This is my first exposure to the writings of Paul Bowles. What a surprise! The three novels in this edition were written in the late 1940’s to mid 1950’s. His characters are not at all dated. His writing is clear, and uncluttered. In contrasted to his writing style, are his characters who complex, murky and often compelling. I read straight through from the Sheltering Sky to Let It Come Down to The Spider’s House. He is one of the most interesting 20th century American writers. The Library of America has done a wonderful service to readers by ensuring that Paul Bowles will remain in print.

The Sheltering Sky, the first of three novels in this edition, is short, only 250 pages long. It seems to be considered his defining novel. It is about a married couple, Kit, and Port, and their sojourn into the Sahara Desert. They are dishonest with each other about many things, their shaky marriage, and the danger of the trip they have embarked on, fidelity. They cannot take charge of anything, their lives, their marriage, their trip, and even their privacy. The decisions that they make exude with bad judgement. This is exposed early on, when Porter goes off for a walk alone the city. He encounters a stranger, Smail; Port walks off with this stranger, out of the city into the desert to meet and be entertained by a young girl, who he is told is “not a [prostitute] but will want to be paid. The characters do dangerous things. You sense their doom with them. And, like them, the reader is compelled to go on. I do not want to give too many plot details as it might spoil the pleasure of reading what I think is an overlooked 20th century classic.

Let It Come Down, is about a bank clerk seeking adventure in Tangier. Like the Sheltering Sky, there is no happy ending here. You can sense the impending doom of the main character as he makes one bad decision after another. He gets involved with a local prostitute, financial intrigue, and in the end, drugs.

The Spider’s House starts with a quote from the Thousand and One Nights “To my way of thinking, there is nothing more delightful than to be a stranger. And so I mingle with human beings because they are not of my kind, and precisely in order to be a stranger among them.” In the wake of the worldwide effects of militant Islamism, this is a fascinating book to read.

The characters include two Americans. The first, Stenham, sees the French colonial rule in Morocco as destructive. He becomes attracted to Islam. The second is arrogant and contemptuous of the locals, the country, just about everything Moroccan. Each is stranger. Each sees and judges the Moroccan people, their culture, and their religion through western eyes. And so, Bowles introduces Amar, a teenage Moroccan boy, who is a direct descendent of the prophet, Mohammed. The boy is illiterate and poor, but not ignorant. The view of the world that each maintains at the beginning of the novel cannot hold. Set in a time of rebellion, there is plenty of plot to keep the characters moving along.

I highly recommend these three novels. This hard cover edition is published by the Library of America. It is the one that you will want to buy, and keep as part of your permanent library.

I couldn't be happier that the Library of America has released Paul Bowles' three best novels (he only wrote four) in one volume. Previously they were only available in not-so-easy to find small press editions. Hopefully this edition will make them readily available to a wider audience in volume and time.

The most striking thing about Bowles' work is its pace. It moves at a mesmerizing rate. The language is fairly simple but it plods along with a suspensful tension that never lets up even after a climatic moment. It is the kind of fiction to read next to a fountain in a courtyard.

Bowles' characters are almost always out of place, or are where they shouldn't be, or where they think they should be. They become engulfed by cultures that they don't understand not through stupidity or banality but often through the natural course of clashing cultures. Reading the books can give you a feeling of getting lost, and overcome with a feeling that you don't belong, or that you're delving into worlds you aren't prepared to delve into. This is the terror that underlies nearly all of his writing. They are cautionary tales, and they have become more relevant in the past few years since Bowles' death in 1999 (not highly publicized), and the rising relevance of Islam in and to the West.

Bowles is one of the first western writers of fiction that treats Islam equally to European society. Islam is not merely a backdrop in which his characters find fault or get ground up in (i.e., you never get the sense that Bowles is blaming the cultures themselves for the destruction of his characters, typically they are responsible, but it really isn't anybody's 'fault' per se). This is multicultural literature at its best, because it allows nastiness and goodness on all sides. Bowles is not afraid to show the dark sides of Islamic and European cultures side by side, while allowing positive aspects a place as well. He is also never racist towards either side, though some critics have accussed him of this (wrongly, in my opinion).

