Collected Stories and Later Writings
Awesome.
Extraordinary collection of stories -- all are wonderful and terrible -- but the story Allal stands out as one of the most masterful descriptions in the English language of altered consciousness -- when the mind of a human being enters the body of a snake -- and vice versa -- by mistake under the effects of kif. A must read for anyone interested in modernist fiction techniques.
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
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.
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
Paul Bowles
Hardcover | Pages: 1050 pages Rating: 4.43 | 131 Users | 11 Reviews
Mention Books As Collected Stories and Later Writings
Original Title: | Collected Stories and Later Writings (Library of America) |
ISBN: | 1931082200 (ISBN13: 9781931082204) |
Edition Language: | English |
Representaion Concering 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.Details Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Title | : | Collected Stories and Later Writings |
Author | : | Paul Bowles |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 1050 pages |
Published | : | August 26th 2002 by Library of America (first published 1979) |
Categories | : | Short Stories. Fiction. Literature. Novels |
Rating Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Ratings: 4.43 From 131 Users | 11 ReviewsRate Of Books Collected Stories and Later Writings
Paul Bowles is unsympathetic to his characters. He pricks them, burns them, cuts them, and leaves for dead, usually offering no explanation why. Perhaps it's because man is sometimes mostly animal.Deliciously deviant.Awesome.
Extraordinary collection of stories -- all are wonderful and terrible -- but the story Allal stands out as one of the most masterful descriptions in the English language of altered consciousness -- when the mind of a human being enters the body of a snake -- and vice versa -- by mistake under the effects of kif. A must read for anyone interested in modernist fiction techniques.
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
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.
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
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