The trick with historical novels is to make them equally specific and general. Reading them a long time after the events they depict have transpired, one should ideally feel the same sense of urgency of history being lived and written, as well as comprehending the socio-political context of their creation. This is no small feat.Some historical novels go beyond even this; they become cultural and historic touchstones that, presciently, seem to predict or comment upon courses of events beyond their pages, events waiting in the wings of history when these very words were written. This gives them a power and a universality that makes such novels seemingly transcend history, and speak across the ages.Too grandiose? Reading A Spider's House, I really do not think so. This novel is such a succinct, startling and visceral summation of all the tensions in the Middle East that erupted in the Arab Spring, it is astonishing to consider it was written in 1955, at the time when Morocco was struggling for independence from French rule.In our time of hyper political correctness, there is a lot of pussyfooting around Islamic culture and religion in general, and a lot of hand-wringing about how the West misunderstands Islam and how fuzzy-wuzzy and tolerant it really is.However, all that this does is appropriate Islam for consumer culture, and validate it in the context of Western values and mores. It is as far from 'understanding' as one can possibly get.Bowles does something extraordinarily brave in this novel: his main viewpoint character is an illiterate Moslem boy, bookended by a pair of dissolute and thoroughly unlikeable Western expats. (There is also an evil Frenchman; Bowles spares no one.)Interestingly, the male expat is an American writer bemoaning the fact that his romantic view of Fez is disintegrating in front of his eyes; this is contrasted with the female expat, a 'professional' tourist, who uses such sojourns as her Moroccan trip mainly for letter writing and dinner-party anecdotes.She is also a 'fan' of the writer, but finds it difficult to reconcile the mouldy real-life person with the empathic author figure conveyed in his fiction. This makes for a lot of rather black humour in the novel, and a perceptive discourse on the role of art and truth in fiction.Amar's daily scrabble for survival on the hard streets of Fez means he has no overarching sense of historical significance; he literally lives from one moment to the next, in the context of his moral convictions, which are shaped by the immutable tenets of Islam.His world gets thrown into turmoil when nationalistic violence erupts in Fez, leading to a chance encounter with the pair of expats, and a steep learning curve for all on the mysteries and tragedies of the world.Bowles writes in his introduction that "Fiction should always stay clear of political considerations" -- which is a peculiar statement considering that A Spider's House is acutely political.Or is it? Maybe the concept of politics is as misunderstood and as misrepresented as religion is these days; certainly the interface between the two is very muddled, particularly in the Middle East.Bowles has an incredible sense of place, evoking Morocco and Africa with his magnificent descriptive powers; Fez comes alive under his pen, in all its sun-baked, smelly and dusty glory. The sense of history, too, is crackling and immediate, amid the gunfire, chaos and brutality. There is a lot of anger here: anger against the colonial powers, anger against cowardly liberals, religious bigots, traitors and diehard fanatics for despoiling the humanist tendencies of Islam.It is a superbly sensory novel (inevitably this means it will be a disaster as a movie, especially if Hollywood gets its hands on it; one can only shudder at the thought of Amar being interpreted as a Spielbergian waif. The Bearded One would never have the courage to convey the utterly devastating ending of this novel. Or, even worse, he would turn him into a suicide bomber.)I would recommend this novel to anyone trying to make head or tail of the ongoing implosion in the Middle East. You will get a far better understanding of the real issues facing the citizens on the ground, and the impact on their daily lives, than any number of bite-sized television segments or newspaper reports.
This book is written in the context of the post-colonial period amidst the geopolitical concerns of the Cold War period. Amazingly, Bowles retreats not only from these overarching and potentially limiting themes for the greater narrative, but as well from a perspective that seemingly removes the narrator from the narrative, allowing these greater macro-concerns and the thoughts and actions of its main characters a more autonomous space whereby a more dynamic work is produced. Written in the mid-late 1950s in the context of the Moroccan struggle for independence, Bowles captures both the "Orientalist" and cultural expectations of Nazarenes in Morocco through the tapestry of ex-pats and their well written banter. However, Bowles does not allow these dialogues dominate the novel. The narrative shifts whereby the experience of two Americans (distinguished by age, gender, and personality) and the cultural predilections they have for the untamed Maghreb are juxtaposed with the indigenous assured and confident ideas about the world from the perspective of a precocious Arab teenager.Their stories intermingle and eventually become one and the same just as the tumult in Fez unites as well as fragments Moroccan society, from the French colonial administration to the Istiqlal Arab opposition. The repercussions of cultural misunderstanding and subsequent folly are a continuous theme in Bowles' ouvre. This novel is too strong to warrant the anti-climactic ending, but that is rather precisely the kind of work demanded that makes this a quiet masterpiece.420 UPDATEI have since reread this work in the context of increased study and specialization in academic debates on cultural studies and geopolitical situations focused on the Maghreb. Bowles' Morocco is brilliant. He expresses the essence of the Moroccan through competing themes in conflicting interests and stories. There is that of the Nazarene, whose customs are at once recognizable as our own, though he is distinguished by a disavowal the social propriety of such class, and considers Morocco his comfortable home, his inhabitance of being that of a stranger amongst strangers. Camus' French Algerians never have the complex psychology of this American man, enthralled by Morocco with expertise yet understandable cultural specificities allude him due to the fabric of his societal conditioning. There is that of Amar, the precocious Arab boy through which Bowles best expresses the Moroccan condition. A young teenager with sharp but innocent insight, ignorant and wise, and representative of the kind of Morocco there could have been if not subject to colonialism.There are others.Bowles is more than story teller. The reader is pushed into the consciousness of disparate perspectives and situations in the conflict, from staggering settings into dialogue that seems inclusive. Bowles occupies the perfect place when he's at his best. He all but disappears like at the end of the novel, "when he got to the curve, the road was empty"
What do You think about The Spider's House (2006)?
