Literature > Conrad Aiken

"I have lived only nineteen years and all of them more or less badly," wrote a young Malcom Lowry to Conrad Aiken, twenty years his senior. Further correspondence cemented a fast friendship (and rivalry) between the two; Aiken later acted in loco parentis for Lowry, whose early (and self-confessedly "parasitic") novel Ultramarine was heavily influenced by, and named in parody of, Aiken's Blue Voyage. For his part, Aiken had suggested the novel be titled Purple Passage.

Above: Conrad Aiken. Photo: Brown Brothers.

Aiken referred to Under the Volcano as Poppagetsthebotl, alluding to both the volcano Popacatapetl and the constant theme of alcohol. (Lowry, Letters from Lowry, p. 45).

"'...my-little-Oedipusspusspuss,' and the cat, recognizing a friend and uttering a cry of pleasure, wound through the fence and rubbed against the Consul's legs, purring." UTV, 138.

Lowry's cat puns ("Priapusspuss"; "Oedipusspusspuss") are a tribute to Aiken, who liked both cats and puns – Aiken's cat, for example, was named Oedipus Simplex.

'poor old Oedipuss died the very day you left apparently, he'd already been thrown down the barranca...' UTV, 93.

The fate of poor Oedipuss (Geoffrey has already been identified with the cat's Greek namesake) anticipates that of the Consul.

"We are brothers" ...

"We are son and father" ...

"No, we are rivals!"

– Conrad Aiken's Ushant, 29.

 

Above: Aiken and Lowry in the Alhambra gardens, 1933.