by Pa Rock
Reader
Paul Bowles didn't write his first novel, The Sheltering Sky, until he was thirty-eight years old, but by that time he was a successful music composer, poet, essayist, and world traveler who was well known among the American expats of Paris and Berlin, as well as the most notable writers of the "Beat Generation" in the United States.
Christopher Isherwood was so taken with Bowles that he gave his surname to his most famous fictional Berlin character, the cabaret singer Sally Bowles. Gertrude Stein, whom Paul Bowles met in Paris when he was twenty, encouraged him to travel to Northern Africa, which he did - and he fell in love with the Sahara and its environs and lived in Morocco for more than four decades. William S. Burroughs, a fellow resident of Tangier, was one of his many close friends.
Bowles, a native of New York City, was living in Tangier, Morocco, in 1949 when he penned that first novel, a work that the American publisher, Doubleday, had given him a cash advance to write. Doubleday did not like the finished product and demanded that he return the advance, but Bowles soon found another publisher. By January 1st, 1950, The Sheltering Sky had made its way onto The New York Times best-seller list along with a review by Tennessee Williams which was steeped in heavy praise.
The Sheltering Sky tells the fictional tale of three wealthy young Americans who are traveling together in Algeria without a set plan. Port and Kit Moresby are a married couple and their friend Tunner, who has a romantic inclination toward Kit, is traveling with them. They go by car and bus and train - and even produce truck - from one heat-drenched, dust-ladened, fly-infested town to another, with the author describing in great detail that oddities that they discover and the hardships they are forced to endure. The expansive Sahara in a very real sense mirrors their desolate lives as they wander about searching for meaning.
Along the way the three also encounter an older English woman and her adult son who are driving about the desert in a large Mercedes. That couple cross paths with the Moresby's and Tunner on multiple occasions, and their interferences bring about major changes in the lives of the three central characters. One of the three eventually succumbs to typhoid, and another becomes subsumed in the Arab culture to a point that almost all self-identity is lost.
The Sheltering Sky is an arid and pungent depiction of the landscape and culture of North Africa in the years just following World War II, but it is also a deep dive into the darkest reaches of the human soul. The novel illuminates the desert that lies within each of us - and asks what we are capable of bearing in order to survive.
Life is a hard trek into the unknown that is defined by its challenges. Pack well.
Reader
Paul Bowles didn't write his first novel, The Sheltering Sky, until he was thirty-eight years old, but by that time he was a successful music composer, poet, essayist, and world traveler who was well known among the American expats of Paris and Berlin, as well as the most notable writers of the "Beat Generation" in the United States.
Christopher Isherwood was so taken with Bowles that he gave his surname to his most famous fictional Berlin character, the cabaret singer Sally Bowles. Gertrude Stein, whom Paul Bowles met in Paris when he was twenty, encouraged him to travel to Northern Africa, which he did - and he fell in love with the Sahara and its environs and lived in Morocco for more than four decades. William S. Burroughs, a fellow resident of Tangier, was one of his many close friends.
Bowles, a native of New York City, was living in Tangier, Morocco, in 1949 when he penned that first novel, a work that the American publisher, Doubleday, had given him a cash advance to write. Doubleday did not like the finished product and demanded that he return the advance, but Bowles soon found another publisher. By January 1st, 1950, The Sheltering Sky had made its way onto The New York Times best-seller list along with a review by Tennessee Williams which was steeped in heavy praise.
The Sheltering Sky tells the fictional tale of three wealthy young Americans who are traveling together in Algeria without a set plan. Port and Kit Moresby are a married couple and their friend Tunner, who has a romantic inclination toward Kit, is traveling with them. They go by car and bus and train - and even produce truck - from one heat-drenched, dust-ladened, fly-infested town to another, with the author describing in great detail that oddities that they discover and the hardships they are forced to endure. The expansive Sahara in a very real sense mirrors their desolate lives as they wander about searching for meaning.
Along the way the three also encounter an older English woman and her adult son who are driving about the desert in a large Mercedes. That couple cross paths with the Moresby's and Tunner on multiple occasions, and their interferences bring about major changes in the lives of the three central characters. One of the three eventually succumbs to typhoid, and another becomes subsumed in the Arab culture to a point that almost all self-identity is lost.
The Sheltering Sky is an arid and pungent depiction of the landscape and culture of North Africa in the years just following World War II, but it is also a deep dive into the darkest reaches of the human soul. The novel illuminates the desert that lies within each of us - and asks what we are capable of bearing in order to survive.
Life is a hard trek into the unknown that is defined by its challenges. Pack well.
No comments:
Post a Comment