable child in 1918/19.

S.S. Nicosian

Source 3: The SS Nicosian was owned by the Liverpool based Leyland line - crewed by local sailors - could one of them told Lowry what had happened? Lowry also sailed to the USA in 1928 aboard a Leyland ship SS Dorelian

Source 4: The Baralong Incident was widely reported outside the UK during the war including USA - many varied accounts were written including the furnace story - could Lowry have heard about this from a US source e.g. Conrad Aiken on Lowry's visit to Boston in 1928?

Bowker notes that Lowry wa taken by his bother Wilfrid to see a Q-ship in Liverpool in either late 1918 or 1919 (Bowker Pursued by Furies P16). The Lowry brothers saw a dummy run of the Q-ship drill, dropping the false bulkheads, exposing a gun, and firing a blank round.

The above visit was to see HMS Hyderabad - the ship was docked at Canning Dock in mid December 1918 (Liverpool Echo 27/11/18) as part of a nationwide tour to demonstrate how the ships operated against submarines. The photos below are part of a set made by Tierney's Studios of 6 Lord Street. Liverpool to record the event:

An unidentified U-Boat visited Canning Dock Liverpool around the same time as Hyderabad but full details are yet to be discovered. There is no evidence that Lowry visited the Uboat. Again the submarine was photographed by Tierney's - see photo below with caption "To the victors the spoils":

Lowry must have retained an interest in Q-ships as they appear in the short story 'Goya The Obscure' when Lowry notes an advert; "Mystery Ship VC Visits Wallasey" (Pg. 273). This relates to a lecture given by Vice Admiral Gordon Campbell at Wallasey Town Hall on Friday, January 10th 1930. The advert noted by Lowry appeared twice in the Wallasey News on December 21st 1929 and again on December 28th 1929. A short reminder also appeared inside the paper on December 28th as seen below:

Read more about the above lecture here

Leonard Campbell Taylor  Dazzle-painted ships, including Aquitania, in the Mersey off the Liverpool waterfront

See Edmund Gardner painted as a "dazzle ship"

Lowry refers to dazzle ships in Under The Volcano:

Hugh too was scrutinizing the Gothic writing beneath the photograph: Der englische Dampfer tragt Schutzfarben gegen deutsche U-boote. 'Only on the next page, I recall, was a picture of the Emden', the Consul went on, 'with "So verliess ich den Weltteil unserer Antipoden", something of that nature, under it...' – UTV, 184.

Chris Ackerley has discovered source:

Ger. "The English steamer carries camouflage against German U-boats." The American text corrects Lowry's error, ‘tragt’, which is perpetuated in the British text. In a letter to Albert Erskine [16 July 1946; CL 1, 611], Lowry says that he has lost the original, but that it depicted two photographs, the first a British Q-ship, and the second the Emden, as shown to him in a German restaurant in Mexico City, the captions in Gothic print. Despite this camouflage, his actual source was Felix Graf von Luckner's Seeteufel: Abenteuer aus meinem Leben [Sea Devil: adventures from my life] (K. F. Koehler, 1921), which, however, makes no mention of the Emden (von Luckner was in the South Pacific, the Emden in the Indian Ocean). The Malcolm Lowry Project

Chris Ackerely also notes:

In the Texas manuscript [TM VI, 45], Lowry is explicit about the connection between “Everything about the Samaritan was a fake” and Hugh’s like sense of himself; but in a marginal note wondered if it were not better to abandon the idea of fake altogether.

Lowry sailed back from USA in 1928 aboard the RMS Cedric which was painted in dazzle colours during WW1:

Sholto Johnstone Douglas SS 'Cedric', White Star Liner, Lying in the Mersey

Under the Volcano: fuelling a thirst for Malcolm Lowry

As I mentioned in an earlier post - I have neglected the blog in the last year. One article I should have posted was the above published on the Guardian newspaper website which mentioned the 19th Hole!

