Meandering thoughts on life's futility

In the wake of World War Two, a wealthy couple, accompanied by a male friend, embark on a journey deep into the desert. As they venture further, they encounter a series of disgusting experiences one after another. None of the characters seem to possess an ounce of empathy. The harsh and unrelenting sameness of the vast desert landscape only serves to exacerbate their already dismal outlook on life. These American expatriates, in search of places untouched by the ravages of war, believe they have found their haven. However, instead of the idyllic paradise they envisioned, they are confronted with squalor, disease, and cruelty. The once-promising adventure now seems like a futile exercise in the face of the harsh realities of life.

Paul Bowles, who was born in New York

This 1949 novel is regarded by the literati as classic literature that reflects "post-colonial alienation and existential despair." (Quote is from Wikipedia.)

Apparently, I don't have an affinity for "existential despair" as I didn't take pleasure in reading this book. I will admit that the writing is of a high quality. It dawned on me while listening to the audio edition that numerous portions of the narrative could be presented as free verse at a modern-day poetry slam and pass as excellent poetry.

However, the story itself is about some American travelers - who don't view themselves as tourists - wandering across the Sahara Desert. I found these characters not only unlikable but also prone to repeatedly and inexplicably making unwise travel decisions. The adventure of the three main characters commences in Morocco and then progresses into French Algeria. In the end, the female character hitches a ride with a camel caravan to Sudan, seems not to mind serving as a sex slave to a wealthy merchant, and at the conclusion appears borderline incoherent when returned to civilization.

Many readers at the time of this book's publication seemingly considered the deserts of French colonial North Africa to be a romantic setting for such a story. However, the subsequent history of that area, in particular, and the Muslim world, in general, has wiped away any romantic associations in my mind.

Why is it that exquisite writing elaborating a depressed outlook on life by bored characters is regarded as literature that offers an insight into post-war 20th-century life? I must not be depressed enough to appreciate this literature.

The following are some excerpts from a review written by Tennessee Williams and published in the New York Times in December 1949.

... "The Sheltering Sky" alone of the books that I have recently read by American authors appears to bear the spiritual imprint of recent history in the western world. Here the imprint is not visible upon the surface of the novel. It exists far more significantly in a certain philosophical aura that envelopes it.

There is a curiously double level to this novel. The surface is enthralling as narrative. It is impressive as writing. But above that surface is the aura that I spoke of, intangible and powerful, bringing to mind one of those clouds that you have seen in summer, close to the horizon and dark in color and now and then silently pulsing with interior flashes of fire. And that is the surface of the novel that has filled me with such excitement.

.....

In this external aspect, the novel is, therefore, an account of startling adventure. In its interior aspect, "The Sheltering Sky" is an allegory of the spiritual adventure of the fully conscious person into modern experience. This is not an enticing way to describe it. It is a way that might suggest the very opposite kind of a novel from the one that Paul Bowles has written. Actually, this superior motive does not intrude in explicit form upon the story, certainly not in any form that will need to distract you from the great pleasure of being told a first-rate story of adventure by a really first-rate writer.

I suspect that a good many people will read this book and be enthralled by it without once suspecting that it contains a mirror of what is most terrifying and cryptic within the Sahara of moral nihilism, into which the race of man now seems to be wandering blindly.

For myself, I can say that I was not enthralled by the story. And since reading Tennessee Williams' explanation of its deeper meaning, I guess I can also say that the "mirror of what is most terrifying and cryptic within the Sahara of moral nihilism" is not to my taste either.

Rating: A craven, self-preservationistic 2* of five.

BkC8: Tedious twaddle.

When I'm right, I'm right.

The Book Report: Kit and Port Moresby (get the Australia/New Guinea colonial joke, huh? huh? How clever is Paul Bowles, right?) are not gonna make it as a couple. They just aren't. So, in time-honored rich-couple-in-over-relationship fashion, they Travel. They don't take a trip, or a vacation, oh perish forbid, they Travel. North Africa, they think, no one we know will be there so we won't have to confront how little is left of what was a marriage.

So, this being midcentury fiction, while they Travel, they pick up a guy named Tunner who is also Traveling with his Mama. (Code of the day for "he's a fag.") I would say "hijinks ensue," but they really, really don't.

My Review: Tunner and Kit. Tunner and Port. Port and Kit. Find me some sexual heat in any of these variations. G'wan g'wan double-dog dare ya.

Arab as Wily Native. Murrikin as Rich Rube. Okay, been there done that, even in 1949...sixty-three years ago this wasn't an under-used trope, and by now it's a dreary cliche when used without irony or other meta-element to waft away its corpse-like odor.

Books told in dialogue. Really now. Robert Pinget did it better.

