1. MARCO TEÓRICO
1.2. Gestión integral de residuos sólidos (GIRS)
1. - Henry James, 'P r e f a c e '. The P o r t r a it o f a Lady (Harmondsworth,
1972
) , p . x i i i .2. - See h is a n a ly s is o f Chapter Ten in h is l e t t e r to Cape: 'th e constant r e p e t it io n o f churrigueresque " o f an overloaded s t y l e " seemed t o be a suggestion th at the book was s a t ir iz in g i t s e l f ' .
Malcolm Lowry, S elected L e tte rs (London, 1967),p .82. 3. - The idea o f h is modern Dante-esque t r i l o g y , and then o f his 'P ro u s tia n ' n ovel sequence dominated much time in Lowry's thoughts. For a f u l l e r a n alysis o f the two p r o je c ts see Douglas Day, Malcolm Lowry: A Biography (London, 1974), e s p e c ia lly pp.425-8, and David M ille r , Malcolm Lowry and The Voyage That Never Ends (London,
WZT.
4. - Conrad Knickerbocker, 'Malcolm Lowry and the Outer C ir c le o f H e l l ', in Lunar C a u stic, ed ited by Earle Birney and Margerie Bonner Lowry (London, 1968) , p . 7.
5. - David Markson, Malcolm Lowry's Volcano: Myth, Symbol. Meaning (New York, 1978), p .
6
.6
. - See Dale Edmonds.'Under the Volcano: A f a d i n g o f the "immediate L w v e l'" . Tulane Studies in E n glish . 16 (1968). 7. - Stephen T i f f t , i n h is 'Tragedy as a M editation on I t s e l f :R efle x iv e n e s s in Under the Volcano' in The Art o f Malcolm Lowry. e d ite d by Anne ^mith (London, 1978)^
speaks o f 'th e b a sic t r a g ic shape o f Under the V olcano' and then proposes t o o u tlin e ways o f d iscern in g 'the n o v e l's e s s e n tia l t r a g ic p r i n c i p l e '( p .
46
) .I would rather lik e to put forward the id ea that Lowry manipulates the p o t e n t ia lit ie s o f tragedy as su its him in an o rg a n is a tio n a l context rath er than deem his n ovel to simply be a tra ged y. In his l e t t e r to Cape Lowry w rites that his book can be regarded, amongst o th er th in g s , as 'h ot music, a poem, a song, a tra ged y, a comedy, a fa r c e , and so fo rth * - see S elected L e t t e r s , p .
66
. Moreover, in the garden, the Consul h im self seems 'aw are' that the notion o f 'c l a s s i c a l ' tragedy has, in some way, to be reduced, when he makes the pun: 'K atabasis t o cata b y s s e s '(
140
) , im plying a ls o , perhaps, a lo s s o f ca th a rsis.8
. - Maloolm Lowry, Lunar C a u stic. e d ite d by Earle B im ey and M argerie Bonner Lowry (London, 1968), p.57.H i
7 *
1C.
Whether or not the Consul ijs a black magician i s a question again l e f t unanswered, y e t the am biguity once more a ffo rd s Lowry the opportunity o f suggesting fu rth e r la te n t stru ctu res in h is n o v e l which the in d iv id u a l reader may lik e to exp lore in terms o f referen ce to the o c c u lt. For an examination o f some o f the p o s s ib ilit ie s which become apparent i f we regard the Consul as a black magician see The Tarot and Labyrinths below.
See B etty R adice, ¡1 ho's Who in the Ancient World: A Handbook to the Survivors o f Creek and Roman C la s s ic s
( Harmondsworth,
1973
) , p.179.11. - Radice informs us that once A p o llo had given Orpheus a lu te 'he was able to charm w ild beasts and make rocks and tre e s m o v e '(ib id ., p .
17 9
)* In a sense then, in terms o f the above Orphic comparison, Hugh could be said to also b rin g about Yvonne's death f o r , once he acquires his g u it a r (lu t e ) a w ild animal (th e horse) i s drawn towards him, and the lo g ( t r e e ) on which Yvonne stands i s made to'move' as she f a l l s and i s subsequently tram pled. 12. - See Malcolm Lowry, S elected L e t t e r s , p.65.
