The Stories of Paul Bowles

I came to this collection the way I recently came to reading The Sheltering Sky; years of occasional recommendation and rare instances of picking up a book by Paul or Jane Bowles, reading a passage, and putting it back. A couple of years ago I arrived in San Francisco and every so often stayed on th......more

I can't think of anyone who writes more strikingly than Bowles of The Self (often, but not always, a cultured Westerner) coming face-to-face with The Other. Other-ness, in Bowles's stories, functions like Nietzsche's void: When it is stared into by a protagonist, prodded or investigated or even oste......more

There are some chilling stories in this tome. The man chased by a legless hairy creature with flipper arms set the tone for this book. But the stories are so short and the pattern shows up: person A goes to foreign land, settles in, nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens, oh my Sainted Pe......more

One of my favorite all time books. Many of these stories are pure atmosphere, but it's atmosphere so thick you can climb in and move around in them. You can feel the creeping of time and the richness of air.......more

I read these over a long time, so almost none of the stories are fresh in my memory. Bowles writes beautifully. His stories, and attitude about human nature, make Conrad seem like an optimist. At their core, for Bowles, people are unknowable and terrifying. He illustrates this again and again by sho......more