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Up Above The World
On the terrace of an eloborate hilltop apartment overlooking a Central American capital, four people sit making polite conversation. The American couple -- an elderly physician and his young wife -- are tourists. Their host, whom they have just met, is a young man of striking good looks and charm. The girl, who is his mistress, is very young and very beautiful. Sitting there, with drinks in their hands, watching the sunset, the Slades seem to be experiencing the sort of fortunate chance encounter that travelers cherish. But amidst the civilities and small talk, one remark proves prophetic. The host says to the American "It's not exactly what you think." Masterfully -- with the poetic control that has always characterized his work -- Paul Bowles leads the reader beneath the surface of hospitality and luxury into a tortuous maze of human relationships and shifting moods, until what seems at first a merely casual encounter is seen to be one rooted in viciousness and horror.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Paul Bowles
255 books884 followersPaul Frederic Bowles grew up in New York, and attended college at the University of Virginia before traveling to Paris, where became a part of Gertrude Stein's literary and artistic circle. Following her advice, he took his first trip to Tangiers in 1931 with his friend, composer Aaron Copeland.
In 1938 he married author and playwright Jane Auer (see: Jane Bowles). He moved to Tangiers permanently in 1947, with Auer following him there in 1948. There they became fixtures of the American and European expatriate scene, their visitors including Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Bowles continued to live in Tangiers after the death of his wife in 1973.
Bowles died of heart failure in Tangier on November 18, 1999. His ashes were interred near the graves of his parents and grandparents in Lakemont, New York.
In 1938 he married author and playwright Jane Auer (see: Jane Bowles). He moved to Tangiers permanently in 1947, with Auer following him there in 1948. There they became fixtures of the American and European expatriate scene, their visitors including Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal. Bowles continued to live in Tangiers after the death of his wife in 1973.
Bowles died of heart failure in Tangier on November 18, 1999. His ashes were interred near the graves of his parents and grandparents in Lakemont, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 124 reviews
September 26, 2023
Whether it be North Africa, Latin America, or India, Paul Bowles has gone down the same road more than once by taking civilized intellectual Anglo-Saxon folk who are always in control of themselves and putting them face to face with fatal confrontations dealing with the illogical, perverse and violent realities of a life that is alien to them. And he does it really well in fact. While this novel might not have the same level of harsh intensity of The Sheltering Sky, Bowles still delivered a hidden, sinister uncomfortable feeling that really got under my skin. Instead of the dry dusty heat of the desert we get the moist sweltering jungle heat of a Central American republic. But one thing remains the same: a leisurely tour that takes a turn for the worse. Dr. Taylor Slade and his young wife Day are careful, precise people who tend to show little emotion, and believe that as wealthy Americans who never put a foot wrong, and who score 10/10 when it comes to common sense, they are somehow protected against the forces of evil. But after a casual meeting with the rich and charming Grove Soto, and his teenage pot smoking Cuban mistress Luchita who dreams of fleeing to Paris, that's all about to change. They suddenly become ill, apparently from a tropical virus that produces delirium and high fever. But is there more going on here than meets the eye? Simple answer is yes. Hidden behind the lush apartments, postcard tropical scenery, and harmless details, is an environment of savagery and corruption that Bowles ever so slowly brings into the narrative.
Those showing real concern for the well-being of the Slades might or might not be masking other menacing intentions. Up above the world really does require the readers full attention, as some of the smallest details, especially from about the middle of the novel on, hold the key in trying to fully grasp just what is happening. Nothing was ever clear cut. And that's what I liked most about it. It was a novel that has me thinking more of what's lurking off page than what's on it. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax but other than that, and considering he hadn't written a novel for 10 years, I was impressed.
December 8, 2018
It was my first encounter with Paul Bowles and for sure not last. Up above the world is a disturbing novel and leaves you quivering inwardly. The whole story has an odd nightmarish atmosphere; heat and lushness of tropics clashes with coldness and some awkwardness of human relationships; descriptions of nature, colours and sounds of the jungle are picturesque and very accurate and hallucinations experienced by heroes horrifyingly palpable.
The main protagonists remain for us enigma. American couple, Dr. Slade and his much younger wife Day, seem to be not very devoted to themselves. There is some indifference and languidness in their relationship, some ennui with slight shade of lenience. The Slades are strangely supine, like string puppets letting others manipulate them. They consider life as an eternal journey or maybe escape, anyway sum of accidental events. The Slades seem to think that common sense and some amount of money is enough to make people safe in this world. Couldn’t be more wrong. When they meet charming stranger, not knowing how and why, fall victim to him; though almost for the very first page we sense they are doomed. They say don’t talk to strangers and these words work here fully. But the problem is much more complex.
Bowles' style is unsentimental and a bit flat when it comes to feelings and behaviors but never fails building a tension, an ominous aura, a sense of growing horror. It is really masterful. Mrs Slade thinks that true proximity between people is impossible and one can only dream of it. And maybe there is a point. Maybe Bowles wants to tell us that any human relationship is an anguish only a bit lesser than solitude itself, that we live alone and the same way we die. So, take a look into that garden of good and evil. But don’t blame me if you have nightmare later.
February 12, 2021
I think Paul Bowles—a sort of maverick Graham Greene—must have jumped on the eclectic name bandwagon before the eclectic name bandwagon was a thing. I have no doubt he could have put modern celebrities to shame in naming his children. In The Sheltering Sky there was Port Moresby, and in this one there is Day Slade. It’s like he took a Mad Libs sheet and ignored the category beneath each blank.