Under the Volcano: fuelling a thirst for Malcolm Lowry: This book has whetted an appetite for more Lowry – luckily there are some fantastic online resources to aid further study

Read the full article by Sam Jordison here

David Lee Guss Mexican funeral bier, 1890's-2009

Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957) was an English poet and novelist. His masterpiece is "Under the Volcano" (1937), set in Mexico where he lived from 1936 to 1939. Like many celebrated writers, he was an alcoholic. "Volcano" has been placed at number 11 by The Modern Library's Best Novels of the 20th century. "Under the Volcano" was made into a 1984 motion picture by director John Huston. It explores one day in the life of an alcoholic British diplomat on the eve of WW2 and the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration. As with Huston's "Night of the Iguana," "Volcano" was shot by the Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (1907-1997). @2009 David Lee Guss Mexican funeral bier, 1890's-2009 Read more

Turkish Under The Volcano

Hungarian Copy of Under The Volcano

Bedřich Dlouhý Přítomnost Pompejí: Malcolm Lowry: Světová literatura 1964

Přítomnost Pompejí: Malcolm Lowry: Světová literatura 1964 (illustration)

Autor The Steppe and In The Woods at the Specialised Ceramics school in Prague (1949 – 1952) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1953 – 1959; Miroslav Holý, Karel Souček). Taugh at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague from 1990 – 1995. Has exhibited as part of a group since 1954, and on his own since 1962. Member of the group Šmidrové (from the year 1954), Umělecká beseda (Art Meeting; 1964 – 1972), the group Zaostalí (Retarded; from the year 1987) and the Association of Visual Artists Mánes (from the year 1995). Created twenty-three film posters over the years 1962 – 1971. he is considered one of the prominent authors of the 60’s and 70’s. His posters for films like 8 ½, Hiroshima, My Love and The Pink Panther are known worldwide. Read more

Salud!

Courtesy of Pinterest 

Mario Canali Under The Volcano

Born in Milan, Mario Canali began his artistic career in 1975, devoting the first ten years of his career to painting. Shortly thereafter he turned his attention to electronic and digital art and is considered one of the pioneers of that art form. Second to John Lasseter at Ars Electronica in Linz for two consecutive years and winner of numerous awards at the national level (Nastro d’Argento, Rome) as well as internationally (Imagina, Monte Carlo) in the field of  computer graphics and 3D animation, Mario Canali pioneered immersive virtual reality (Satori, 1992) and interactive installations, using body parameters to probe people’s emotional states. Canali’s studies and research in digital media, new paradigms of science, psychology and neurology earned him teaching credentials at Accademia di Brera in Milan "Virtual Reality and Paradigms of Complexity”  and NABA Academy of Arts and Design in Milan “Emotional Scenes and Cognitive Environments”. After twenty years of experience with new media, Canali returns to painting to create new and exciting spaces for expression, communication and research. Read more

Young Fresh Fellows 'Back Room of the Bar.’

The band The Young Fresh Fellows recorded a song inspired by Lowry’s Under The Volcano called 'Back Room of the Bar.’

'Infinitas Gracias'

'Repellent,' the Consul said, isn't Guanajuato the place they bury everyone standing up?" Under The Volcano

If you missed the recent Wellcome Foundation exhibition on Mexican Miracle Paintings then yu get a book of postcards of some of the exhibits from here.

Mexican votives are small paintings, usually executed on tin roof tiles or small plaques, depicting the moment of personal humility when an individual asks a saint for help and is delivered from disaster and sometimes death. 'Infinitas Gracias' will feature over 100 votive paintings drawn from five collections held by museums in and around Mexico City and two sanctuaries located in mining communities in the Bajío region to the north: the city of Guanajuato and the distant mountain town of Real de Catorce. Together with images, news reports, photographs, devotional artefacts, film and interviews, the exhibition will illustrate the depth of the votive tradition in Mexico.

