Includes the story 'Baptism of Solitude', "Immediately when you arrive in the Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness". In the arid landscape the sky is the final arbiter. When you have understood that, not intellectually but emotionally, you have also understood why it is that the great trinity of monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - which removed the source of power from the earth itself to the spaces outside the earth - were evolved in desert regions.
Mar 01, Jay Green rated it liked it. If you can ignore the Orientalist tropes, this is a collection of mildly diverting accounts of Bowles's travels around North Africa and Asia. Fairly flat descriptions with the odd surprise here and there.
Apr 24, Patrick McCoy rated it it was amazing Shelves: essays , travel. Bowles has a gift for telling observations about travel in places that weren't really meant for tourists, as well as exposing interesting aspects of the people who live in the obscure places he traveled. Travel in India is covered in "Notes Mailed at Nagercoil. In "The Rif, to Music" he recounts his time traveling around the region trying to capture music.
Bowles celebrates the solitude of the desert in the "Baptism Of Solitude. The final essay, "The Route to Tassemsit," is another record of his attempts to preserve the local folk music. All in all, it is a very enlightening and entertaining collection of essays about places I would like to travel to, but not in the rustic manner Bowles did. This book is incredible. Aug 02, Bob rated it really liked it. Somewhat reminiscent of The Road To Oxiana - these aristocratic types head off for North Africa and Asia with a refreshing lack of expectation that there are any bourgeois comforts to be had and tend to report on exactly what they see.
It is only the passing mention that he is circumnavigating India with 18! Currently halfway through and his notes on the process of collecting ethnomusicological recordings for the Library of Congress in the Somewhat reminiscent of The Road To Oxiana - these aristocratic types head off for North Africa and Asia with a refreshing lack of expectation that there are any bourgeois comforts to be had and tend to report on exactly what they see. Currently halfway through and his notes on the process of collecting ethnomusicological recordings for the Library of Congress in the s are fascinating - all in all, I find this far more readable than The Sheltering Sky.
His introduction to the collection of short pieces quotes Levi-Strauss, in a passage that obviously rings truer than ever this many decades later: "What travel discloses to us first of all is our own garbage, flung in the face of humanity.
Oct 31, Graeme Hinde rated it it was amazing. Bowles believed that before the twentieth century the non-western world was pristine, and that it only recently began a regrettable slide into corruption and westernization.
It's easy to see from our vantage point here in the present that he was being silly, but also easy, because he was writing in the midst of a worldwide revolution, to forgive him. This short collection of essays is passionate and adventurous, and has left me quite jealous.
Sep 09, Zach rated it really liked it. While I gripe about the sameness of the 21st century American city UGH I'm so sick of micro greens and chicken on a ciabatta roll , I doubt I would survive in Paul's world. He lived as a perma-expat for a few decades, spending time collecting North African music for the Library "Every time I go to a place I have not seen before, I hope it will be as different as possible from the places I already know. He lived as a perma-expat for a few decades, spending time collecting North African music for the Library of Congress, reporting on fishing in Ceylon, and encountering a number of parrots along the way.
He uses personal interactions to drive the narrative of diversity and adventure. From the foreword: "If people and their manner of living were alike everywhere, there would not be much point in moving from one place to another. With few exceptions, landscape alone is of insufficient interest to warrant the effort it takes to see it.
Even the works of man, unless they are being used in his daily living, have a way of losing their meaning, and take on the qualities of decoration. What makes Istanbul worth while to the outsider is not the presence of the mosques and the covered souks, but the fact that they still function as such. If the people of India did not have their remarkable awareness of the importance of spiritual discipline, it would be an overwhelmingly depressing country to visit, notwithstanding its architectural wonders.
And North Africa without its tribes, inhabited by, let us say, the Swiss, would be merely a rather more barren California. So, I take his authority to paint an accurate picture of the difficulty of finding suitable lodging, navigating an unfriendly culture, or the negotiation of finding a particularly rare musical instrument whose recording I cannot locate online. He's a skilled writer, able to weave a complex picture of the parrying between man and wife in Moslem life.
The resentment and violence eminent in such an exchange may be shocking to us, but he presents it as almost a necessity of the culture, an arms race of sneaking and gossip amongst women and stewing upset in the men, played as a game time and time again. Many of the transactions are described as games, which may be an accurate portrayal of a foreign culture: you learn the rules, which shortcut our hardened Western logic. It's a compelling portrait, though I do not wish to visit the depths of the Sahara "Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem faint-hearted efforts" and sleep adjacent to a latrine as he did.
Of course, that may not be an option. I'd guess that many of the places he describes no longer or exist, or would be unrecognizable to a reincarnation of Paul Bowles.