Up Above the World is My Cousin Rachel meets Brighton Rock meets The Comfort of Strangers, and though I enjoyed it, the motives of, and execution by the antagonist don’t entirely have me convinced. But man, does he know how to set a scene. Trading North Africa for Latin America, I feel like I’ve just returned mosquito-bitten from the jungle, unable to decide whether to reread Rosemary's Baby—there’s definitely a similar what's really going on here vibe—or Turn Right at Machu Picchu.
Up Above the World is My Cousin Rachel meets Brighton Rock meets The Comfort of Strangers, and though I enjoyed it, the motives of, and execution by the antagonist don’t entirely have me convinced. But man, does he know how to set a scene. Trading North Africa for Latin America, I feel like I’ve just returned mosquito-bitten from the jungle, unable to decide whether to reread Rosemary's Baby—there’s definitely a similar what's really going on here vibe—or Turn Right at Machu Picchu.
February 9, 2019
Αν υποτεθεί ότι χρειάζονται συστάσεις, ο Paul Bowles (1910-1999) δεν είναι άλλος από τον συγγραφέα του βιβλίου ‘The Sheltering Sky’, που μετέφερε μοναδικά στη μεγάλη οθόνη ο Bernardo Bertolucci και αποδόθηκε στην καθ’ ημάς ελληνική ως ‘Τσάι στη Σαχάρα’.
Στο Up above the world, όπως και στο The Sheltering Sky, ένα ζευγάρι Αμερικανών τουριστών ταξιδεύει. Προορισμός τους, όμως, εδώ δεν είναι η Ταγγέρη και η Σαχάρα, αλλά μια χώρα της Κεντρικής Αμερικής, όπου δύο από τα πρόσωπα που θα συναντήσουν θα σημαδέψουν ανεξίτηλα το ταξίδι τους.
Δεν πρόκειται για υπαρξιακό δράμα, αλλά για ένα ωραιότατο θρίλερ μυστηρίου, που, σελίδα τη σελίδα, βυθίζει τον αναγνώστη του σ’ έναν κόσμο όπου τα όρια μεταξύ πραγματικότητας και παραίσθησης είναι συχνά δυσδιάκριτα. Μπορεί το βιβλίο να δείχνει την ηλικία του (1966), αλλά είναι τόση η οξυδέρκεια του συγγραφέα όσον αφορά τις περιγραφές των σχέσεων, των συμπεριφορών και των συναισθημάτων των ηρώων του, που υποψιάζεσαι ότι αυτό που διάβασες θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί κλασικό.
Στο Up above the world, όπως και στο The Sheltering Sky, ένα ζευγάρι Αμερικανών τουριστών ταξιδεύει. Προορισμός τους, όμως, εδώ δεν είναι η Ταγγέρη και η Σαχάρα, αλλά μια χώρα της Κεντρικής Αμερικής, όπου δύο από τα πρόσωπα που θα συναντήσουν θα σημαδέψουν ανεξίτηλα το ταξίδι τους.
Δεν πρόκειται για υπαρξιακό δράμα, αλλά για ένα ωραιότατο θρίλερ μυστηρίου, που, σελίδα τη σελίδα, βυθίζει τον αναγνώστη του σ’ έναν κόσμο όπου τα όρια μεταξύ πραγματικότητας και παραίσθησης είναι συχνά δυσδιάκριτα. Μπορεί το βιβλίο να δείχνει την ηλικία του (1966), αλλά είναι τόση η οξυδέρκεια του συγγραφέα όσον αφορά τις περιγραφές των σχέσεων, των συμπεριφορών και των συναισθημάτων των ηρώων του, που υποψιάζεσαι ότι αυτό που διάβασες θα μπορούσε να χαρακτηριστεί κλασικό.
January 19, 2016
A noir-mystery meets existential horror story wrapped up in a Central American fever dream.
December 5, 2020
If there was a person nearby, it could only be a stranger. ... "I'm all right." This was what one was supposed to say, and he said it;yet he was aware of the outside world rushing away, retreating before the onslaught of a vast sickness that welled up inside him, and he knew that soon there would be only the obscene reality of himself, trapped in the solitary chambers of existence.
October 9, 2024
Paul Bowles severek okuduğum bir yazar. Egzotik yerlerin atmosferini taşıyan metinleri, özellikle de romanları heyecanla okuyorum. Akıcı ve net anlatımının yormadan okunmasını, hep ilgimi çeken egzotik yerler ile ilgili hikayelerini ve kısa olmayan ama uzunluğu da korkutmayan kitaplarını beğeniyorum.
Bu romanı, okuduğum diğer kitaplarından (Avluda Yüz Deve, Yağsın Yağmur, Esirgeyen Gökyüzü) farklı. Düğümün kitabın sonunda çözüldüğü bir gerilim romanı. Yağsın Yağmur başlıklı romanı da bir gerilim romanı olsa da, buradaki gerilim daha güçlü, daha etkili, çok daha sürükleyici ve heyecanlı. Hikaye de, karakterler de etkileyici.
Çok beğendim.
“…gereksiz öğütlerde bulunmak, siyasal nutuk atmakla birdir…. Her ikisini de dinleyen çıkmaz….”, sf; 187.
Bu romanı, okuduğum diğer kitaplarından (Avluda Yüz Deve, Yağsın Yağmur, Esirgeyen Gökyüzü) farklı. Düğümün kitabın sonunda çözüldüğü bir gerilim romanı. Yağsın Yağmur başlıklı romanı da bir gerilim romanı olsa da, buradaki gerilim daha güçlü, daha etkili, çok daha sürükleyici ve heyecanlı. Hikaye de, karakterler de etkileyici.
Çok beğendim.
