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

As the story goes, Don Quixote has read too many books about knights and experiences the world through the eyes of a valiant soldier. He is a hero and a fool. He is, simply speaking, insane. When Don Quixote encounters windmills, he sees giants and attacks them as any good knight would. As his

16th century (renaissance) literature, Epic, Funny, Hallucinatory, Huge, Layered, Parody, Pioneering, Playful

In July of 1883, an average middle-class Jewish family in an average suburb of Prague (then in Austria) ushered into the average world a new creature: Franz Kafka. He would never forgive them for this unnatural act of torture. Franz kept his neurosis quietly to himself throughout his childhood, r

Absurd, Anxiety, Dreamy, Dystopic, Existentialist literature, Hallucinatory, Hypnotic, Intense, Modernist literature, Neurotic, Profane

Salvador Dali was half-artist, half-imp, and all lunatic. Heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud's theories of dream interpretations and the subconscious, Dali sought to depict not visible objects but their associated images and subconscious meanings. For Dali, the life of the mind was life itself, and

Biomorphic, Death, Distorted, Dreamy, Excessive, Grotesque, Hallucinatory, Surrealist art, Surrealist literature, Surrealist poetry