But I'm glad to have one account of these exotic locales. I keep thinking about it, and I wonder if the almost certain eventual victory over such diseases will prove to have been worth its price: the extinction of the beliefs and rituals which gave a satisfactory meaning to the period of consciousness that goes between birth and death. I doubt it. Security is a false god; begin making sacrifices to it and you are lost. Jul 16, Christopher Sutch rated it liked it.
After reading much of Bowles's oeuvre, I found this collection of his travel essays a bit disappointing. Bowles is, correctly, disapproving of colonialism, but relies too much on orientalist stereotyping for his descriptions of non-Western societies. This is one of those disappointing contradictions that everyone has, of course, but I find it especially disconcerting in a writer whose strong sense of personal ethics and delicate understanding of the complexities of intercultural and interpersona After reading much of Bowles's oeuvre, I found this collection of his travel essays a bit disappointing.
This is one of those disappointing contradictions that everyone has, of course, but I find it especially disconcerting in a writer whose strong sense of personal ethics and delicate understanding of the complexities of intercultural and interpersonal relationships is so strongly evident in his fiction.
In other words, I find Bowles much more engaging when he writes about cultural interactions on the personal level than on the societal level. Feb 11, Greg rated it really liked it. Even if you aren't traveling in a Muslim or non-Christian country , read these essays if you want a good view into the mind of an expat writer grappling with his Western understanding of the non-Western world.
It's fascinating to watch Bowles veer from orientalist stereotyping to a profound desire to grasp and respect the culture of North Africa, particularly as he narrates his quest to record native music fro Even if you aren't traveling in a Muslim or non-Christian country , read these essays if you want a good view into the mind of an expat writer grappling with his Western understanding of the non-Western world. It's fascinating to watch Bowles veer from orientalist stereotyping to a profound desire to grasp and respect the culture of North Africa, particularly as he narrates his quest to record native music from every corner of Morocco.
Dec 17, Left Coast Justin rated it really liked it Shelves: travel , parents-grandparents-generation , essays. I enjoyed this a great deal more than his most well-known work, 'The Sheltering Sky'.
This book, on the other hand, was about road trips, drugs and music -- and therefore a much more enjoyable read, in my view. Bowles' reputation is earned -- he writes with penetrating lucidity and most of what he writes is extremely interesting. Nov 18, Dusan rated it it was amazing. Such a captivating read that I missed my tram stop twice in two days. Style and atmosphere only Paul Bowles can convey.
Nov 02, Kali rated it liked it. A little slow to start and definitely dated, but some excellent travel writing in this little digest. Unlike Steinbeck, Bowles is probably not someone I would have wanted to know or travel with in real life. For one, he mentions eighteen suitcases at one point, and I'm like, seriously?
Did I read that right? He writes like an intrepid traveler, but that one detail made me wonder if he was just another white imperialist type of traveler, which doesn't jibe with his writing at all. There is extremely poetic writing here, but the collection was too scattered for me to really enjoy as travel narrati Unlike Steinbeck, Bowles is probably not someone I would have wanted to know or travel with in real life.
There is extremely poetic writing here, but the collection was too scattered for me to really enjoy as travel narrative. This is a collection of nine travel essays on journeys to Central America, then Ceylon, India, Turkey, and Morocco, where the author lived for many years.
His pieces on the Sahara and the Rif the mountainous region of north Morocco are especially good, since he spoke French and some Tamazight and had sympathy with the locals. Anybody that has read his credible novel The Sheltering Sky will know that Bowles keenly observes but leaves it up to the reader to draw conclusions. Doctors may prescribe specific medicines to treat heart and lung conditions. These medications help improve blood flow and oxygen supply to the organs and tissues.
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Poor circulation has a range of potential causes, including diabetes and atherosclerosis. How happy we are, When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. VI And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, "How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore"; And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, "If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,-- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!
This poem is in the public domain. On that little heap of stones Sits the Lady Jingly Jones! Lady Jingly! Sitting where the pumpkins blow, Will you come and be my wife? Gaze upon the rolling deep Fish is plentiful and cheap ; As the sea, my love is deep! Lady Jingly answered sadly, And her tears began to flow-- "Your proposal comes too late, Mr. I would be your wife most gladly! Dorking fowls delights to send Mr. Keep, oh, keep your chairs and candle, And your jug without a handle-- I can merely be your friend!
Should my Jones more Dorkings send, I will give you three, my friend! There, beyond the Bay of Gurtle, Lay a large and lively Turtle. With a sad primeval motion Towards the sunset isles of Boshen Still the Turtle bore him well. Holding fast upon his shell, "Lady Jingly Jones, farewell! Edward Lear There was a Young Lady whose chin, Resembled the point of a pin: So she had it made sharp, And purchased a harp, And played several tunes with her chin.
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