“…gereksiz öğütlerde bulunmak, siyasal nutuk atmakla birdir…. Her ikisini de dinleyen çıkmaz….”, sf; 187.
March 18, 2025
En la contraportada se indica que ésta es la última novela larga de Paul Bowles. Tras leerla tengo la impresión que habría estado mejor si esa última novela larga fuese sido la anterior a Por encima del mundo, que en el saldo lo único que me queda es una narración tonta y desganada que abunda más en prejuicios del primer contra el tercer mundo.
El bloque principal es la historia de los Slade, un matrimonio norteamericano que viaja a un país imaginario que representa Latinoamérica y ahí hacen las cosas típicas que hacen todos los personajes habituales de Paul Bowles, dedicarse a la vida bohemia, un poco de turismo chic y poco más. Efectivamente tiene toda la pinta que el señor Bowles entregó esta novela por compromiso editorial más que por inspiración. El motor de la narración es prácticamente el mismo que El cielo protector sólo que cambiando el desierto del Sáhara por una localización aproximadamente latinoamericana.
Si a su amigo William Burroughs le han criticado y despellejado por empaquetar en su novela Queer una mirada demasiado estereotipada de Latinoamérica, como un parque de atracción para borrachos y aventureros, con Bowles directamente tendrían que ir a hacer explotar su tumba con dinamita. De hecho casi me veo empujado a replantearme mi opinión más o menos positiva acerca del El cielo protector, pues aquí Bowles otra vez nos representa un país dónde la gente vive en chozas y profesa costumbres extrañas y sólo un pequeño segmento más sofisticado vive en cómodas casas bien aburguesadas, que ofrece té y tienen tocadiscos. A eso Bowles también añade que sus personajes femeninos secundarios básicamente viven para prostituirse.
En general me doy cuenta que ese tono desganado que Bowles insufla en todas sus narraciones, más que una consecuencia de una visión pesimista de la humanidad parece una falta de pericia, cómo que siempre está escribiendo lo mismo y no es especialmente brillante o conmovedor. Todos los intercambios y diálogos están salpicados por una vaga ironía, los personajes son o bien indolentes o bien viciosos, no hay nada que merezca retener o prestar mucha atención más allá del rato en el que el libro está entre las manos del lector.
Para abundar más en esa noción que el libro fue escrito por causas espurias, también la prosa resulta esmirriada, sólo en algunos fragmentos se nota un poco más de oficio y esmero, el resto es taquigrafía, escritura plana y mecánica, sin sentido de la belleza ni tampoco capacidad de impacto.
Llevaba bastante tiempo sin leer a Bowles, desde que en 2013 leí La casa de la Araña, y bien puede ser que mis gustos hayan cambiado. Hoy, cuanto menos esta novela, parece más bien una obra sólo indicada para hipsters de baja estofa y nostálgicos del movimiento beatnik que quieran sus raciones de exotismo envuelto en sus prejuicios racistas.
September 30, 2020
You could probably find writers with stranger career arcs than Paul Bowles, but his still puzzles me. He published The Sheltering Sky in 1949, at the age of 39 (which I used to think sounded old to publish a first novel, but not so much now that I'm 34), followed by Let it Come Down in '52 and The Spider's House in '55. Up Above the World came out eleven years later, in '66, and Bowles never published another novel...though he lived until the year 1999.
At first glance, Up Above the World has a lot in common with Bowles's three early novels- there's an emotionally-repressed American couple of non-specific means, traveling in a foreign country for a non-specific purpose, wandering but not really having a good time, heedless of the danger gathering around them. A notable difference however is that while the first three novels take place in Africa, usually Morocco (where Bowles spent much of his life), Up Above the World takes place in a fictional central American country. I found this detail (the "fictional" detail, that is) a little disappointing- not in and of itself, but indicative of a change in Bowles's writing.
What I mean is that The Spider's House, in contrast, is a novel that has something to say about a real place- Morocco- and its people, about politics and revolution, about how the aftermath of World War II had sent some people into the world restless and adrift, and it says it through the stories of characters with real depth. And despite the fact that The Spider's House is probably the most unwieldy of those three early novels, the least perfect- or maybe because of it- I'm tempted to say it's my favorite. Either way, it seemed to me that in that novel Bowles was experimenting, breaking out of some of his solipsism, becoming more concerned with both the complexities of society and the inner workings of other human beings; and in that context, Up Above the World's relative lack of ambition can seem disappointing, the fictional setting an indication that this story could really just take place anywhere that would seem exotic.
Then again, maybe it simply requires an adjustment of expectation, because Bowles obviously had a different ambition with this novel. Once I realized that, my perspective on the book changed. Bowles's writing style here is still uniquely rhythmic, hypnotic and menacing, setting a mood almost like music does. There is a scene of sickness- like, physical sickness- in The Sheltering Sky that is one of the most visceral and frightening I've ever read, and in this novel there are a few scenes of...well...an altered state of consciousness, let's say...that are nearly as good, that really capture a feeling of exile from the planet earth. If the word choice were more recondite, you could almost imagine you were reading Lovecraft.
A vast novel was unfolding; she recognized the backdrop as a sinister distortion of the actual landscape outside the apartment. The countryside was peopled, but she could not see the faces. Now and then, with the regularity of a nerve aching, the conviction swept over her that the faces belonged to an unknown monstrous race. She was being propelled toward a time when they would no longer be hidden.So I think I started to enjoy this novel a lot more when I stopped looking for an especially profound meaning and started to enjoy it as a longer version of one of Bowles's genuinely sinister short stories. Yes, this one is a thriller, a horror movie even, and there are moments of suspense and dread that could make Dario Argento envious. Granted, there are some loose ends. I'm still not exactly certain why the villain did what he did in the way that he did it, and I'm not certain that Bowles was certain either, but the atmosphere of menace was so powerful that I enjoyed the story anyway.