Bowles is an eye-opener. All three of these novels will make an impact on you and make you think about things you've never thought of before. Thanks again to the Library of America for releasing this collection. Buy it and read it.

These wonderful stories have been chosen to represent, according to the foreword, the clash between the indigenous culture and the third world. Perhaps black English speakers are not considered indigenous enough and there is nothing from Belize or about the Garifuana. Only one story is from Panama. It would be interesting to know if the right wing is literate at all. I get two problems with politically motivated fiction. The first is that fiction may be one-sided and over-simplify a complex situation. The second is that when terrible atrocities have been committed then writing about them in fiction can make us complacent. We are able to say "it is only a story"(does Arturo Armas really remember the events of 1954). That said, these are are all remarkable. The influence of the South American magic realists can be seen, especially in the title story and there is a tendency to idealize Indian life and the Popol Vul. I has only read Quesada and Ramirez previously and shall be seeking out more by the other writers.

Paul Bowles tape recorded Mrabet and other Moroccan storytellers back in the 50s, then edited and translated the tales to give to the Western reading public. The result is a large body of Arabic literature that would have pased into the void had it not been for his efforts.

These stories alone would suffice to merit the eternal gratitude of literature and story lovers everywhere. It's impossible to fathom how an illiterate (Mrabet) could smoke a few bowls of kif and effortlessly spin forth such highly structured, intricate yarns "off the top of his head," yet he and several other of his Moroccan compatriots could do just that. Luckily for posterity, a genius such as Bowles was there to act as amaneunsis.

The title story alone is enough to warrant a purchase. It's an unforgettable account of a young Arab boy who falls victim to a band of vicious marauders. The revenge he exacts is truly diabolical.

Readers who enjoy this collection will NO doubt want to investigate Bowles' collection of indiginous, Moroccan, kif-smoking, oral storytellers, HUNDRED CAMELS IN THE COURTYARD. It, too, is unforgettable. Just another piece of the fabric that went into the tapestry of genius that is Paul Bowles.

Caponi's collection of interviews, spanning several decades up to the early 1990's is a must for all real fans of Paul Bowles work, and an intriguing introduction to his life, work and influences for those who know little about him. As with any such collection of interviews, there is bound to be much repetition - different interviewers ask often essentially the same questions, while Bowles gives (more or less) the same answers. However, even for someone like myself, who thinks they know quite a bit about the man and his work (and maintains one of the Paul Bowles pages on the Web -

Many of the interviews touch on many of the other literary figures Bowles has known - Tennessee Williams is a frequent topic of conversation, as are William Burroughs and the other beat writers, and their time spent in Tangiers. It becomes very evident from the few interviews that dwell on the subject that Bowles is not going to talk much about his late wife, Jane. His hatred for the biography 'An invisible spectator' comes through clearly in several places, but I found it intriguing that his preferred biographer (if he had to make a reluctant choice) would be Millicent Dillon, author of the biography of Jane Bowles.

Altogether a very worthwhile read for anyone with any interest in Paul Bowles.

a fabulous recounting of a scintilating relationship consumated by mail alone! whosoever could claim such today? i was deeply moved. hats off elysium!

This isn't a strict literary biography of any of the individual authors that gathered for a time in Morocco, rather its a portrait of the night life (mostly) that all the celebrities literary and otherwise took part in while there. Its better than you might think though. Coming to this book for its literary interest is not a waste of time. There is an interesting segment about Brion Gysin and his club where the mountain musicians performed(would love to have seen that). But there is an awful lot of socialites up to no good ... too. Who gives a ... about Barbara Hutton? The interesting aspect of that though is that it shows the decadent westerners living it up in the lap of poverty. Artists go to places for different reasons than Mick Jagger(no offense Mick) does after all. It is the artists that make a place hip for the work they do while there. This book is in a way perhaps unconsciously an example of how hip gathers parasites and then the parasites take over,and after that happens the place becomes too expensive and too congested and too self-consciously hip for the real artists and they move on. This is Vanity Fair,the magazine, both the good and the bad(they have on occasion done a good literary piece). It is an entertaining read at least and loaded with good glossy black and white pictures and we all like a little decadence now and then, the parties are kinda cool. A good photo album with snapshot portraits of all the players but for the deeper story(you know the stories about the ones that actually wrote a book or two) read the bios of the individual artists.