So "tedious twaddle" remains my judgment. Gay rights have swept away the shock, shock! of Port and Tunner's implied affair. Kit's a dreary stereotype of the Bored White Woman Seeking Dusky Lover. Whatever value the book still has, it's in the language, which I myownself found very close to intolerably dull and lifeless.

I suppose I have to give this Ambien-between-covers two stars because there will be lynch mobs of admirers outside my door anyway, but if I gave it the 1/2 star I think it actually deserves, there'd be snipers and Inquisitionists too. But god, I feel hypocritical doing it.

Run Away! Run Away! Don't even accept a copy as a gift!

  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

If I were to be unkind, I might describe this book as "bored middle-class people receiving their just deserts." However, considering how much I enjoyed it, I am willing to set aside certain aspects that I disliked and focus on the positives. Firstly, it is beautifully written, with some charming turns of phrase.

"The wind at the window celebrated her dark sensation of having attained a new depth of solitude."

Moreover, the book delves into the bleak realities of existential crisis and the banalities of living in a meaningless universe while deceiving ourselves through a multitude of actions and beliefs. These two elements combine to create a wonderful reading experience that becomes increasingly blunt and unforgiving as we approach the end.

It ostensibly follows Port and his wife Kit as they travel around Algeria. Port is there out of boredom and a desire to escape, while Kit is simply because she is his wife. They have both accepted the fact that they are bored with each other. To make matters worse, their friend Tunner is also traveling with them and clearly has feelings (perhaps only sexual) for Kit. As the story progresses, they continuously move from one town to another, from one desolate landscape to the next, until Port falls ill and Kit, unfazed by his struggles, descends into a downward spiral of madness and brutality. Never has a woman been so heartlessly forced to deal with the consequences of being deprived of the protection of her own civilization.

All in all, this is a book that shows very little sympathy for your loneliness, dreams, hopes, or beliefs. And yet, it is truly magnificent. Here comes reality, here it comes... can you feel it?

"I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus. It would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth."

"And now you know it's not like that. Right? It's more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tastes wonderful, and you don't even think of it ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realise it's nearly burned down to the end. And that's when you're conscious of the bitter taste."

52nd book for 2018.

This is a book that delves into the lives of a wealthy and intellectually pretentious American couple. After the Second World War, they embark on a journey to North Africa with the intention of fully immersing themselves in the local color. However, within just a couple of weeks, their idyllic adventure takes a tragic turn. They遭遇了一系列不幸的事件, including being robbed, gang raped, driven insane, and/or dying from typhoid dysentery.

The writing in this book is quite nice, with some beautiful descriptions of the sand and dust. However, the plot leaves much to be desired. It feels rather thin and lacking in substance. Additionally, there are elements that could be considered misogynistic. The ending, in particular, seems rather tacked on and not fully developed.

Overall, I would rate this book as 3 stars. It has its moments of beauty and interest, but also has several flaws that prevent it from being a truly great work.

Superficially, an adventure in the Sahara Desert can be read as such; but that is only the pretext that Bowles uses to pose to us the true story he wants to tell: an adventure in the intimate desert of a marriage.

In the midst of the vast Sahara Desert, we follow an American couple, Port and Kit Moresby, whose seemingly idyllic journey turns into an odyssey of confrontation with the unknown. It is a passionate reflection on death, solitude, dependence (physical and emotional), and the loss of control of oneself. Indispensable.

As the quote says, “La muerte está siempre en camino, pero el hecho de que no sepamos cuándo llega parece suprimir la finitud de la vida. Lo que tanto odiamos es esa precisión terrible. Pero como no sabemos, llegamos a pensar que la vida es un pozo inagotable. Sin embargo, todas las cosas ocurren solo un cierto número de veces, en realidad muy pocas.” This makes us realize that life is finite and that we should cherish every moment. We often take things for granted, thinking that there will always be more time. But in reality, the number of times we can experience certain things is limited.

For example, how many times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is such an integral part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Maybe four or five times more. Maybe not even that. And how many more times will you see the full moon rise? Maybe twenty. Yet, everything seems unlimited. This shows that we should be more aware of the preciousness of life and not waste our time on unimportant things.

I have a partiality for non-American settings. Additionally, I am particularly fond of Jennifer Connelly's dangerously seductive audiobook reading of this renowned novel. It is the very first work I have read by Paul Bowles, and it faintly reminded me of Woman in the Dunes. However, I had a preference for the simplicity of that particular work.

Undoubtedly, it is a psychological piece, boasting well-written narration. Nevertheless, I was not overly influenced by the struggles of its characters. Perhaps I am alone in this regard, but many of their actions and choices seemed avoidable to me.

