PURSUED BY THE FURIES

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32903, 29 April 1972, Page 10

PURSUED BY THE FURIES

October Ferry to Gabriola. By Malcolm Lowry. Cape. 336 pp.

When Malcolm Lowry died suddenly in 1957 at the age of forty-eight, the novel under review was still in draft form, and the task of editing the manuscript with its various versions of chapters, paragraphs and sentences was left to his wire, Marjorie, to complete. This has now been done, and although, as she makes clear in her note at the end of the book, Lowry had intended to develop certain themes more fully, the novel is essentially complete. It is a work of remarkable imaginative power, conveying not only a tangible sense of a private hell of guilt, with its fears and obsessions and moments of black comedy, but of heaven also, in a vision of man living in elemental harmony with the natural world.

Ethan Llewelyn is a famous criminal lawyer who, from disillusionment with his practice has retired prematurely. When the novel opens he and his wife Jacqueline are on their way to the island of Gabriola, in British Columbia, to begin a new life. Looking out at the landscape from the window of the bus, Ethan recalls his past life and the feelings of guilt and damnation that have oppressed ft. Blaming himself for the suicide, many years ago, of a young student friend, he superstitiously believes himself pursued by the Furies,

and sees portents of doom everywhere. There are strange occurrences: a mysterious fire destroys his family home and all his possessions and is followed by such a succession of fires and electric storms in the neighbourhood that Ethan begins to think that they could be "psychic” in origin, projected by his own hatred of himself. If guilt is a relentless pursuer, so, in the external world, are the forces of material progress. The Llewelyns’ first home, chosen for its semi-rural qualities, is soon encroached upon by building developments, and the lake near their second home leaves a metallic taste in the mouth after swimming. There is a brief idyllic period at Eridanus Inlet, a tract of virgin wilderness inhabited by a few fishermen. The Llewelyns live a life of primitive austerity in a cabin on the edge of the water. Ethan learns to use his hands and becomes sensitive to the movement of the tides and to the rhythm of the lives of bird and beast He is, in fact, a modem Thoreau, testing for himself the validity of the simple life. But here again progress encroaches in the ominous form of a glittering oil refinery, and a plan to "develop” a national park at Eridanus. Once again there is a retreat, this time to an apartment in Vancouver; and then, finally the couple set out on what they hope will prove to be the turningpoint of their lives: the journey to Gabriola. Although the reader is not certain until almost the end of the book whether or not they will finally get there, the significant event seems not so much the arrival as an encounter which Ethan has on the ferry with a wise and humble old priest The priest is yet another of Ethan’s “messengers” or portents, but this time a positive one, suggesting that he may be within sight of breaking free from the closed circuit of his guilt One of the impressive things about this novel is the way in which Lowry builds image upon image, investing them with the resonance of symbols. One remembers, for instance, the great' logs battering relentlessly at full tide against the piles of the little cabin at Eridanus, or the haunting reappearances of an advertisement associated with Ethan’s guilt "Mother Gettle’s Kettle-simmered Soup, M’mm, G00d,.” There is, too, a wonderful feeling for place, and a sensitivity to objects which —in the descriptions of houses for instance—borders on the animistic. One is grateful for the publication of this novel, which must surely take its place beside “Under the Volcano” as one of Lowry’s major works.