April 24, 2014
I read this about ten years ago and it remains my favorite novel ("Let It Come Down," also by Bowles, is also in my top five). It is considered a lesser piece of writing by critics of Bowles, and stands firmly in the shadow of what many consider to be his masterpiece, "The Sheltering Sky." While that "more important" work is fine, there is something about this so-called minor novel that really struck a chord. It reminds me of something by Patricia Highsmith, in that it's plotted well and throughout its characters are harried, dislocated, always a moment away from making a wrong decision. The ending stayed with me for days and days.
Graham Greene used to call some of his novels "entertainments" because he saw them as less serious works and wanted to make a distinction between, say, what he was trying to accomplish in "The Power and the Glory" versus "Our Man in Havana." I think, too, Bowles saw "Up Above the World" in a similar light compared to his other works. But I find the novel beautiful and mysterious, and it's the one I cherish above all others.
Graham Greene used to call some of his novels "entertainments" because he saw them as less serious works and wanted to make a distinction between, say, what he was trying to accomplish in "The Power and the Glory" versus "Our Man in Havana." I think, too, Bowles saw "Up Above the World" in a similar light compared to his other works. But I find the novel beautiful and mysterious, and it's the one I cherish above all others.
April 8, 2015
At some point in the night she had a dream. Or was it possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream?
Do you know those greatest hits collection a popular band will put out late in their career? There will be a "new hit" shoehorned into the track listing. A familiar yet joyless sound flea backs on when something had to be said. I don't buy greatest hits at all. But those tearful youthful Christmases when your specific requests for a GOOD David Bowie album are ignored? Those times. The Sheltering Sky loses its footing (I didn't even like that one that much and I missed it). An elderly American doctor escorts his wife to compromise in tourist plans. If you want to stay we will move on tonight. His face is lined in betrayals. Why didn't you preread my mind, woman? She is younger because he is older. She is good because he is not. If he is around she could not mind any situation if he is against it. Mrs. Slade reminded me of children who behave younger when they are with their parents. Capable of more if it is the only option. Hers is the dreaded right thing personality vacuum. Save me from people who insist on their right thing if YOU are the one making the sacrifices. The world alone takes on a dusty settled landscape in her brain. Sinister thoughts, haunting faces of other people. It is the "No one knows anyone else if other people don't feel EXACTLY as I feel EXACTLY when I feel like it" The Sheltering Sky again. Dr. Slade would blow away in the wind. I have less to say about him than his wife. He decided what name she had to go by and she let him. So she could hold it against him later? I guess? They suck that much.
The Spider's House feels the estrangement too. The void sky deafens you. You want what you can't have, when you have it you don't want it. Anything to relieve the buried alive of self and other people. Right or wrong is wrong. The gut feeling snake pit is the inescapable, the only life. I thought Bowles knew that and now he threw it away. Slade machinations. Slade helplessness. I don't care what happens to them.
Let it Come Down isn't left out of the tracing. Fat tourists bleed into your space, fake smiles of the locals consume you. Go to their houses of glass, fur and leather. You're the faceless legs of the servants. You're the doll in playtime. How did it become their world all the time? I believe in the monster's world. I believed in it like some big bang out of people shit atmospherics in Bowles' short stories. Background is same color as the drapes. This time it is a young and handsome man. His father has a bottomless checkbook. The strings attached chafe the big little rich boy so he keeps a bland yes-man around. The yes-man calls him "Baby" for some reason. I thought this was the creepiest part of the book. His sex mirrors for his teenage mistress wasn't as bad as that. Grove/Vero's tape recorder for rehearsed sex plans for the teenager was pretty creepy too. I want some indefinable domination outcome and you had better give it to me, dammit! I wished I wasn't reading the book at all long before then, though. What was in Up Above the World that wasn't in one of his other three novels? Something for money, I guess. There's no conviction. A shit flows with no wind. I wish I hadn't read this one. (Maybe I should believe in it. I didn't stop reading when I was bored from the first few pages.)
Do you know those greatest hits collection a popular band will put out late in their career? There will be a "new hit" shoehorned into the track listing. A familiar yet joyless sound flea backs on when something had to be said. I don't buy greatest hits at all. But those tearful youthful Christmases when your specific requests for a GOOD David Bowie album are ignored? Those times. The Sheltering Sky loses its footing (I didn't even like that one that much and I missed it). An elderly American doctor escorts his wife to compromise in tourist plans. If you want to stay we will move on tonight. His face is lined in betrayals. Why didn't you preread my mind, woman? She is younger because he is older. She is good because he is not. If he is around she could not mind any situation if he is against it. Mrs. Slade reminded me of children who behave younger when they are with their parents. Capable of more if it is the only option. Hers is the dreaded right thing personality vacuum. Save me from people who insist on their right thing if YOU are the one making the sacrifices. The world alone takes on a dusty settled landscape in her brain. Sinister thoughts, haunting faces of other people. It is the "No one knows anyone else if other people don't feel EXACTLY as I feel EXACTLY when I feel like it" The Sheltering Sky again. Dr. Slade would blow away in the wind. I have less to say about him than his wife. He decided what name she had to go by and she let him. So she could hold it against him later? I guess? They suck that much.
