Rating: 
Summary: A Deeply Disturbing Exploration of Interiority and the World
Review: Shortly after Paul Bowles arrived in Morocco in July, 1947, he began writing "The Sheltering Sky" in the stuffy air of a claustrophobic hotel room in Fez. "The first page had to be part of the airless little hotel room where I was lying." From this inauspicious, but atmospheric, beginning, Bowles created one of the most profound works of Twentieth Century American literature, a deeply disturbing exploration of interiority and the world, of the relationship between mind and culture."The Sheltering Sky" tells the story of three Americans traveling in the Sahara following the Second World War. Port and Kit Moresby, husband and wife, and their friend, Tunner, are "travelers," not "tourists," as Port says early in the narrative. "The difference is partly one of time . . . Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another." Like travelers, Port, Kit and Tunner seem to have little in the way of an itinerary, their days languourously slipping by, one day into the next, without purpose, marked only by a palpable psychic discomfort. But there is another important difference between the tourist and the traveler. As Port relates, "the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking." In doing this, however, the traveler runs the risk, if the degree of cultural separation is too great, if the foreign culture is too extreme, that he will become completely untethered from reality. As Bowles once said in a 1981 Paris Review interview: "Everyone is isolated from everyone else. The concept of society is like a cushion to protect us from the knowledge of that isolation. A fiction that serves as an anaesthetic." It is, ultimately, the removal of this anaesthetic, the removal of societal and cultural moorings, which drives the narrative of "The Sheltering Sky"and determines the fate of Port and Kit and Tunner. One does not survive; another will never be the same again. Disturbances of the interior landscape, the landscape of the psyche, become the catalyst of this psychologically discomforting novel. And this stunning mingling of interior landscape with the landscape of the Sahara-the sands, the sky, the maze-like passages of the cities, the alien culture-brilliantly unfies and completes the narrative of "The Sheltering Sky", marking it as a profound and compelling work of genius.
Rating:
Summary: Ever dreamed of dying overseas?
Review: A parable for the traveler. The greatest kif-induced writer in English delivers a beautiful nightmare of fools and nancies running around in North Africa. Their downfall is that of every traveler: the inability to see the "new" as anything but a comparison to the "old," no matter how nonjudgmental, all-embracing, unperturbable, and tolerant one perceives oneself. These comparisons inevitably lead to the belief that one brings ones familiar surroundings along on a journey and can re-create them to some extent in an unfamiliar setting. Displayed by the stacks of parcels and trunks and by the jalopy rumbling around the Sahara, Bowles is warning us all. The ex-pat world of SUVs and global cells demonstrates that his words have yet to be heard. This idiocy calls into question the very purpose of traveling. It is truly staggering, therefore, that this is one of the most popular travel books around. To see backpacking sorority babes and fratboys lugging around designer packs and bitching about the price of a hostel (due to a pilsner-soaked incomprehension of exchange rates) or berating a tiny restaurant's owner for his town's lack of a McDonald's, and then to see a Bowles paperback jammed in next to their Lonely Planet bar guide... Father, forgive them, for they are clueless. Back to the novel. Direct, violent in its unwavering focus, and somewhat darkly funny, this quick read is a keeper.