Usually commissioned from local artists by the petitioner, votive paintings tell immediate and intensely personal stories, from domestic dramas to revolutionary violence, through which a markedly human history of communities and their culture can be read. The votives displayed in 'Infinitas Gracias' date from the 18th century to the present day. Over this period, thousands of small paintings came to line the walls of Mexican churches as gestures of thanksgiving, replacing powerful doctrine-driven images of the saints with personal and direct pleas for help. The votives are intimate records of the tumultuous dramas of everyday life - lightning strikes, gunfights, motor accidents, ill-health and false imprisonment - in which saintly intervention was believed to have led to survival and reprieve.

'Infinitas Gracias' will explore the reaction of individuals at the moment of crisis in which their strength of faith comes into play. The profound influence of these vernacular paintings, and the artists and individuals who painted them, can be seen in the work of such figures as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, who were avid collectors. The contemporary legacy of the votive ritual will be present in the exhibition through a wall covered with modern-day offerings from one church in Guanajuato: a paper shower of letters, certificates, photographs, clothing and flowers, through which the tradition of votive offering continues today. The sanctuaries at Guanajuato and Real de Catorce remain centres of annual pilgrimage, attracting thousands of people to thank and celebrate their chosen saints.

Under The Volcano

An edition that I had never sen before?

Garden of Evil 1954

I thought the title of this film had a certain ironic ring, thinking of Under The Volcano, given that it was supposed to have been filmed in the mountains around Cuernavaca according to some commentators! Log 24 Some sources state it was filmed in Uruapan west of Cuernavaca. Gary Cooper Scrapbook

Garden of Evil (1954) is a Western film about three somewhat disreputable 19th-century soldiers of fortune, played by Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, and Cameron Mitchell, who are hired by a woman, portrayed by Susan Hayward, to rescue her husband. The movie was directed by Henry Hathaway.

En route to California to prospect for gold, Hooker (Gary Cooper), Fiske (Richard Widmark), and Luke Daly (Cameron Mitchell) stop over in a tiny Mexican village. The three men and Vicente Madariaga (Victor Manuel Mendoza) are hired by a desperate Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward) to rescue her husband John (Hugh Marlowe), who is trapped in a gold mine in hostile Indian territory.


During the harrowing journey, the party's already frayed nerves are aggravated when the men become attracted to the woman. The group then arrives at the mine site — called the "Garden of Evil" because the Indians regard it as the domain of evil spirits. They find an injured, but living John Fuller.
As they leave, they are pursued by Apaches. Eventually, only Hooker, Fiske and Leah are left alive. At a narrow point in the road, the two men draw cards to see who will stay behind to hold off the Indians while the other two ride to safety. Fiske "wins" and succeeds in killing or driving off the enemy. After seeing that Leah is safe, Hooker returns to talk with a dying Fiske, who urges him to settle down with Leah.

On another romantic front, Mitchell became infatuated with Hayward. However, Hayward, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, Jess Barker, was not interested in Mitchell. During a New Year's Eve celebration of cast and crew in nearby Cuernavaca, a slightly intoxicated Hayward leaned over to Mitchell and ran her fingernails down his cheek, drawing blood and forcing director Hathaway to delay filming until the facial wounds healed.

On another romantic front, Mitchell became infatuated with Hayward. However, Hayward, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, Jess Barker, was not interested in Mitchell. During a New Year's Eve celebration of cast and crew in nearby Cuernavaca, a slightly intoxicated Hayward leaned over to Mitchell and ran her fingernails down his cheek, drawing blood and forcing director Hathaway to delay filming until the facial wounds healed. Wikipedia

Susan Hayward later went to a jammed cafe in Cuernavaca with the cast to celebrate New Year's Eve. After a few brandies she leaned over to Mitchell, knowing his attraction to her, and ran her long fingernails deeply along his cheek, drawing blood and leaving wounds that caused director Hathaway to delay further shooting until the scabs vanished. Mitchell was scarred for life. Hathaway had a difficult time with Hayward, who delayed productions and often walked off the set when annoyed with his brusque ways. The film went over budget and beyond schedule, although Cooper remained mute about the temperament his costar displayed; Hayward was then one of the top box-office actresses. Movies TV Guide