While reading, these are the things I googled: kif, which is hashish; medina, which is a yellow, dusty, religious sector of a Muslim town -- also the name of a city in Saudi Arabia; and the title of the book itself. I was looking for answers. Notably, this story based on the 1950's nationalist uprising in Morocco is prescient of some of our -- and by "our" I mean the USA's -- troubles regarding the hearts and minds of those citizens of the countries where we are staging our wars. Neither google nor Paul Bowles provide any "answers," however the character of Amar clearly presents some of the problems that we face in these wars. Amar, an illiterate 15 year old descendent of the prophet Mohammed, is disgusted by the European woman character Lee, in Fez as a divorcee on a pleasure and adventure trip, even while he gladly accepts all the contents of her wallet late in the story. Many confusing things happen. This book is work, and even with my googling I don't think I was quite up to the task. At the end, though, I was glad to have read it. See what you think.
—Jenne
It has been about two years since i read this book, so i won't go into too much plot detail, but i will instead share some of my impressions of the book.This book was written circa 1956-58 by Paul Bowles, an American author who spent most of his adult life living in Morocco. The book, unsurprisingly, takes place in Morocco on the eve of the revolution in which the Moroccans won their independence from France. The story follows a young Moroccan and an American author simultaneously, and depicts what happens when their paths cross.Bowles writes with a rather straight-forward, almost journalistic style, painting a decidedly unsympathetic picture of his characters. The book is ultimately about the differing values of the Moroccan people and their desire for sovereignty, and those of the westerners depicted in the story who wish to see the "charms" of colonial Morocco remain intact, an outcome not likely to occur under self-rule. The author's third-person voice and unemotional delivery effectively express the conflict between these cultures and allow the reader ample room to establish an informed opinion, even with little or no other knowledge of Moroccan history.The story doesn't have outer-worldly plot twists, like Vonnegut, certainly isn't at all romantic like Fitzgerald, and doesn't ask you to put on a funny accent when reading it like "Trainspotting". Neither is it a particularly quick read, but it is an engaging, thoughtful book that will at once get you intimately acquainted with an exotic (and beautiful) locale while gently and subtly encouraging you to consider an ethical and socio-political stance you likely haven't considered before,and all without seeming too sententious. On this last point, Bowles earns my respect for executing this literary balancing act about as perfectly as can be done.
—Danny
Excellent, excellent book. Bowles sets the story in Fes, Morocco during the struggle for independence from France. I'm currently living in Fes, so it had an added interest to me. Bowles lived in Tangier for over half of his life so he was well acquainted with the Moroccan culture. He brilliantly uses different viewpoints--a local Muslim, a resident American, and a tourist American--to analyze different perspectives on the struggle. The Fes resident is a committed Muslim who sees his hatred for the infidels--in this case the French--as ordained and approved by Allah. He displays a deterministic, resigned view of life where everything has been written beforehand by Allah and is his will. The resident American loves Fes, at least for what it used to be. He's cynical about any attempts to change it, whether the by the French or the resistance party. He knows Fes will never be able to return to it's "magical" past and so he hates both sides in the struggle. The tourist American is firmly committed to the idea of progress. To her, modernity is inevitable, and to resist the change that even the French are trying to bring foreshadows the death of that culture. But the book is also about change. Each character slowly shifts their perspective on the struggle as they meet people that don't fit into their preconceived categories. I don't want to throw the term "masterpiece" around lightly, but this certainly comes close. By never providing a resolution to the book's questions, he forces the reader to question what "progress" really is? Is modernity always a good thing? Shouldn't destructive patterns of life, however traditional, be eliminated wherever we find them? Isn't that in the people's best interest? After all, if they knew what they were missing, they would ask for it, right?But Bowles isn't satisfied with surface answers. He convincingly shows how each perspective and each person's answers are inescapably tied to one's worldview. His psychological analysis is gripping and beautiful to read. I highly recommend this book.
—Jonathan Biddle