( i n his Malcolm Lowry's V o lca n o . Markson p a r a lle ls the tw elve labours with events in Under the Volcano. p p .91-95.) 13« - A f u l l , i f sometimes o v e r-in d u lg e n t, a n a lysis o f Under the Volcano's c a b b a lis tic p o s s i b i l i t i e s , as w e ll as a general ou tlin e o f the h is to r y and stru ctu re o f the Cabbala i t s e l f , i s provided by P e rle S. E pstein in her ' The P r iv a te
Labyrinth o f Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano and the Cabbala (New York. 1969).
14. - The Consul's 'p o s s ib le ' act o f murder o f the German submarine o f f i c e r s on the s . s . Samaritan i s thus given a kind o f p ossib le revenge when he is k il l e d by pro-N azis in the F a r o lit o .
THE TAROT
How can I t e l l about i t now that I have lo s t my power o f speech, words, perhaps a ls o memory, hew can I t e l l what was there o u ts id e ; and once I have remembered, how can I fin d the words to say i t , and how can I u tte r those words? We are a l l t r y in g to exp lain
something to the others w ith gestu res,
grim aces, a l l o f us l ik e monkeys. Thank Sod, th ere are these cards, here on the t a b le , a deck o f ta ro ts . . .
C alvin o, The Castle o f Crossed D e s tin ie s .
When I in terview ed M argerie Lowry I asked her about Lowry's in t e r e s t in the whole f i e l d o f magic, n ysticism and the o c c u lt.^ She was, I think r i g h t ly , relu ota n t to accept a
c a b b a lis t ic a lly dominated reading o f the Volcano although'was quick to concede th at Lowry had become in c re a s in g ly fa s c in a te d by the o c c u lt as a means o f p rovid in g his n ovel with y e t a fu r th e r type o f 'ordering system' (n\y w ord s). In h is l e t t e r to Jonathan Cape Lowry makes a r e fe r e n c e , w ith regard to Chapter Seven o f h is book,
2
to 's t r a y cards from the Tarot p a c k ', arri I asked Mrs. Lowry i f her husband had in fa c t been an avid student o f the Tarot? She r e p lie d that he d id possess a pack o f cards, which she k in d ly showed me, as w e ll as one or two books on the su b ject.
From the evidence o f Under the Volcano alone i t would appear th at Lowry’ s fa s c in a tio n w ith the C a b b a listic Tree o f L if e would in e v ita b ly lead him on to some kind o f examination o f th* r o le the Tarot might also p e r tin e n tly play in his n o v e l in that 'th e 22 Tarot trumps . . . correspond to the 22 paths o f the Quab- a l i s t i o T r e e '.^ Lowry's num erological awareness o f twenty-two as the number o f paths o f both the Tree and the Tarot cards to which they r e la t e becomes o b liq u e ly demonstrated when Hugh traverses a path he and Yvonne had rid d en down e a r l i e r in the day, 'though th ere were twenty-one oth er paths they might have ta k e n '(2 3 9 ). Kathleen Haine w ritin g o f Yeats notes th at h is 'a llu s io n s to c e rta in Tarot symbols - Tower, Wheel, Magician, Chariot - are bound to s trik e anyone who has played at fo r t u n e - t e llin g w ith Madame S o s o s tr is ' "wicked pack o f c a r d s " . L o w r y was f a m ilia r with the w ritin g s o f both E lio t (th e Volcano borrows much more from The Waste Land than sim ply i t s Tarot r e fe r e n c e s ) and Yeats (one o f h is bed-side
c
books was A V is io n ) : furtherm ore, h is own p r e d ilic t io n fo r concepts and symbols such as the P o o l, the Hanged Man, the Magician
Death, the Wheel, the Tower, the L o v e rs ,e tc . betrays d e f in it e Tarot borrow ings. Raine, w ritin g o f Y e a ts ' Tarot in t e r e s t s , explains that
The C entral Teaching o f the Golden Dawn was Cabbalism (e s p e c ia lly the C h ristian cabbalism o f Dee and Agrippa) w ith i t s numerology and complex system o f correspondences based on the diagram o f the Tree o f L i f e ; the Tarot was used in t h is sense, according to Eliphas L e v i's v ie w that these cards rep resen t the Tree o f L i f e in a p ic t o r ia l form . °