François Righi Under The Volcano Volume 4 2009

François Righi Under The Volcano Volume 4 2009

Es habitual recurrir al libro como medio para transmitir un significado que se cree consolidado, bien sea mediante palabras o imágenes. En este caso, el arranque del libro parte de otra premisa. No se trata de consignar ninguna solución, pues el libro encierra un misterio de naturaleza inalcanzable, insoluble, que se mantiene intacto a fin de reavivarlo con cada lectura: aquello que nunca se consigue plenamente, y que es lo único que importa, es la razón de ser y la materia de estos libros […]. El juego que palpita en ellos nace de una imagen que representa lo que no es y que, en su ausencia, ocupa ese lugar.

Read more on Arts Libris

Peter Bies Into the West

“(…) he dreamed a moment of battles his soul survived to wander there.” Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano


this is how it works:

soft plastic phantoms of the past

assembling proleptic flashes of sub-poetry

& retrograde evidence & representations

of my edited emotional history:



your languid shape

backlit against the flat sky

your pregnant drawl

shallow & corporate

in scientific locution/

my memory of you

jells into fiction

blotting out over

& beyond the live flesh

& the cold shadow

of your hands

See more on ARTDOXA

Under The Volcano @ The Railway, Tithebarn Street , Liverpool 20/8/12

Literature in Pubs is a community book group searching for literary stimulation in the relaxing atmosphere of a cosy pub. The next meeting will featuring Malc's Under The Volcano:

6.00-8.00pm
Monday 20th August 2012
The Railway
Tithebarn Street
Liverpool L2 2DT


Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life-- the Day of the Dead, 1938-- his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse.

She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.

"Under the Volcano" remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.

Thanks to Gill Dong for letting me know about the night.

No se puede vivir sin amar

I came across this piece of music:

No se puede vivir sin amar

The person who posted the piece describes it as follows:

Semi-improvised, based on bits I played while trying to come up with something better to enter. Title is taken from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.

Update to Chris Ackerley's Under The Volcano Website

Chris's excellent Hypertextual Companion to Under the Volcano was upgraded as follows in late 2011:

The site, in particular Chapter I, was substantially revised and expanded. Further expansions are planned, incorporating Chris Ackerley's ongoing annotations of Lowry's other works and David Large's doctoral research on Lowry.

Chris also states:

The next phase for the site is set to coincide with the ongoing digitalisation of the UBC Special Collection archives. We plan to rewrite entries in light of the discoveries and comments of the EMiC Project, which includes new editions of "Swinging the Maelstrom", In Ballast to the White Sea and the 1940 Volcano.

Anatole Litvak's Mayerling 1936 film

Why did they have to call that other fatal palace in Trieste also the Miramar, where Carlotta went insane, and everyone who ever lived there from the Empress Elizabeth of Austria to the Archduke Ferdinand had met with a violent death? Under The Volcano

Lowry is referring to the misfortunes that befell the Hapsburg family. Jan Gabrial recalls that she and Malcolm saw Anatol Litvak's Mayerling (1936) in Mexico City before they returned to the Hotel Canada for a tender night [Inside the Volcano, 157 & 187]. The film became an emblem of their love. Lowry states that "La Tragedia de Mayerling" was playing in the town just as it had been nine years ago. (Letter to Cape).





The Mayerling Incident refers to the series of events leading to the apparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover Baroness Mary Vetsera. Prince Rudolf was the only son of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria, and therefore heir to his father as Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and King of Bohemia. Rudolf's mistress Mary was the daughter of Baron Albin Vetsera, a diplomat at the Austrian court. The couple's bodies were discovered at Mayerling, Rudolf's hunting lodge, in Lower Austria on January 30, 1889. Read more on Wikipedia



Mayerling is a 1936 French historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak and produced by Seymour Nebenzal from a screenplay by Marcel Achard, Joseph Kessel and Irma von Cube, based on the novel Idol's End by Claude Anet. The film stars Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux with Jean-Louis Barrault, René Bergeron, Jean Davy, Jean Dax, Jean Debucourt and Gabrielle Dorziat. It is based on the real life story of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, his affair with the 17-year old Baroness Maria Vetsera and their tragic end at Mayerling.

