“The Sheltering Sky” is the most well-written book that I have ever read out of the hundreds of examples I have enjoyed. His style and exposition is rather palatable and unforgettable in how I digested his thoughts and diction. He is the most eloquent writer of the last century and I am so thankful have known his works. Bless your soul and May you be remembered for a long time.
Happy Birthday, dear Paul, my friend, I got the honour to talk and work with you and to our common relationship to the art and work from Dada-Artist Kurt Schwitters. I hope the sheltering sky protects you and Jane and your souls, wherever you are right now. Berlin, 30th December 2018.
I married my wife who's from Tanger and when I went to her city, I fell in love twice. Bowles was right, it is a dream city and even with its modernized streets, its overcrowded streets, it still retains its classic North African ambiance when you walk around the Madinah Qadimah. We're planning to live there once the kids turn 5 and 6.
'All his books remind you of something you forget yourself and you find when you read his books.' Here in this sentence is the reason why travel, exchange and migration are so important to our development as human beings - because people get to see themselves through the eyes of the newcomer. New light is shed!
Paul Bowles, the celebrated author and composer, is usually known as the author of The Sheltered Sky. A very good book that Bertolucci took into a famous movie. Bisexual or not, he is also commonly associated with Jane Bowles, a cult writress. And yes, he was kind of a nomad or outsider, as you wished. But for what he matters to me, is because he is the author of some of the best Short Stories ever written. It is said he based his terrible (in some cases) stories upon he was told or heard about, there in Morocco. Where he choosed to live. Be this so or due to his imagination, he's a fantastic story teller. With some of the crueller plots I've ever known. You may say there's a tad of very black humour in all that cruelty. Though he never looses his pace in his descents into hell. It was maybe the teens with whom he seems to have shared his life, who were letting him know such weird tales. Of the desert cruel laws. So, the scenaries are usually exotic Arab ones. Europeans or Americans are usually shocked about the whole thing. He doesn't need to go deeper in his simple minded Arab characters, but it's all perfectly drawn. They are very visual tales. When reading it I was all time mentally seeing them. Many could easily become a comic, mean. He himself must have been an interesting man, sharing his life with music and then acting as a witness-notary of these things he was told. The whole wouldn't invite no one to go into these countries. Would say he lived quite an isolated life, inspite of the occasional stayings on of highbrows such as Capote, Tennessee Williams, Burroughs or Barbara Hutton, also. Has to be said that Truman Capote was also masterful as Story Teller : I consider A Tree of Night even the best of his production. And Tennessee too, wrote some good and equally weird Short Stories. Bowles cared as much as he could of his dear Jane, after their misadventures, while in Panama. They had always an open relation, something with what Jane wasn't very satisfied, I thought it after reading about. Dry, cold, concise, his wild short stories are literary pages one can't miss and neither forget. Read something about Patricia Highsmith having taken him as one of the two main characters in her novel, The Tremor of Forgery. If it wasn't so, it could have been, I suppose. He proved to be a remarkably good writer, a very well gifted one. I have no doubt in recommending Paul Bowles to lovers of the best Literature. 💎❤️🆗👍🤗🙏
Perceptive comment. His short stories, wow, some of them are so intense. What is the incestuous tale called? "Cold Point" maybe....And The Sheltering Sky is so good, very visual. I found it beautiful and the hallucinatory sequences are just so well written. You're Spanish, no? Look into "writress" and the "-ess" suffix in general.
A tricky individual. Interesting life with all he knew. A kind of centerless life with himself in the middle; fiction and fact become one. Thanks, really enjoyed it.
This man has recorded a musical chant of some girls from Rif who was brought to the recording palce mandatorly by the fascistic regime of moroccan regime. It was just after few months of the massive genoceds agaisnt these Region but he when there anyway and he knew they would force them to sing, but the Riffain girls were so intelligent to pass underlying messages of what was going by the words which the moroccan colonialists don't understand. In those recordings The Riffain girls explained how the whole region was crushed by the army, and in horrific manner women waped, children killed, men killed and tortured. and they added that How the Caid of the moroccan police brought them forcely to sing this stranger who care less about the mourning of the whole region after 1958-59 genocies of the Moroccan monarchy againt Rif region.
C,EST LA MUSIQUE QUE PAUL AIME ECOUTER CHAQUE VENDREDI SOIR UNE PETITE SOIREE AVEC QUELQUES AMIS POUR ECOUTER CETTE BELLE MUSIQUE EN MANGEANT DU COUSCOUS .
Terrific bio film for many reasons. Kinda wondered how much other writing Bowles might have done if Gertrude Stein hadn't come down on his style so hard. Think he says "I had to reinvent myself." But Stein's got "the reputation" and I don't.. Oh well....lol
@@bawbtherevelator6445 Everything, from the predictably wealthy upbringing to the depressing and idiotic fawning over her opinions by Artists who should know better, but their futures seemed to depend on this ugly old cows judgement. She was also a friend to the Vichy government when it was in her interests... Best...
@@Johnconno Got your point exactly!!! as long as you include rich, dumbass taste-makers with too much money who celebrate the genius of assholes like Jeff Koons LOL ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DCh6pIuNkfw.html
@@bawbtherevelator6445 Jeff Koons, a Stockbroker who plays with plasticine and excrement and was used as the template for Christian Bale's performance in American Psycho. : (
@27:00__ I wonder if Bowles met Gerald Heard __ it seems he uses Automatic Writing, which is unfortunately considered phooey fakery, however using another Name- as Bowles does, qualifies the reality of "unconsciousness automatic writing".
Actually I live in Morocco and know the language and culture, thousands of Americans and Europeans of different creeds are buried in Morocco, there are christian cemeteries and his friend the french novelist Jean Genet is buried in one of them. The thing is, he wanted to be cremated but Morocco doesn't allow cremation, that's why they took his body to be cremated there.
Bowels was the Devil. That is a compliment, however. He make makes me laugh. He should make you laugh too. If you take him seriously, then permit me to introduce you to the kitchen door. Don't let it hit you on the way out. Bowels is near the top of a list of my favorite writers, along with the following (and in no particular order or relation to the others): Malcolm Lowry, being slightly above him in the dense poetry infused into his prose. Joyce is at the top, naturally. Well, you know. Proust as well. All poets should read them both. I realize this is personal opinion. I am a poet who loves fiction as much as poetry, and thinks of it as being needed as poetry. I would add to that list Henry Miller, too. Is he not a miracle of language? And Bulkowski for his fiction (less his poetry). Can anyone describe reality more clearly? Jean Genet, is equal to them all. "Our Lady of the Flowers" is so essential. Janet Fame, too. Wow. We need her back. "Faces in the Water" and "Owls Do Cry" are my favorites. Pascal Quignard too. He is not as known here in America. He is very experimental, but genius is not out of place in describing him. This list is not complete. It was written on a shop receipt. Who are your gods?
I found similarities between Karl Ove Knausgard's My Struggle and Under The Sheltering Sky in terms of describing not just different parts of the surroundings but the character's perception of them. Can you recommend more literature that deals with the character's constantly changing perception of the world ( I can think of Kerouac as a bad recommendation because in his writing there is mostly going from point A to point B and starring at the sky in between, putting little to no effort to describe it poetically)
In terms of the claustrophobic world of the outsider, I would recommend Invisible Man by Ralph Elison. I mostly invest myself in science fiction these days, as I think it represents the apex of a rapidly changing literary canon. Thank you Bowles for realizing your unique vision.