For Lowry, and h is overwhelming obsession with symbols, an y form o f 'p i c t o r i a l ' represen tation o f a u sefu l symbol would undoubtedly be worth pursuing, e s p e c ia lly , as is the case with the T a ro t, i f the a n te rio r rep resen ta tio n c a rried with i t a host o f icon ograp h ical meanings. A lso , in the sense in which i t might be d i f f i c u l t , in a work o f f i c t i o n at le a s t , to p rovid e adequate 'v is u a l' imagery fo r e s o te ric m agical and m ystical concepts,the Tarot cards o f f e r a ready-made constant actin g as a s t a b ilis in g fa c to r when th ey are returned t o again and again, a l b e i t in varyin g con texts. For example, even without T a r o t is t ic r e fe re n c e , L aru elle might ju s t be regarded as a sort o f hermit though i f we place the Hermit card 's asso cia tio n s on h is shoulders some o f his actio n s and the way he is described become c l a r i f i e d w ith in a la rg e r framework or p a tte rn . A sim ila r p r in c ip le a p p lies in an even more re v e a lin g way to the Consul in th a t he can be p r o fit a b ly compared w ith characters and situ ation s from maty d iffe r e n t cards.
Numerology, Tarot 'games' and fortune t e l l i n g , once a basic Tarot connection has been e s ta b lis h e d , allow Lowry the
p o s s i b i l i t y o f en largin g h is te x t in to even more speculating, t e r r i t o r y . He was p a r t ic u la r ly fond (a s I hope most o f th is study w i l l dem onstrate) o f con stru ctin g vast su per-stru ctu res o f
correspondences which possess only t e n t a t iv e , or as is the case with the T a rot, almost d isgu ised foundations in the actu al body o f the book. A T a r o t is t io a n a lysis o f Under the Volcano must be made without the c it a t io n o f even a s in g le d ir e c t referen ce to the word
'T a r o t ' in the e n t ir e n o v e l. For seriou s Tarot scholars the world in some way 'r e l a t e s ' to the system portrayed on the various cards though the w orld i t s e l f is la r g e ly unaware o f th a t r e la t io n sh ip; a s im ila r m ystical c o r r e la tio n perhaps a p p lies to the T a ro t's r e la tio n s h ip to the w orld o f Under the V olcano.
E llen McDaniel, w ritin g o f John Fow les' novel The Magus. begins h er T a r o t is t ic an a lysis by d iscu ssin g 'a rc h e ty p a l questfs)' common to much lit e r a t u r e o f a l l ages; she c i t e s , in an example p ertin en t to Under the Volcano, that 'Dante . . . in h is quest, must descend t o con fron t a l l the demons and monsters o f h is t o r y '.^ A b asic quest stru ctu re informs both Low ry's n ovel and the pattern in which the Tarot cards are la id out which i s th at o f a fig u r e 8 on i t s s id e , or the mathematical symbol o f i n f i n i t y .
McDaniel p o s its Nicholas U rfe , the hero (o r a n ti-h e ro ) o f Fow les' n ovel as the Tarot F o o l, i t s p r in c ip a l fig u r e 'who must t r a v e l th e c ir c u it o f the cards through a c a lib ra te d progression
0
out o f ignorance and f r i v o l i t y in to en ligh ten m en t'. In terms o f Under the Volcano the Consul too can be favou rably compared with the Fool (s e e b elow ) y e t th is is not his on ly Tarot r o le (i n The Magus Conohis assumes the guise o f the Black Magician w h ils t in Under the
Volcano Firmin i s both F o o l and Black M agician ). (S im ila r ly , in terms o f a Dante-esque comparison, Firm in does not simply become the Dante o f the Modem In fe rn o but a ls o mapy o f the fig u r e s encountered 'en r o u t e '. ) Moreover, the 'c a lib r a te d p ro g ressio n ' o f which McDaniel speaks i s a ls o , with one possible notable exception (see b elow ), l a r g e l y ignored by Lowry. In the Volcano Tarot images drawn from va rio u s phases and stages o f i t s im plied