Here are some clips from the movie:

Gustave Doré's Illustrations to Milton's Paradise Lost

The watchtower of a prison rose over a wood between the river and the road which lost itself farther on where the purple hills of a Doré Paradise sloped away into the distance. Under The Volcano

On the other side, purple hills, which always reminded Laruelle of Dore's illustrations to Paradise Lost, sloped away into the distance. The 1940 Under The Volcano

Paul Gustave Doré January 6, 1832 – January 23, 1883) was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.

Doré was born in Strasbourg and his first illustrated story was published at the age of fifteen. His skill had manifested itself even earlier, however. At age five he had been a prodigy troublemaker, playing pranks that were mature beyond his years. Seven years later, he began carving in cement. Subsequently, as a young man, he began work as a literary illustrator in Paris, winning commissions to depict scenes from books by Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante.



In 1853, Doré was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron. This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated English Bible. A decade later, he illustrated a French edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, and his depictions of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, have become so famous that they have influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors' ideas of the physical "look" of the two characters. Doré also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", an endeavor that earned him 30,000 francs from publisher Harper & Brothers in 1883.

Doré's English Bible (1866) was a great success, and in 1867 Doré had a major exhibition of his work in London. This exhibition led to the foundation of the Doré Gallery in Covelant Bond Street. In 1869, Blanchard Jerrold, the son of Douglas William Jerrold, suggested that they work together to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. Jerrold had obtained the idea from The Microcosm of London produced by Rudolph Ackermann, William Pyne, and Thomas Rowlandson in 1808. Doré signed a five-year contract with the publishers Grant & Co that involved his staying in London for three months a year, and he received the vast sum of £10,000 a year for the project. Doré was mainly celebrated for his paintings in his day. His paintings remain world renowned, but his woodcuts and engravings, like those he did for Jerrold, are where he really excelled as an artist with an individual vision.

The completed book, London: A Pilgrimage, with 180 engravings, was published in 1872. It enjoyed commercial and socioeconomical success, but the work was disliked by many contemporary critics. Some of these critics were concerned with the fact that Doré appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in parts of London. Doré was accused by the Art Journal of "inventing rather than copying." The Westminster Review claimed that "Doré gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down." The book was a financial success, however, and Doré received commissions from other British publishers.

His later works included Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Milton's Paradise Lost, Tennyson's The Idylls of the King, The Works of Thomas Hood, and The Divine Comedy. His work also appeared in the Illustrated London News.

He continued to illustrate books until his death of a short illness in Paris in 1883. The city's Père Lachaise Cemetery contains his grave




See more images:

Paradise Lost: Illustrations by Gustave Doré
Wikimedia Commons
Art Craftsy



Here is the edition of Milton's Paradise Lost with Gustave Doré's illustrations:



You can read more about Gustave Doré's Illustrations here:

J. C. Squire Outside Eden

To Albert Erskine, Lowry claimed to have lifted this phrase "from a rather stupid story by J.C. Squire, chiefly about duck shooting, though also in relation to a fair" [SL, 115]. In Squire's ‘The Alibi’, in his collection of short stories Outside Eden [180], before Sir Henry Moorhouse discovers the body of his shooting companion, Henry Henderson: "A small foreboding gust of wind came over moor and marsh, and rattled the leaves of the forlorn trees on the high ridge behind him. It carried a sound with it, a dim sort of brazen music, faint bangs and cries. It was the fair." The detail first appeared in Chapter VII [UBC 30-6, 2], then Chapter VIII [UBC 30-9, 23]; it was going to be used, somewhere. Chris Ackerley Under The Volcano A Hypertextual Companion

Sir John Collings Squire (2 April 1884 – 20 December 1958) was a British poet, writer, historian, and influential literary editor of the post-World War I period. Read more on Wikipedia