I liked this book. That surprised me. This speaks directly to strength in narration and artistry of Mr. Choukri, who shows us, in this first volume of his autobiography, the despair brought about by ignorance and poverty. Our young man's apparent lack of hope for a better future is made clear from the start. In his teens, born in Marocco, during the French domination, he struggles to find the rules and reasons for the world around him. I say apparent lack of hope, because after the first few paragraphs we already know that he is sensitive, smart and will attempt to survive as best he can, without any help from his family or society. In this respect, I was satisfied early on, for I sensed it would be all right to attach my emotions to this hero; that he would not betray my confidence. Mr. Choukri's narration is also masterful in the depiction of the most despicable acts of violence both physical and moral. He is detached. So we can also keep our safe distance.

I confess to having a special reason for reading this book. Since I spent some time in the early 1980s in Oran, Algeria, I have been intrigued with the peoples of North Africa. And this book takes place in many of the cities and towns that are familiar to me. What surprises is to see that even though there was a good thirty years difference between the time this story took place and the 1980s, there were vestiges that for some, things still remained. I can only hope that there has been considerable improvement in the past 20 years.

This is a book that makes us think. And even though the subject: a disenfranchised youth in the life of petty crimes in the fringe of society is not unusual in the literature of developing countries, it is important to return to these themes once in a while, getting out of our comforatble, well educated bubbles, and rethink our own contributions to world around us.

I am a better person for having read this book. That's a sign of excellence.

The back cover describes this as "a wholly unprecedented form of novelistic photojournalism."

It's unprecedented, alright. I've never seen anything like it. If you appreciate photography, and/or you're fascinated with psychology, and you have the intellectual curiosity to enjoy a new kind of documentary, buy this book.

The last time a book had this strong an effect on me was when I read Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" in high school. Since then I've read many hundreds, perhaps thousands of books. I read an average of 4 books a week. I haven't seen anything really fresh for a very long time.

Paul Bowles discovered Mrabet when the latter was a young man living in Tangiers and the former was already an accomplished musician and writer. The elder Bowles took Mrabet under his wing and translated/edited several of his short stories and novels. THE LEMON is one of Mrabet's most sustainted narratives and one of his most accomplished works.

This is perhaps the most linear and "simple" novel I have read in my lifetime. It recounts the passage into manhood of a muslim youth thrust into the turbulence of a decadent society for which he has a limited appreciation and presepective, as he is only ten years old as the narrative begins, and about fourteen as the tale ends. His sole foundation of knowledge is what he has memorized of the Koran from a brief stint at a madras (or its Moroccan equivalent), as well as a few months under the supervision of a kindly French female teacher at a "Nazarene" school. So much for "formal" education. The boy's true education occurs after he flees home after having been struck by his father. Part of the charm of the story lies in the fact that it is told from the perspective of raw youth, uncluttered by any but the most essential matters (Where's he going to sleep at night? How will he find work?) As the incidents unfold, the young narrator fends for himself in one of the less savory neighborhoods of Tangiers. He finds lodging with an alcoholic longshoreman whom he despises (the Koran forbids alcohol), yet puts up with out of necessity. He also discovers the pleasures of women and kif. The former he can take or leave, the latter he seemingly can't do without.

This short novel is composed primarily of lots of little incidents. Nothing of real moment occurs until the final chapter of the book, which will also provide the reader with an explanation of the book's title. Though not much happens, the narrative is nevertheless oddly compelling. Mrabet paints such a vivid picture of Abdeslam's world and provides such a clear insight into the young protagonist's simplistic psychology, plot is not really a factor. This is definitely not earth shattering fiction, just an expertly rendered, lucidly faceted, middle-eastern gem.

Mrabet's volume of short stories, THE BOY WHO SET THE FIRE & OTHER STORIES, also translated and fine-tuned by Bowles is also highly recommended.

BEK

here. it's simply a great book, in the introduction i believe paul bowles mentions that a great narrator keeps his narrative thread equally taut at all times and this is precisely what the authour has done. the book is a compelling view of a life in a part of the world that differs wildly from where i was born, told with a coolness that should not be mistaken for detachment. it's a rewarding read and it hleps when trying to put things in perspective.