Existentialist fiction In the Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles - Book Report/Review Example

The Sheltering Sky Review A lot can be derived from merely staying around particular places. Forinstance, learning that a life in a desert is a harsh, dangerous and unforgiving is what one would get from watching the Patrick Swayze movie Steel Dawn. Though common knowledge, I would not pride myself I was much informed on the harsh realities faced by the few inhabitants in a desert environment, the harsh climate, the dangerous terrain, the sweltering sun are the only few mentions that linger when the subject is in question. But it took the sight of Swayze dancing filmic ballet to the sound of Brian May’s soundtrack to really concretize what were previouslypurely fleeting thoughts.The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles is an agonizing 10.5-hours-long piece of existentialist fiction. Nomadic existence accompanied with mullet which begs the question, is there a more profound statement on the terror that prowls behind every dune of the sandy ocean? I doubt even more that I could have been in a better position for Paul Bowles’ expedition into the wilds of North Africa. Swayze created a platform onto which Bowles placed his oeuvre, The Sheltering Sky. A travel piece of sorts, The Sheltering Sky follows Kit and Port, an American couple as they travel around North Africa, moving from one incomprehensible settlement to another. Tunner, Port’s buddy, a rather dull fellow, indecisive and weak, who Kit generally dislikes, tags along. The story is focused on the couple in their attempt to manage both the foreign environment and their love lives. Fixated and inclined to over-think ostensiblytrifling events, they become distanced, separated by a hostile landscape with naivety. They stand alone on a sheet of sun-draped earth, links severed by the coarse wind, irrecoverably isolated with only the deepening darkness of the desert lying ahead of them. Paul Bowles bestrides the line between the Lost Generation and the Beat Generation in many ways. Exiling himself at an early age from the United States, most of his life is spent outside the country, predominantly residing in Tangier. Over the 50s he became friendly with various expatiate artists andpoets, ones frequently glazed with the label of Beat – Bill Burroughs being one notable visitor to his Tangier abode. A more accurate point of reference is that of Albert Camus, at least as far as The Sheltering Sky is concerned, The reflections on the nature of the human and the afflictions of existence that fill The Outsider, typical of a Camus pensive with the individual ripped from the claws of religion and set down in front of a potential freedom, paint stark pictures of persons lost and exiled as they endeavor to function in the world. The American couple is a wayfarer in a sea of estrangement, unable to connect with others except by the most tenuous of threads. Locals, ephemeral decorations on their pointless itinerary, serve merely to hue the scene. The land is an abyss of dejection and physical torment, the bearer of disease and wanton disfigurement. Port’s illness, which emerges some halfway through the novel, spawns as if from nowhere, its sudden darkness swallowing him whole – the illness of isolation transfigured into a ravaging of the body. Kit’s descent into a cauldron of instability and tears also traces a progression from mental pain to physical pain. Kit and Port assume "an existence of exile from the world." The divide between what is said and the thought is constantly used to depict the friction between the interior self and the surface, and creates an even bigger divide between one character and another. Dialogue scenes are marked by these extracts of interior reflection where Kit, say, will think what she wants to say to Port, but then end up saying something else, a trivial mask for what she really thinks. The subject is abstracted from the other, like Swayze masked in his nomadic ways in Steel Dawn. The snare of social relations and the furtive eyes of the other may be unreachable, but in its physicality, the spaces and smells remains similarly a fount of despair. The desert assumes the form of another character, given body by long, winding descriptions flowing ruthlessly in and out of chapters. The desert is the site for loss; it takes and does not give, escalating its prey further and further into its heart of darkness.Bowles novel, though not totally convincing is a forlorn picture of people lost in the world. It can be quite harrowing at times, plummeting characters to terrifying depths, especially as the narrative reaches a climax. These later events work to such brilliant effect because by that time one has already become enraptured by the antics of the pair, of the curios of their minds, of their robust adventuring. In conclusion, the review of the novel, Sheltering Sky, explores the harsh realities experienced Kit and Port in the desert. The read is especially pleasant as it takes one through the harrowing experiences faced by the two other than trying to make their relationship work. Despite these, Kit and Port stand out and bring out their roles in the best of ways not to mention introduce some humor when they try to ditch Tunner. ‘Sheltering sky”has received both criticism and appraisal all in equal measure. Deservedly, Bowles should be accredited with the thrill of read, best known for a wonderful creation in the vein of existential fiction; a pleasant read indeed. Read More