Yet another Markson book with a hideous cover. The cover for Markson’s study of Lowry’s Under the Volcano is truly terrible though: it looks like a fucking diet book or something. Great work, Barnes & Noble! Obviously I’ll shed the dust jacket; here’s what’s underneath:
Much better. Anyway, what really counts is what’s inside, of course. I could probably have used this last year when I was reading Under the Volcano, but I feel I handled it okay. I’m more interested in Markson, and even more interested in Markson’s relationship with Lowry, chronicled in a brief chapter in the back that I’ve already read and will report on in more detail in the future.
Biblioklept 
I’m interested in Lowry’s relationship with the elephant he befriended on a freighter sea journey when he was young. The elephant was going to the London Zoo and they went through a terrible storm. He sat beside her to calm and comfort her. Years later he visited her at the London Zoo and she remembered him. Lovely yes.
LikeLike
I would totally buy a Lowrey-Markson cookbook/diet book, though.
LikeLike
Maybe it will include Lowry’s after shave cocktail. (Markson suggests in Reader’s Block that he went out while Lowry was visiting, came home, and Lowry had drunk all of his after shave).
LikeLike
About 30 years ago I read all of Lowry – well, almost all. There was a great used book store on South Street in Philly. The Book Trader. I especially remember another one on sailing across the ocean with his wife on a freighter. The storm was so terrible, the engines were in emergency, the crew was working on them, and his sife never became aware of their danger and went about happily inspiring all the crew to save her. Rosebud wasn’t her name, but some whimsical name I can’t remember.
LikeLike