The context for Malcolm Lowry's masterpiece, "Under the Volcano," is simple: a single day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin. It happens to be his last. The place is Quauhnahuac, Mexico, the day the Day of the Dead. As the locals celebrate the souls of the deceased, Firmin (also known as "the Consul"), h

Death, Dense, Euphoric, Hallucinatory, Modernist literature, Sprawling, Tragic

Poe once wrote that all worldly things contain "the germ of their inevitable annihilation." Pretty cheerful stuff -- clearly this was a man obsessed with ruin and with death. His characters typically suffer from various forms of mental and physical deterioration; their minds seem to have a predilecti

Anxiety, Dark, Death, Gothic fiction, Grotesque, Intense, Lyrical, Sublime, Symbolist poetry, Violent

At age 12, Franz Liszt performed a rendition of Beethoven's "Symphony in C-minor" as the master composer sat in the audience. Legend has it that after the superb performance, the great maestro kissed the juvenile Liszt on the forehead. Liszt's future as the most brilliant of pianists seemed to be sea

Death, Dramatic, Eclectic, Moody, Organic, Religious, Romantic music

Graham Swift seems to have little in common with his literary contemporaries. While most writers these days spatter their novels with pop culture references and play with distortions of time and narrative, Swift sets his books in a nineteenth-century context and tells good old-fashioned stories. He

Contemplative, Death, Dramatic, Paranoid, Tragic