Rating: 
Summary: almost, but not quite
Review: A strange and disconcerting book. Sometimes too removed, always visually descriptive, not wholly satisfying, occasionally heartbreaking. Post-colonial Algeria presents the couple with a false sense of belonging in a strange place; and a feeling of arrogant entitlement which they are reluctant to acknowledge in themselves. At once, they view themselves as a part, and apart, of the environment. They distinguish themselves from boorish stereotypes, (Mrs Lyle and her son), by their liberalism, and validate their presence abroad, as travellers, who are exploring not imposing. Landscape as a metaphor - its bleakness and aridity mirrors the state of love between the two protagonists. Its monotony of sky and sand dunes and dirt causes a gross discomfort (for the couple) - similarly, the familiarity of their relationship provokes insecurity. The sky does not shelter; nor what's beyond the sky (Port reaches here through death). The slow breakdown of Kit and Port's relationship is recorded, through its absence, rather than its presence. Their isolation from each other, runs parallel to their alienation as westerners within north Africa. Tunner provides a foil, of sorts, to this event (as well as being an object at which tensions are directed). He directly aids its destruction through his clandestine affair with Kit, but also, he remains the ubiquitous third party with whom one, or neither, of them side. By turns, he brings them together, and splits them further apart. Port's death sees the renewal of Kit's life. It gives a release that she has presumed she would never find again. She abandons her superstitious outlook, realising that the only 'omens' she discovers, are of her own making. She takes control. Previously, control was shared, and responsibilities dictated by this sharing. However, her control is short-lived. Effectively, she's swallowed up by the Sahara. Stylistically, the third section of the novel, with its automatic and unconscious narrative, echoes this. Whilst the previous two parts are rooted in realism, the third gives over entirely to complete surrealism. The descriptions of place, become even more vivid - they take precedence, as the desert overpowers Kit. Kit successfully loses herself - a strangely satisfying ending - to insanity, the desert, and anonymity, her aloneness (only compounded by grief), becoming unbearable. The novel consistently remains a subtle drama, allowing the reader only ever half way into the characters, at which point they become merely symbolic, often frustratingly so. Theme - the psychology of post-war existentialism - predominates characterisation. Bowles' attempts to remove focus from the straightness of the plot can be skimmed, although all sub-events work towards, rather than against, expression of the former. Kit and Port's journey remains mostly unexplained - perhaps Bowles felt no explanation was necessary.
Rating: 
Summary: A Terrifying and Exhilarating Journey
Review: Paul Bowles' 1949 novel, "The Sheltering Sky" is a phenomenal, terrifying, and exhilarating journey into the depths (or surfaces?) of human existence. That's a lot of work for a novel to do, but this one pulls it off. This is a novel that deals with three Americans on the run from themselves, from each other, and from preconceived notions of identity. Set in the aftermath of World War II, the novel exposes and disrupts firm ideas of national identities and international relationships - between the Americans, French colonials, Arabic African natives, and a wealth of other ethnic/national categories - and shows how they react to and resist each other. "The Sheltering Sky" begins with Porter and Katherine Moresby, a married couple who have never stayed in any place too long, in a North African city, with the intention to casually move from one place to the next, idealistically hoping to stay away from "the places which had been touched by the war." Accompanied by their wholly annoying friend Tunner, they embark upon an unplanned meander southwards into the vast, forbidding Sahara. The remainder of the novel shows these characters' adventures in Africa, and the resulting changes to their highly individual, naively constructed ideas about being-in-the-world. Among other points of interest in "The Sheltering Sky," one thing that particularly grabbed my attention was the omnipresence of the main characters' sense of cultural superiority. Despite Port's early insistence that he is a 'traveler' and not a 'tourist,' he and his companions soon discover that knowledge of maps, hastily gathered information about the next town on the route, and knowledge of the French language are insufficient to acclimate them to their surroundings and insure their comfort. The novel does an excellent job of disrupting cultural stereotypes, particularly of the region's Arabic inhabitants, as the travelers make their way south into the Sahara, further and further away from 'civilization' as they understand it. It also forces us as readers to take into account the perceptions of what we consider foreign from the point of view of 'foreigners' in their own element. The journey southward exposes the characters increasingly to peril - threats of thievery, disease, and existential despair - and the environment plays a large role in this. The sky itself, often characterized similarly to Ahab's 'pasteboard mask' in Melville's "Moby Dick," as sheltering the characters from knowledge of the infinite, looms as a challenge to each of the characters. Continual encounters with sand, heat, hills, and the difficulties of transportation complicate the experiences of Port, Kit, and Tunner. The most independently mobile and problematic characters in the novel, the British/Australian Eric Lyle and his eternally irascible mother, provide an interesting counterpoint to the strictly-considered 'native' or inherently existing impediments to travel and stability. "The Sheltering Sky" is a very oppressive and depressing novel - but don't let that stop you from picking it up - sometimes oppression and depression are necessary to force us to reconsider our relationship to the world. The novel is as vital and 'timeless' now as it was in 1949, and perhaps even more important now. The philosophical, social, cultural, and geopolitical currents of Bowles' novel make "The Sheltering Sky" worth a careful read.
