Everything you need to understand or teach The Forest Path to the Spring and October Ferry to Gabriola by Malcolm Lowry.
Lowry's real subject is the war which Nature wins over nature, the triumph of the discovered correspondence between elemental forces, the eviction of the individual from his/her spiritual roots, and humankind's abiding but muted selflessness. His entire thrust in The Forest Path to the Spring is summed up by something akin to Thoreau's acknowledgement that his life before Walden had been a sham. Lowry apologizes for the "mere heroics" and "vain gestures...