Sursum Corda!: The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry, Volume 1: 1926–46 ed. by Sherrill E. Grace (review)

366 LETTERS IN CANADA 1995 setting m the wood. The placmg of the opera in the overall context of Britten's concern with the world of night, sleep, and dreams also supplies a helpful additional level of understanding. The chapters on the music frequently make demands beyond the competence of the general reader. One needs the, full score at hand to work through some passages adequately. The discussion of the distinction between 'tonality set' and 'tone row' requires a certain degree of musical sophistication to appreciate it fully. When Godsalve develops some of his own ideas, his writing acquires an edge which gives it interest and energy. All too often, however, as in chapter 6 ('Implications of the Use of Music'), the edge becomes blunted through dutiful citing of authorities whether on music in general- Langer, Kerman, etc. - or on some particular aspect, e.g. Copland on film music. Such a tactic is perhaps inevitable in a dissertation but quickly becomes wearisome in a book allegedly aimed at the general reading public. The readership of this study will necessarily remain small, but that doesn't diminish its overall usefulness as a reference work and as an examination of creative processes. (ERIC DOMVILLE) Sherrill E. Grace, editor. Sursum Corda!: The Collected Letters ofMalcolm LownJ, Volume 1: 1926-46 University of Toronto Press. xliv, 690 . $49.95 This edition of Malcolm Lowry's collected letters is an event not only for Lowry scholars but for readers of modern literature or of letters generally. Unlike the correspondence of, say, Faulkner, Lowry's letters are of interest in their own right, living writing that exhibits the Lowry voice in all its variety of tones, moods, and 'design-governing postures,' by turns witty, needy, self-mocking, desperate, defensive, ironic, exculpatory, whimsical, erudite, ingratiating. As in everything else he put pen to, there is no firm line in Lowry's letters between life and literature: a 'private' letter was also a potential literary document and might (and often demonstrably did) go through one or more drafts beforebeing released to the post. He was hardly less self-conscious than his own version of Edgar Allan Poe in 'Strange Comfort Afforded by the Profession,' writing to John Allan at the 'very moment of what he conceived to be his greatest need,' and all the while feeling 'a certain reluctance, perhaps, to send what he wrote, as if he were thinking: Damn it, I could use some of that, it may not be so hot, but it is at least too good to waste on my foster father.' Sursum Corda! reveals that the letter in that story the Lowry stand-in, Sigb0rn Wilderness, has written in 1939 tohls father's lawyer (one 'Mr. Von Bosch'!) is apparently not a letter from Malcolm Lowry to lawyer BenjaminParks, butit also enables us to see HUMANITIES 367 how Lowry uses ~some of that,' echoes of acfual surviving letters to Parks (and others) in creating his fictional one. Yet readers not especially interested in looking for particular connections and distinctions between Lowry's life and work may still find themselves compelled by the engaged and engaging articulationofa life dramatic (and, always, dramatized) even when little in the usual sense seems to be happening. A good deal did happen to Lowry, none ofwhich loses anything in his retelling, for even here it is caught up in the fictionalizing he made of existence, the 'Lowry myth' he wove out of events and that he never simply wrote into rus stories and novels, yet drew from for all of them. Dark, desperate, full of meaningful peril and malign forces, the evolving Lowry story here is also full of wit and self-deprecation, of great sensitivity to environment, constant and perceptive comment on writers and writing, enonnous emotional need, and, everywhere, an eloquence that is rare in modem correspondence. Take, for example, a letter to his beloved (later to be wife) Margerie Bonner written in September 1939. Separated from her by hundreds of miles, literally on the eve of the declaratIon of war~ Lowry compares their situation to that of those caught in the conflict: War is being declared to-morrow here so perhaps you can understand...