Rating:
Summary: SECOND GENERATION LOST
Review: 25 years after Hemmingway in the 'Sun Also Rises'wrote of expatriot rich Americans raising lell in Paris and Pamplona, Bowles spins his tale of ugly Americans, this time in North Africa. Bowles' improbable story is written with much more passion and meaning than was Hemingway's style. Three bored Americans try to discover themselves in the brutally hot and dirty Sahara. Kit and Port try to recapture thier affection and are accompanied by their dull friend Tunner. Drunk and terrified, a vulnerable Kit succombs to Tunner's advances while Port becomes obssessed with native dancing girls. Eventually Port and Kit separate from Tunner in an attempt to regain their love for each other. Port becomes desparately ill leaving Kit emotioanlly unprepared to do what she must do Rather than face the truth and her obligations, Kit escapes from reality and finds herself alone in the dessert and prisoner to the savage ways of the desert.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing--5 Stars barely does it justice.
Review: I first read "The Sheltering Sky" years ago, and was shocked and mesmerized by the beautiful, languid prose. Bowles insights into human psychology are almost peerless. The only two writers I can think of who are his equal are Rachel Ingalls and Patricia Highsmith. The book is not an easy one--people are petty or indifferent or merely desperate, and Nature is huge and impersonal. I admire Bowles' work enormously, and "The Sheltering Sky," is his best. Absolutely one of the greatest novels I have ever had the privilege to read.
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Summary: The desperate quest for meaning
Review: It's very difficult to add something more to what has already been said in the previous reviews. The deep impression this novel gave me lies in the fact that all the characters of the novel are like puppets moved by odd forces they don't even know. Nature is showed as cruel, indifferent to human feelings and to human life at all. Nature has nothing to do with human misery, so the author expresses a desperate view of life as human beings can't get shelter anywhere. The sky is the only refuge, and that means there is no refuge at all. All the characters, and above all the marriage couple, act under the influence of strange needs, almost superstitious. From the beginning they seek something near to salvation far away from the Western civilization, so they venture deeper and deeper into the Sahara desert, and there they find death and insanity.
The desert, the shuddering empty spaces, the anguish of an inhuman and amoral Nature fascinates the three Americans and envelopes them in a treacherous embrace. The desert is the place where there can be no humanity at all, no time, just a blind hideous empty space which also empties their minds and turns them into beings without soul. When they realize that they are finally lost, they don't care at all; they chose Nature in its purest form possible, but that implies that Nature has no soul. They finally lose their souls and become living ghosts.
Love, death and insanity; there is no redemption, there is no salvation, Nature has no soul, Nature is nothingness, life is meaningless. There can be no shelter but the sky. Seeking answers, they get lost in themselves and experience the total dissolution of their beings.
Rating:
Summary: now this is what books are for
Review: This book is tragic and intense. It not only has a fantastic story line, but it is as psycolgically engaging and interesting as any I have ever read. Definitely a wonderful novel.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: Really outstanding. I was speechless by the end.
Rating:
Summary: High Brow Horror Fiction
Review: Paul Bowles loved Edgar Allen Poe, wrote poetry in Paris and befriended several of the surrealist poets instead of going to college, and he married Jane who later went mad. Bowles terrain is not for the meek and he does not strike a wide variety of notes in his fictions but it is so very well written that the often spare and hollow content of each work is made palatable even seductive to readers who normally might not walk on the wild side. The desert is his favorite atmosphere. The Sheltering Sky is his best known work and the only of his many novels to gain a wide audience. His short stories are also exquisite and there are many of them. The short story is a form he is very comfortable with. Sheltering Sky is the travelogue of a couples journey .....but where to and why. You will have to read it. The less you know going in the better. Invisible Spectator is an excellent biography also. If you catch the Bowles bug you will also be led to Isabelle Eberheart's Oblivion Seekers. And his protege Mohammed Mrabet. Bowles left America in the 40's and lived in North Africa all his life rarely making visits abroad. The beats worshipped him for letting in the sex and the drugs. He was also a trained composer and collector of tribal music(Master Musicians of Morroco, excellent CD). His original recordings might be worth seeking out as a good accompaniment to his written work.
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