The Spider's House feels the estrangement too. The void sky deafens you. You want what you can't have, when you have it you don't want it. Anything to relieve the buried alive of self and other people. Right or wrong is wrong. The gut feeling snake pit is the inescapable, the only life. I thought Bowles knew that and now he threw it away. Slade machinations. Slade helplessness. I don't care what happens to them.
Let it Come Down isn't left out of the tracing. Fat tourists bleed into your space, fake smiles of the locals consume you. Go to their houses of glass, fur and leather. You're the faceless legs of the servants. You're the doll in playtime. How did it become their world all the time? I believe in the monster's world. I believed in it like some big bang out of people shit atmospherics in Bowles' short stories. Background is same color as the drapes. This time it is a young and handsome man. His father has a bottomless checkbook. The strings attached chafe the big little rich boy so he keeps a bland yes-man around. The yes-man calls him "Baby" for some reason. I thought this was the creepiest part of the book. His sex mirrors for his teenage mistress wasn't as bad as that. Grove/Vero's tape recorder for rehearsed sex plans for the teenager was pretty creepy too. I want some indefinable domination outcome and you had better give it to me, dammit! I wished I wasn't reading the book at all long before then, though. What was in Up Above the World that wasn't in one of his other three novels? Something for money, I guess. There's no conviction. A shit flows with no wind. I wish I hadn't read this one. (Maybe I should believe in it. I didn't stop reading when I was bored from the first few pages.)
April 17, 2020
Τέταρτο βιβλίο του Πολ Μπόουλς που διαβάζω και δηλώνω για άλλη μια φορά ιδιαίτερα ικανοποιημένος, τόσο από την πλοκή όσο κυρίως από τη γραφή και την κάπως κλειστοφοβική και καταθλιπτική ατμόσφαιρα. Κατά τη γνώμη μου, τούτο το βιβλίο ποιοτικά ίσως να είναι ένα κλικ πιο κάτω από το υπέροχο "Τσάι στη Σαχάρα" που είχα την τύχη να διαβάσω πέρυσι το καλοκαίρι, όμως και αυτό με τη σειρά του κατάφερε να με καθηλώσει και να με κρατήσει δέσμιό του από την πρώτη μέχρι την τελευταία σελίδα. Μπορεί να πει κανείς ότι πρόκειται για ένα ψυχολογικό θρίλερ με υπαρξιακές προεκτάσεις και στοιχεία κοινωνικού δράματος, με τη γραφή να είναι πραγματικά πολύ καλή και οξυδερκής, σε πολλά σημεία μάλιστα υπνωτιστική και καθηλωτική. Ο συγγραφέας δίνει αρκετό βάρος στα συναισθήματα και τις σκέψεις των χαρακτήρων του, αλλά και στα τοπία γύρω τους. Πρόκειται σαφώς για ένα πολύ καλογραμμένο και άκρως ατμοσφαιρικό μυθιστόρημα, αν και ίσως δεν ενδείκνυται για μια ευχάριστη και χαλαρή ανάγνωση.
January 7, 2008
Bowles desribes this as his attempt to write a thriller or a "Graham Greene type entertainment", well the results are absolutely freaky, but delivered so starkly and dispassionately that its absolutely chilling. Apparently rejected by a publisher on grounds of being "nihilistic", another interesting note is that the film rights were sold to this but no one every did anything with it, sad because I can see either Buñuel, Polanski,Orson Welles, or even David Lynch making a killer film out of this.
December 2, 2023
Yükseklerde'yi ne zaman görsem içkiyi hatırlayacağım, martini ve votkayı. Kasabaya yükseklerden gören kartal yuvası bir evde dört kişi içkileri tazeleyip durarak gevezelik ediyor. Geyik muhabbeti yapıyorlar. Okuru germek için planlandıysa bu roman, başaramamış. Gerilim romanlarını seven bir vatandaşın "dur bir tane de ben yazayım" deyip de daktiloya girişerek ortaya çıkardığı acemi işi bir roman gibi duruyor Yükseklerde. Tatile çıkmış bir çiftin başlarından geçen birbirinin tekrarı tuhaf durumların içyüzünü anlatıcının son sayfalara doğru bir bir açıklamasıyla okur "aaa, meğer şeymiş" diyerek şaşkınlığa uğruyor. Kitabın son sayfalarında şaşkınlığa uğramayı sevenlere hararetle tavsiye ediyorum.
November 11, 2016
Not Bowles' best--but even subpar Bowles is good.
Bowles writes existential horror. One turns to him to read about naiveté and innocence crashing against an unyieldingly alien world. It's not impossible to see what was later called Orientalism in his writing, though it's not exactly fair, either. His real concern is not that other cultures are strange to us, inscrutable--though that is there--but that every culture, instead, papers over the true horror: which is that existence itself is an awesome, unknowable, and horrifying mystery, a black chasm one is forced to confront when the shibboleths of innocent comfort are broken.
It makes me think of the opening lines of Nabokov's memoir, "Speak, Memory": "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour)."
This si the story of Day and Taylor, two middle-class Americans on a leisurely travel through South America; they have their own difficulties--Taylor, a doctor, is much older then Day, and they are drifting apart; neither of them are creatures of deep feeling or intellect--who still see themselves protected from the world by money and common sense.
Unbeknownst to them, though, they run into something else--and so this seems like a typical Bowles set up. But very soon it is clear he is vamping on his usual theme, pushing it in new directions. Day and Taylor become entangled with a Canadian woman, and then with her estranged son, his too-young mistress, his insecure friend, and the machinations of their lives, their various desires, and petty wants and needs.
