Their casual, veiled conversations, wandering soul searchings, are highlighted against the Mexican setting, and the effect, sometimes with a brilliance, is a delirium of phantoms. Through the three central characters, there is the Joycean outpour of consciousness, a diarrhoeatic total recall, in the search for the cause of their rejection of life, in their rationalization of their self-portraits, in their knowledge of their griefs, despairs, bewilderment. In futile altercation with the local police, Geoffrey is killed. Yvonne's return, just as Hugh is leaving, brings about a new high in Geoffrey's drinking, and a new low in his hangovers. She leaves to get a divorce, while Geoffrey finds sympathetic cronies and old friends to accompany him from one binge to another. Geoffrey Firmin's crowded life the world around slowly cracks through drink not even his marriage to Yvonne, loyal but loved by his step-brother, Hugh, can save him. Here's another alcoholic nightmare told against a thoroughly knowledgeable background of Mexico, the people and the customs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |