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“It’s really the shakes that make this kind of life insupportable. But they will stop: I was only drinking enough so they would. Just the necessary, the therapeutic drink.” Yvonne looked back at him. “…but the shakes are the worst of course,” he was going on. “You get to like the other after a while, and I’m really doing very well, I’m much better than I was six months ago, very much better than I was, say, in Oaxaca”—noticing a curious familiar glare in his eyes that always frightened her, a glare turned inward now…and she felt a sudden dread lest this glare, as of old, should swing outward, turn upon her.
…
“…look at that sunlight there, ah, then perhaps you’ll get the answer, see, look at the way it falls through the window: what beauty can compare to that of a cantina in the early morning? Your volcanoes outside? …but think of all the other terrible ones where people go mad that will soon be taking down their shutters, for not even the gates of heaven, opening wide to receive me, could fill me with such celestial complicated and hopeless joy as the iron screen that rolls up with a crash, as the unpadlocked jostling jalousies which admit those whose souls tremble with the drinks they carry unsteadily to their lips. All mystery, all hope, all disappointment, yes, all disaster, is here, beyond those swinging doors.
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NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA DOCUMENTARY ABOUT MALCOLM LOWRY
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A REALLY WELL DESIGNED HYPERTEXT COMPANION WEBSITE FOR THE NOVEL
"...the name on the trembling, offered, and rejected cigarette package struck her: Alas!" – UTV, 52.
A cheap brand of cigarette, the name of which means "Wings"; cigarettes are an image, throughout the novel, of humanity's bent to consume itself as quickly as possible (105).
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