The Stories Of Paul Bowles (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
I came to this collection the way I recently came to reading The Sheltering Sky; years of occasional recommendation and rare instances of picking up a book by Paul or Jane Bowles, reading a passage, and putting it back. A couple of years ago I arrived in San Francisco and every so often stayed on the floor of my friend's closet, which happened to hold no clothing but a section of his library. We had our enthusiasms and differences in literary taste. I found it hard to believe someone could actually recommend Clancy or Franzen in the same instance as Bataille or Berryman, and remained skeptical in some of our 4 AM discussions in the closet over Charles Shaw, Rockport, or Dante wine. One of the three. In the clarity which is a remarkably confident person being caught off guard, I remember the night I took The Sheltering Sky off of the shelf and inquired, as I'd only know of Bowles from extensively studying the Beat Generation in my teens, a point in time I had thoroughly removed myself from by that summer, by then considering the Beats (Especially after the traumatizing adolescent chagrin of arriving at City Lights to find Ginsberg bumper stickers on display, and the fedora-clad cashier* not knowing who Herbert Huncke was) one of my passageways to adventure, intellectual stimulation, when I had not traveled, and lived in the middle of nowhere.I recall my friend saying he did not know what to say about The Sheltering S, a fine nocturnal way as any of admitting to not have finished it, but that he preferred the short stories.Well, I am still in avid avoidance of people like Johnathan Franzen, but when I was out buying presents at the used bookstore the other day and I saw the exact edition of The Sheltering Sky I had to take another peek. The Kafka quote sold me, to the effect of: 'There comes a point where there is no turning back; that is the point to be reached.'The short stories were next to the novel. I had to laugh, skim through, then purchase both. My old friend from the closet was right here: The stories are really good. They evoke the scent, the setting, of writing by pencil in a hut, smoking hash and drinking extremely powerful tea, sifting through the breeze-enhanced lucidity of dreams within nightmares, nightmares composed of self-induced, albeit subtle, disaster, yet not always without hope; hence, the perpetual return trip; a kaleidoscopic whirlpool of the mind, harmoniously balanced by linguistic and structural mastery.The stories read like dual first-hand reports: The stranger in a strange land, possessing a camera-eye, intact with x-ray vision into the veins and minds of mankind, the human condition, as seen through an American transported to Morocco.The Bowelsian subtlety, the shadowy style, each syllable perfectly place, each analogy not spot on, little repetition; this collection's a quiet gem for me. I mean that in the instance of not quite rushing out and recommending the shorter fiction to everyone. Kind of like the short work of Tennessee Williams. Little spoken of, but when acknowledged, met with bewildering acclaim, little gems in the cannon of the English language. Well then, why not share!?To quote the friend who introduced me to this book, when, naively, I asked him why the media portrayed San Franciscans as homosexual, drug addicted, both, or insane (The futile implication there an obvious propaganda tool, thus one that confused me as a youngster, that the citizens of that great city did not care). Oh, it's easy, he said. We don't care because it keeps all the idiots out of the city. And while the term idiot applies zero in my case, the work of Paul Bowles is, for me, another, private world, one which I will re-read over the years, recommend once or twice, and return to, preferably over cheap California wine, in a closet, past midnight, when I temporarily lose faith in the art of literature, only to return from the work the way a relighted fuse burns faster, and onto business, that of alphabetical delirium. *There is nothing wrong with fedoras, save they're like not be worn between the ages of 30 and 70, or so I am told.
I can't think of anyone who writes more strikingly than Bowles of The Self (often, but not always, a cultured Westerner) coming face-to-face with The Other. Other-ness, in Bowles's stories, functions like Nietzsche's void: When it is stared into by a protagonist, prodded or investigated or even ostensibly subjugated, it is always staring right back — waiting to infiltrate the protagonist, to explode him or her from the inside.In his introduction to this edition of the collected stories, Robert Stone writes of a certain "'something missing'" that many readers of Bowles claim to feel, and to balk at. We "trade sympathy for the absence of ordinariness," Stone writes. It's more than that, though. If there is a single universe or sensibility uniting these stories, it's one in which the Other is utterly corrosive to the Self. It's not that Bowles has left empathy out of these stories, it's that he constructs stories in which empathy is impossible. There is a coldness here, a repetitive cruelty, that made these stories difficult for me to read at times. So perhaps my giving these stories four stars instead of five is more a reflection of my own tastes and beliefs than it is of the icy power of Bowles's art. I'd argue, though, that for all the "absence of ordinariness" Bowles gives us in setting, character, and plot, in theme he strikes the same few notes over and over — strikes them beautifully, masterfully, no doubt, but I felt a certain monotony nonetheless.
What do You think about The Stories Of Paul Bowles (2006)?
I am all about under-read brilliant authors this year, apparently, because GUYS. PAUL BOWLES. Wow. It is a shame and a grave injustice that he isn't on every list of essential American authors. This is a thick, dazzling, astonishing collection of stories about human nature, especially its darker and weirder representatives. Many stories involve Morocco, where Bowles lived for most of his adult life, and almost every story involves a compelling character brought to life by Bowles's vivid, perfect prose. I loved The Sheltering Sky, his unsettling and gorgeous novel, but I loved this collection of stories even more, if that's possible. I am stumbling for the right words to tell you how magnificent Paul Bowles is. You have to read him. You really have to.
—Abby
I suppose this anthology would be classified as literary fiction or non genre fiction. I ordinarily prefer genre fiction, especially science fiction, and one of the problems I have always had with so-called literary fiction is that the stories usually leave me wondering what the point was. Genre fiction usually does have a point to make, but literary fiction leaves me saying, "So what?" These stories, for the most part, left me saying the same thing, so what? There is not really anything specifically wrong with them and so I am giving the book a neutral three stars. I just don't see any special meaning in most of the stories. There are a couple of exceptions though. There are at least two stories that can easily be fitted into the fantasy genre. One is a story about a young man who uses supernatural means to transfer his consciousness into a venomous snake and another one is about a saint who travels through time and space. Both of these do seem to have more of a point than the other stories, but there are only two among many other stories that seem to go nowhere.
—Roger Bailey
"Too Far from Home," the title of one of Bowles' best stories, could be the title of this book. All his characters, in one way or another, stray cheerfully from their comfortable cocoons into territory that's strange and treacherous, though they never discover this until it's too late.You might think Bowles' overarching theme of creeping menace that ultimately does the protagonist in would become monotonous, but it never does. That's because each setting is fresh, each character different. Each situation contains a shocking new element of exotic danger. There is humor in stories like "Pastor Dowe at Tacate" and "You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus." "Pages from Cold Point" carries an extra kick because the exotic outsider who ruins the protagonist is his own son. Bowles is the all time master of creeping menace. He can write a sentence that looks bland and innocent, yet contains a depth charge that lets you know something is coming, something that won't end well. He's often said to be unemotional, unsentimental. I don't think this is entirely correct. He shares coolness with the beat writers who idolized him, yet his stories pack emotional wallop precisely because they're so remorseless. They feel as inevitable as life itself.
—Joe
