Have been away visiting friends and family 'up north' for the past week and a half or so. Visited the The Bluecoat in Liverpool, where I haven't been for years, and saw a nice exhibition of the life and work of Malcolm Lowry and of the artists his work has inspired. I'm ashamed to say I had never before heard of Lowry but he is apparently quite famous, was born in Wallasey (a triumph in itself), lived in Mexico and Canada, was an alcoholic, and checked himself voluntarily into Bellevue psychiatric hospital in New York in 1935. He's best known for his novel Under the Volcano (1947). A lot of the art work displayed evokes the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations (apparently a key setting for the novel - which I will now endeavor to read; although another of his novels, Lunar Caustic (1958) also sounds good, as it draws on his experiences at Bellevue). liked the telegrams dotted throughout the exhibition giving details of Lowry's adventures between Mexico, the US and Canada in the late 1930s, and Brian O'Toole's pen and ink cartoons.
Off to Berlin for a month on Wednesday - Cannot wait!
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