It is in exploring these three that Bowles does something unusual for him, making the inscrutable world into which the naive must crash explicable. But this is also the book's fault. One wants from Bowles the inscrutability; the recognition that the universe is alien, indifferent if not inhospitable. Instead, we get an extended riff on Soto, the son; Luchita, the mistress; and her son (birthed when Luchita was but 12). Their desires are picayune, though--and so the crashing of the two sets of couples is less about existential horror and more about the operation of banality.
Bowles uses some structural tricks to increase the tension, not letting the reader in on certain motivations and actual events for extended periods of time. He also writes extended dream sequences. These, however, cannot paper over the dullness of Soto, Luchita, and their friend; if he was indeed after banality--revealing the alien world to driven by the same greed that shapes Western society, just more baldy put--then he achieved it, but banality does not make for interesting reading.
The book is listed at over 200 pages in this edition, but there is a great deal of padding, and it probably clocks in at under 200; even so, the middle section, the one that focused most intently on Soto and Luchita, drags. Bowles can still write, dry and precise sentences, the flat affect implying entire worlds--but the worlds he suggests are themselves uninteresting here.
Once the two couples come together in earnest, the tension ratchets up, and the last quarter of the book sings. The dream sequences that came before feel like dry runs for the drugged-out sequences here, but these work well, and he writes about intoxication with both restraint and exactitude.
The pay-off is both typically Bowlesian, and also underwhelming. The ending for both Day and Taylor are only implied--horrific, yes, but in part because what happens is not clear at all. There is the reversal, too, Soto thinking he had finally come out on top, his carefully protected life of doing nothing--so that he had the time for whatever improvisations he desired--culminating in his beating the world, only t find himself outmaneuvered, adrift.
But the mechanics of it all are . . . well, the word would be banal again. Soto's motivations are greed, which are also the motivations, to varying extents, of his comrades. The dark abyss that surrounds the brief crack of light that is life shows itself to be not terrifying at all, but mundane.
Which, as implied, may be what Bowles was after, tacking against the existential and making the case that we are at the mercy of others--others who are driven by the same impulses, but just applied to different ends, which we cannot fully know. The banality had it's point, and Bowles made it palatable.
The real horror, he seems to be suggesting, is that there is no horror at all: it is worth than nothingness, worse than the abyss of darkness: it is that little men with cramped motivations make up the entirety of existence.
Bowles writes existential horror. One turns to him to read about naiveté and innocence crashing against an unyieldingly alien world. It's not impossible to see what was later called Orientalism in his writing, though it's not exactly fair, either. His real concern is not that other cultures are strange to us, inscrutable--though that is there--but that every culture, instead, papers over the true horror: which is that existence itself is an awesome, unknowable, and horrifying mystery, a black chasm one is forced to confront when the shibboleths of innocent comfort are broken.
It makes me think of the opening lines of Nabokov's memoir, "Speak, Memory": "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour)."
This si the story of Day and Taylor, two middle-class Americans on a leisurely travel through South America; they have their own difficulties--Taylor, a doctor, is much older then Day, and they are drifting apart; neither of them are creatures of deep feeling or intellect--who still see themselves protected from the world by money and common sense.
Unbeknownst to them, though, they run into something else--and so this seems like a typical Bowles set up. But very soon it is clear he is vamping on his usual theme, pushing it in new directions. Day and Taylor become entangled with a Canadian woman, and then with her estranged son, his too-young mistress, his insecure friend, and the machinations of their lives, their various desires, and petty wants and needs.
It is in exploring these three that Bowles does something unusual for him, making the inscrutable world into which the naive must crash explicable. But this is also the book's fault. One wants from Bowles the inscrutability; the recognition that the universe is alien, indifferent if not inhospitable. Instead, we get an extended riff on Soto, the son; Luchita, the mistress; and her son (birthed when Luchita was but 12). Their desires are picayune, though--and so the crashing of the two sets of couples is less about existential horror and more about the operation of banality.
Bowles uses some structural tricks to increase the tension, not letting the reader in on certain motivations and actual events for extended periods of time. He also writes extended dream sequences. These, however, cannot paper over the dullness of Soto, Luchita, and their friend; if he was indeed after banality--revealing the alien world to driven by the same greed that shapes Western society, just more baldy put--then he achieved it, but banality does not make for interesting reading.
The book is listed at over 200 pages in this edition, but there is a great deal of padding, and it probably clocks in at under 200; even so, the middle section, the one that focused most intently on Soto and Luchita, drags. Bowles can still write, dry and precise sentences, the flat affect implying entire worlds--but the worlds he suggests are themselves uninteresting here.
Once the two couples come together in earnest, the tension ratchets up, and the last quarter of the book sings. The dream sequences that came before feel like dry runs for the drugged-out sequences here, but these work well, and he writes about intoxication with both restraint and exactitude.
The pay-off is both typically Bowlesian, and also underwhelming. The ending for both Day and Taylor are only implied--horrific, yes, but in part because what happens is not clear at all. There is the reversal, too, Soto thinking he had finally come out on top, his carefully protected life of doing nothing--so that he had the time for whatever improvisations he desired--culminating in his beating the world, only t find himself outmaneuvered, adrift.
But the mechanics of it all are . . . well, the word would be banal again. Soto's motivations are greed, which are also the motivations, to varying extents, of his comrades. The dark abyss that surrounds the brief crack of light that is life shows itself to be not terrifying at all, but mundane.
Which, as implied, may be what Bowles was after, tacking against the existential and making the case that we are at the mercy of others--others who are driven by the same impulses, but just applied to different ends, which we cannot fully know. The banality had it's point, and Bowles made it palatable.
The real horror, he seems to be suggesting, is that there is no horror at all: it is worth than nothingness, worse than the abyss of darkness: it is that little men with cramped motivations make up the entirety of existence.
