Declare Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Title | : | Collected Stories and Later Writings |
Author | : | Paul Bowles |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 1050 pages |
Published | : | August 26th 2002 by Library of America (first published 1979) |
Categories | : | Short Stories. Fiction. Literature. Novels |
Paul Bowles
Hardcover | Pages: 1050 pages Rating: 4.43 | 131 Users | 11 Reviews
Relation Toward Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Paul Bowles had already established himself as an important composer when at age 39 he published The Sheltering Sky and became recognized as one of the most powerful writers of the postwar period. From his base in Tangier he produced globally ranging novels, stories, and travel writings that set exquisite surfaces over violent undercurrents. His elegantly spare novels chart the unpredictable collisions between "civilized" exiles and a Morocco they never grasp, achieving effects of extreme horror and dislocation.This Library of America Bowles set, the first annotated edition, offers the full range of his achievement: the portrait of an outsider who was one of the essential American writers of the last century. In addition to his novels -- The Sheltering Sky (1949), Let It Come Down (1952), The Spider's House (1955), Up Above the World (1966) -- and his collected stories -- including such classics as "A Distant Episode" and "Pages from Cold Point" -- they contain his masterpiece of travel writing, Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue (1963). Throughout, Bowles shows himself a master of gothic terror and a diabolically funny observer of manners as well as a prescient guide to everything from the roots of Islamist politics to the world of Moghrebi music. With a hallucinatory clarity as dry and unforgiving as the desert air, Bowles sends his characters toward encounters with unknown and terrifying forces both outside them and within them.Specify Books As Collected Stories and Later Writings
Original Title: | Collected Stories and Later Writings (Library of America) |
ISBN: | 1931082200 (ISBN13: 9781931082204) |
Edition Language: | English |
Rating Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Ratings: 4.43 From 131 Users | 11 ReviewsJudge Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Every story is a piece of art in its own right, but there are a few that make this collection invaluable - The Delicate Prey; A Distant Episode; In the Red Room; Monologue, Tangier 1975; Monologue, Massachusetts 1932; Too Far From Home. Not only do you feel the mysteriousness of Morocco or Sri Lanka, and of the places in between, but also the solitude and desolateness of the human soul.Awesome.
Simply reading Bowles' biography at the end of this collection is enough to leave one awestruck. World traveler, composer, novelist, travel essayist, translator, musicologist all the time hobnobbing with the who's who of culture and arts from the 20th century. A rich life, well led.As for this collection, everything would rate from good to very good to excellent. He's a very straightforward storyteller. Some of the stories are quite dark and a few are borderline profane for the times they were
Once more after finishing "Let It Come Down" by Paul Bowles I have become aware that some people are doomed to self-destruction and they rush there from their unhappiness and loneliness, from inability to adapt the surrounding reality, from consuming inside emptiness which tells them keep going from there. There is no escape from this horror of existence " a certain day, at a certain moment, the house would crumble and nothing would be left but dust and rubble, indistinguishable from the talus
Paul Bowles wrote some fantastic short stories, travelogues, and a creepy short novel, UP ABOVE THE WORLD (all included here). No writer I have read does more about the cruelty of man than Bowles. The Library of America deserve a big 'thank you' for making this superb volume available.
"A Delicate Prey" and "A Distant Episodes" are superb, but they are hardly the exception. THese stories (which take place in Latin America, or alternatively North Africa are dark and cynical. The prose is razor precise, the underlying philosophy of these works extend the Heidegger metaphysical ontology and speak of the follies and repercussions of cultural misunderstanding. In "A Distant Episode", the reader should pay careful attention to the theme of language in light of a Professor's
Immediately when you arrive in the Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness. An incredible, absolute silence prevails outside the towns; and within, even in busy places like the markets, there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force which, resenting the intrusion of sound, minimizes and disperses sound straightway. Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem faint-hearted efforts. Solid and luminous, it is always the focal
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