\s mYevtew KALEIDOSCOPE - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWd'ailleurs marquera-t-il un tournant dansl'oeuvre de Dalpé? Rest à voir comments'orientera la verve de ce jeune poète,qui parle avec un fort accent de vérité.INSIDE VOLCANOBERTILLE BEAU LIEUCHRIS ACKERLEY and LAWRENCE J. CLIPPER,A Companion to "Under the Volcano."Univ. of British Columbia Press, $45.00.UNDER THE VOLCANO is an opaque,highly-wrought encyclopedic novel andfrom its opening pages Lowry makes hisfictional terrain seem brilliantly andflamboyantly real, while simultaneouslydefamiliarizing it and underscoring itsliteral foreignness by the introduction ofnumerous Spanish phrases, obscure references,and cryptic allusions. A comprehensivelyannotated guide has been longoverdue, and it must be said at once thatChris Ackerley and Lawrence Clipperhave acquitted themselves superbly.Their Companion is a treasure-house ofriches which makes all previous effortsin this field look decidedly superficial.The authors provide well over 1,500notes covering some 5,000 specific pointsof reference or allusion; each note ismatched to the relevant page numbers ofthe Penguin paperback and standardhardback editions.The researches of Ackerley and Clipperare impressive in scope. They haverummaged dutifully among the oddjumble of often arcane and unreadablebooks which cluttered Lowry's mentaluniverse; they have scrutinized everythingimaginable, from the papers of theState Department to early ordnance surveymaps of Wales; they have consultedwaiters in Vera Cruz and explored cemeteriesin Ontario. The Companion coversa diverse range of material, which includesliterary, historical and anthropologicalallusions, foreign words andphrases, drinks, the geography — bothreal and imagined — of Lowry's Mexico,New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London,and Granada; in short, just about anythingand everything that could possiblypuzzle or interest the reader about thenovel, from the history of dehydratedonion factories in the United States toMozart quartets. Having myself longbeen puzzled — among numerous otheritems —• by Lowry's references to Jull(286.2) and Euzkadi (325.1), I hastenedto the appropriate entries in the Companionand found them interesting andhelpful.It's significant that this study is entitleda Companion to Under the Volcanorather than, as was apparently originallyintended, a Guide. Guides can becold and formal, whereas companionsare, if you are lucky, altogether warmercreatures. Ackerley and Clipper's volumefully lives up to its title and offers not adry-as-dust pedantic inventory of referencesbut a lively spirited commentarywhich one suspects would have wonLowry's own delighted approval. Readerscurious about okoolihao (260.3) will beinterested to learn not only this drink'sconstituents but also that the name "derivesfrom a Hawaiian name meaning'iron buttocks'." The authors have amania for detail equal to Lowry's, thoughat times their pursuit of verisimilituderisks the charge of extravagant irrelevance.Their triumphant discovery thatYvonne's father could not have beenAmerican consul to Iquique during theFirst World War because the consulatethere closed for five years on 31 March1915 does rather seem beside the point.Ackerley and Clipper correct the abundantmisprints of the Penguin edition aswell as Lowry's misspellings and errors ofgrammar, though regrettably the Companionis not without its own quota ofminor errors and printing slips ("Bole-157