Certainly, I will read more of Bowles' works. Nevertheless, I would not classify Sheltering Sky as an absolute must-read. It has a remarkable sense of place, rhythmic prose, and several astonishing moments of epiphany - one could even argue that there are a few too many. In a certain sense, it felt somewhat forced, yet it managed to captivate my imagination. In the end, Hemingway was more successful in handling the character issues and the war-torn atmosphere in his works. Nonetheless, this is an above-average and memorable tale.

Paul Bowles' masterpiece, "The Sheltering Sky", is a profound and captivating work that truly leaves a lasting impression.

“How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.” This quote by Bowles sets the tone for the entire novel, emphasizing the insignificance of humanity in the face of the vast and unknown.

The story reminds me of an alternate, trippy version of Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night", but with a different setting. Instead of the South of France, we are taken to Tangier and the deserts of North Africa. Here, a different love triangle unfolds, exposing different forms of loneliness, madness, love, and the existential crisis of expats.

What I truly love about Bowles is his ability to bring a composer's mind to writing. His novel is not driven by a strong plot or attractive characters. Instead, it is the music of his language that pushes and pulls, tugs and compels the reader forward. The prose is so hypnotic that it feels as if you are floating limp and languid, being washed over by his sentences and slowly drifted toward the inevitable end.

Most days, I don't feel the need to read a book twice. However, "The Sheltering Sky" might just be an exception. It is a book that demands to be read and re-read, to fully appreciate the depth and beauty of Bowles' writing.

Shivering in the antarctic morality of The Delicate Prey, I find myself constantly needled by the desire to reread TSS. I wonder if I would still care as little for it today as I did over a dozen years ago when I first read it. Back then, I approached it with considerable anticipation, having read several glowing reviews, especially from posters I had liked on the usenet staple rec.arts.books. However, the disappointment that Bowles caused in me was overwhelming. The narrative felt too distant, the Yank characters' fates left me completely indifferent. The crepuscular rendezvous with the Moroccan courtesan was as passionless and pointless as a mummy's embrace. The portentous trip through the Atlas mountains had some beautiful descriptive writing, but then came the endless, inhospitable desert and the severe tribesmen like grains of sand. The sudden death of the male, the despair and nicking of the female, the endless scream therapy and the protestations of a privileged western civilization ignorant of the implacable and alien will of the savages aka nature aka the Unknown. I had expected so much more than what I felt was delivered, and I actually threw the book aside with about fifty pages left.

I always feel guilty when I don't like a work that is considered a classic, especially when I abandon it before the end. Doubtless, this is related to the "starving kids in India" lectures my parents used to give me at the dinner table. I inherently wonder what the fault lies within me rather than in the book itself. This is the case with TSS. I do plan to read it again in the future, spurred on by both the continued praise it receives from people whose opinions I respect and the pleasure I've derived from his excellent short stories.

A desert landscape is always more beautiful in the semi-darkness of dawn or dusk. There is no sense of distance: a nearby crest could be that of a distant mountain, and every detail, no matter how small, can acquire the importance of a major variation on the repetitive theme of the field. The arrival of day promises a change; only when the day fully breaks does the observer suspect that it is the same day returning once more – the same day that has long been lived, always and always, with the same blinding and purified light by time. Kit took a deep breath, looked around at the soft line of the small dunes, at the vast and pure light rising behind the mineral rim of the hammada, at the forest of palm trees still immersed in the night, and knew that it was not the same day. Even when it was fully filled with light, even when the huge sun rose and the sand, the trees, and the sky gradually acquired their usual daytime appearance, she had no doubts that despite all this, there was a new day, absolutely unique.

And Port had said: “Death is always on the way, but the fact that we don't know when it will arrive seems to distance the finite nature of life. It is that terrible precision that we hate so much. But, since we don't know, we think that life is an inexhaustible well. However, everything happens only a certain number of times, in fact a very small number. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is, so deeply, a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five more times. Perhaps not even that many. How many more times will you contemplate the full moon rising? Perhaps twenty. And yet, everything seems limitless.”

“How fragile we are under the sheltering sky. Behind the sheltering sky is a vast dark universe, and we're just so small.”

“When I was young” … “Before I was twenty, I mean, I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus, it would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth” – she hesitated.

Port laughed abruptly. – “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tasted wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.”

I really cannot figure out why there are so many high star reviews for this book.

To me, it is worse than bad Hemingway. The writing style is just not engaging at all.

The story seems to drag on and on, and I find myself constantly losing interest.

I gave up after 100 pages because I simply could not take it anymore.

I expected much more from a book with such high ratings, but it has been a huge disappointment.

I would not recommend this book to anyone, especially those who are looking for a well-written and captivating read.

Maybe I'm just not the right audience for this book, but based on my experience, I would say it is not worth the hype.

I hope that other readers will have a better experience than I did, but I seriously doubt it.