June 5, 2020
Uğraşılmış başarılı sayılabilecek bir kurgu, okurken sürekli bir gariplik ve gizem hissi yaratmaya çalışmış. Bir yere kadar ben de bu duyguyla okudum. Yazar bu duyguyu olaylarla değil karakterler üzerinden vermiş. Dolayısıyla başlarda tamamen karakter kurgusu ile ilerliyor kitap. Önce derinlemesine karakterleri kurup sonra olayları bağlıyor. Genelde bu tarz anlatımları çok severim yazar da sürpriz sonla bitirmek istemiş ama benim için çok tahmin edilebilir oldu. Çünkü karakterlerin hiçbiri tam oturmamıştı gibi hissettim (kültür farkından da kaynaklı olabilir). Hal böyle olunca ayrıntılara fazla takılmaya başladım ve olay çözüldü.
Keşke gizem katmak için o kadar bariz bir çaba vermek yerine daha doğal bir akış seçseydi. Sonunda gerçekten şok edebilirdi.
Keşke gizem katmak için o kadar bariz bir çaba vermek yerine daha doğal bir akış seçseydi. Sonunda gerçekten şok edebilirdi.
October 30, 2008
Paul Bowles is fantastic at turning a seemingly banal travel story into something of terror. This book and Sheltering Sky are both prime examples.
This time around a husband and wife are travelling somewhere in Central America when they meet a young expat who offers them kindness and alcohol and a place to stay. It seems like a fortuituous meeting for the tourists, but then the husband and wife keep experiences bouts of sickness that include amnesia as a side effect. The shift in tone is really surprising and so well done.
This time around a husband and wife are travelling somewhere in Central America when they meet a young expat who offers them kindness and alcohol and a place to stay. It seems like a fortuituous meeting for the tourists, but then the husband and wife keep experiences bouts of sickness that include amnesia as a side effect. The shift in tone is really surprising and so well done.
April 28, 2015
Paul Bowles' characters are refreshingly edgy. In our own shabby moment, when American authors are inflicted with a grim, Rotarian niceness--encouraging all to volunteer at animal shelters, recycle more, and make milk shakes for our neighbors and whatnot--Paul Bowles is like a welcome antichrist.
June 20, 2010
This imperfect book represents a wish to choose works by authors completely unknown to me. Paul Bowles' world is possibly the literary equivalent of a Hopper painting. The lives depicted are as lonely as a Hopper character staring into the mid-distance from a road side inn. Written in 1966, this work is the possible hinterland for a Hopper character, a dark hallucigenic world in which two rootless middle class drifters appear to wander into a nightmare through simple lack of direction, and apathy. Dr Slade is the 67 year old husband of a much younger woman, Day (short for Desiree) whom we catch as they board a freighter to an unknown South American destination. The fetid damp atmosphere of the tropical place they find themselves in establishes a Conradian exile from which we fear they may not return. The sweat of the jungle is replicated in the sweat of the LSD with which they are involuntarily injected. It is a world that sucks them in and only spits one of them out. More I cannot say without ruining the plot. The language and dialogue is measured and the darkness and oppression ouses. Dr Slade's drugged state is described thus.
"There is a mistake about the time. He in a house, caught in the body of a man who is being kept in bed. People come and bother him, go away. Doors are opened and shut. It is daytime; it is night. Sometimes he is impaled on the wind as he rushes through space. There are long periods when he is imprisoned in a muddy submarine world, aware of the room beyond the bed, knowing that time is creeping past, but able only to lie there without motion, clinging mollusk-like to the underside of the consciousness until someone comes and touches him, and once again changes everything."
"There is a mistake about the time. He in a house, caught in the body of a man who is being kept in bed. People come and bother him, go away. Doors are opened and shut. It is daytime; it is night. Sometimes he is impaled on the wind as he rushes through space. There are long periods when he is imprisoned in a muddy submarine world, aware of the room beyond the bed, knowing that time is creeping past, but able only to lie there without motion, clinging mollusk-like to the underside of the consciousness until someone comes and touches him, and once again changes everything."
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May 10, 2026An hour in and i was sooo bored
July 30, 2016
Pity poor dull, grouchy Dr. Slade and his very attractive, slightly arch younger wife (why she married Dr. Slade, who describes her as "almost young enough to be his granddaughter", is never explored); they may not be the most engaging couple, but all they wanted was a South American holiday, and what do they get? An increasingly terrifying descent into hell, that's what. Shame for them, but what a mesmerizing read this is. The dark jungle inferno awaiting them is rife with fanged black furred creatures; foul smelling, claustrophobic rooms whose exterior patios are lined with spiked fauna too sharp and thick to move through, sudden wrong turns leading to landscapes of grey rubble, empty nothingness stretched out in all directions. Guiding them through all of it is Vero Soto, a local of seemingly vast wealth and elegant charm, befriended somewhat reluctantly by the Slades early on. Smell a bit of trouble? You can't imagine. I promise you.
The daylight realities of Up Above the World hold all sorts of illness and dread, but are nothing compared to the streaming nightmares of ghastly illusion; careening-down-the-broken-tunnel-of-stairs dreams, stomach turning acid trip hallucinations, fever induced delirium. Bowles' artistic brilliance is full throttle in these passages, each of them spell-binding, literally.
The combination of the tropical locale and evil in the guise of generously proffered luxury is very Patricia Highsmith, from the pleasantries to the (very) nasty bits. Highsmith might well have devised a more satisfactory ending - I'd been working out all sorts of twists and possible resolutions beyond the obvious one, or at least to add on to the primary question of why the Slades are pulled into Soto's orbit to begin with. Particularly I would have liked to have learned more about Luchita, Soto's 17 year old, perpetually stoned 'girlfriend' - it's hard to know what to call her, really - and her 5 year old son, Pepito (Soto, who rarely has a kind word for his lover, maliciously calls Pepito "the product of your youthful indiscretions"). But the ending serves well enough. One puts down this book with some regret to be done with it, coupled with the relief of returning to the outside world. Even if the rotten undergrowth beneath the sunlit grass now seems faintly more visible.
The daylight realities of Up Above the World hold all sorts of illness and dread, but are nothing compared to the streaming nightmares of ghastly illusion; careening-down-the-broken-tunnel-of-stairs dreams, stomach turning acid trip hallucinations, fever induced delirium. Bowles' artistic brilliance is full throttle in these passages, each of them spell-binding, literally.
The combination of the tropical locale and evil in the guise of generously proffered luxury is very Patricia Highsmith, from the pleasantries to the (very) nasty bits. Highsmith might well have devised a more satisfactory ending - I'd been working out all sorts of twists and possible resolutions beyond the obvious one, or at least to add on to the primary question of why the Slades are pulled into Soto's orbit to begin with. Particularly I would have liked to have learned more about Luchita, Soto's 17 year old, perpetually stoned 'girlfriend' - it's hard to know what to call her, really - and her 5 year old son, Pepito (Soto, who rarely has a kind word for his lover, maliciously calls Pepito "the product of your youthful indiscretions"). But the ending serves well enough. One puts down this book with some regret to be done with it, coupled with the relief of returning to the outside world. Even if the rotten undergrowth beneath the sunlit grass now seems faintly more visible.
August 13, 2016
American expatriate author (and composer) Paul Bowles's greatest novel, The Sheltering Sky, written in 1949, was followed in 1966 by this book, "Up above the World". Similar in structure, tone, and subject, "Up above the World" was reprinted in this 1982 edition by the Ecco Press as one of the great neglected books of the 20th century. (The Modern Library placed it at No. 97 in its list of the 100 greatest books of the 20th century.)
Like "Sky", it is a dark work with building tension set in what we would now call a Third World country (but in Central America rather than the North Africa of "Sky".) In his 1966 New York Times review, Conrad Knickerbocker notes that in "Up above the World" "we see how a first-rate writer goes about creating the environment of menace. And Mr. Bowles's theme, the destruction of innocence, is defined, if not resolved, with an ability that once more confirms his stature."
"Up above the World" was easily deserves a goodreads.com five-star rating. I recommend it very highly.
Like "Sky", it is a dark work with building tension set in what we would now call a Third World country (but in Central America rather than the North Africa of "Sky".) In his 1966 New York Times review, Conrad Knickerbocker notes that in "Up above the World" "we see how a first-rate writer goes about creating the environment of menace. And Mr. Bowles's theme, the destruction of innocence, is defined, if not resolved, with an ability that once more confirms his stature."
"Up above the World" was easily deserves a goodreads.com five-star rating. I recommend it very highly.
November 16, 2008
Paul Bowles writes with control and clarity, but in this novel the flatness of his characters and the fuzziness of the plot, which is more or less 'explained' in the final passages, achieve little of note. Perhaps the book is best for its descriptions of the physical world, especially the radical changes one encounters in Latin America when traveling from the tropical coastline to the high sierra. At the novel's core, however, is an insistent focus on a certain kind of predatory, nihilistic central character whose dialogue--imperturbable, agreeable, often insightful--does not match up at all with his boorish, sadistic actions.
June 5, 2020
Gizemini sonuna kadar koruyan ve açık etmeyen sürükleyici, sisli-puslu bir anlatıma sahip bir macera. Sırlarla dolu bir yolculukta tesadüfen ortaya çıkan yabancılar aslında gerçekten olaylar bir rastlantı mı sorusunu akla getiriyor. Tekinsiz bir yolculuk romanı, dinmeyen yağmurlar, bitmeyen sıcaklar, yemyeşil ormanlar, hastalıklar, oteller, fiestalar, dili bile bilinmeyen kasabalar içinde kaybolan bir çift çıkış yolunu bulabilecekler mi?
March 3, 2020
Didn’t finish. Read up to chapter 16, and the last few chapters I read were a chore. The first few chapters were intriguing and well written. Once it turned to Soto, it became completely different and boring. Then I read some reviews with spoilers, and that sealed it for me.
December 11, 2007
There's one marvelous fever dream scene that has to be read to be believed but otherwise Bowles lost me on this one.
April 25, 2014
Crime novel with a existentialist twist. Too many loose ends for it to make some good sense. Yet, the tone is right.
May 10, 2026
Tough book to log. A sensuous story set in rooftop gardens and old hacienda in an undisclosed South American country. As wild the backdrop may seem to continental’s eyes, real wilderness lurks under the false civility of a host which looms over his unexpected guests as the jungle around his luxurious property.
Feverish and nerve wrecking at times. The end closes too harshly imo and the antagonist’s motives aren’t that well grounded.
Feverish and nerve wrecking at times. The end closes too harshly imo and the antagonist’s motives aren’t that well grounded.
March 3, 2025
Een toevallige ontmoeting, met een jonge op het oog gefortuneerde local, die een echtpaar op vakantie in Latijns Amerika heeft blijkt niet zo toevallig . Waarom lukt het niet om van hem af te komen? Zitten wat aardige stukken in het verhaal met als hoogtepunt een hallucinerend hoofdstuk maar geen van hoofdrolspelers is pakkend genoeg om in het verhaal mee te gaan.
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