Cuentos selectos

by Paul Bowles

Autor de novelas magistrales, empezando por El cielo protector, a Paul Bowles le pasa lo mismo que a tantos escritores que alcanzan la cumbre en un gé se tiende a olvidar que también la alcanzaron en otro. Esta antología preparada y prologada por Guillermo Saavedra, es una muestra perturbadora y exquisita de su maestría en el arte del cuento. Por citar solo tres de los que se incluyen en este volumen, "El tiempo de la amistad", "Un episodio distante" y "La delicada presa", son simplemente obras maestras. Bowles perteneció a ese linaje de norteamericanos inquietos que llevaron la piel hasta latitudes distantes de las que los vieron nacer e imaginaron en esas regiones tan ajenas las ficciones capaces de encontrar un sentido a la propia vida, no por contigüidad sino por contraste. Residió durante décadas en Tánger, en una casa que fue un oasis para una legión de artistas y escritores que como él hicieron del viaje y de la exploración de la identidad una forma de vida. Buscó sus huellas en el territorio africano, se enfrentó a culturas extremadamenta diversas, y sobre todo a la experiencia del silencio absoluto del desierto, a la abrumadora inmensidad del cielo, a la soledad. Sobrio y contenido, retrató sin perplejidad ni prejuicios el encuentro con esos otros mundos. Sus ficciones, singulares y a menudo crueles, narran la extrañeza y la incomprensión entre diferentes y entre semejantes, entre el mundo árabe y occidente, entre personas de cualquier condición. "Esperanza hay, pero no para nosotros", escribió Kafka; Paul Bowles, con un ligero asentimiento de cabeza, seguro hubiera estado de acuerdo.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, American, Literary Fiction, Africa, Morocco

204 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2001

About the author

Paul 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.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because of The Sheltering Sky, I thought Bowles was a novelist who happened to write stories, but after reading this collection, I'll think of Bowles as a short story writer who happened to write novels.

Usually, I'm only successful at reading short story collections when they're on the shorter side -- say, the neighborhood of 200 pp. But this one stretched over 600 pp., and on and on the pages flipped.

Why? For me, it's a combination of things. First, the guy's a natural story teller. It's effortless, or at least appears so. Then there are the exotic settings -- many in Morocco, usually with Muslim characters and occasionally with "Nazarenes" (as the Christians are referred to) mixed in.

Once you've had enough of Suburban American navel-gazing stories or stories with the usual divorce slash alcoholism slash drug addictions slash crime slash abusive relationships stuff, you'll want to reach for a change like this. Part of history now, yet novel stuff (and paradoxes are cool here).

But what do these tales tell us about Bowles himself? Many of the stories are at once refined and twisted. Some are downright violent. Fans of neatly-wrapped story endings need not apply. Like life, a lot of these adventures end with a fizzle. Shoulder shrug and life goes on, just like it will when all of us die (despite our leading roles, ha-ha).

As for happily ever after, stick with fairy tales. None of that here. Just regular folks living regular lives while getting themselves into some uh-oh situations. Many of them go places they shouldn't, the result being that curiosity kills more than the cat. Then there are stories that have trouble understanding the line between "civilized" and "uncivilized" (proving neither is definable). Or the stories where characters smoke too much kif. Or even, on occasion, turn into an animal or a reptile.

You know. Every day stories like that, one after another.

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

At least, I believe I know. If I am to doubt my own eyes and ears, then it is time I gave up entirely. But in connection with that idea a ghastly little thought occurs to me: am I doubting my eyes and ears? Obviously not; only my memory. Memory is a cleverer trickster by far. In that case, however, I am stark, raving mad, because I remember every detail of those hours spent in the subway. But here are the boxes piled in front of me on the desk, all twenty. I know them intimately. I glued down each little flap with the maximum of care. There is no mistaking them. It is a shattering experience, and I feel ill, ill in every part of my being. A voice in me says: “Accept the impossible. Leave off trying to make this fit in with your preconceived ideas of logic and probability. Life would be a sad affair if it reserved no surprises at all.” “But not this sort!” I reply. “Nothing quite so basically destructive of my understanding of the world!” I am going to bed. Everything is all wrong.

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 the floor of my friend's closet, which happened to hold no clothing but a section of his library. We had our enthusiasms and differences in literary taste. I found it hard to believe someone could actually recommend Clancy or Franzen in the same instance as Bataille or Berryman, and remained skeptical in some of our 4 AM discussions in the closet over Charles Shaw, Rockport, or Dante wine. One of the three.

In the clarity which is a remarkably confident person being caught off guard, I remember the night I took The Sheltering Sky off of the shelf and inquired, as I'd only know of Bowles from extensively studying the Beat Generation in my teens, a point in time I had thoroughly removed myself from by that summer, by then considering the Beats (Especially after the traumatizing adolescent chagrin of arriving at City Lights to find Ginsberg bumper stickers on display, and the fedora-clad cashier* not knowing who Herbert Huncke was) one of my passageways to adventure, intellectual stimulation, when I had not traveled, and lived in the middle of nowhere.

I recall my friend saying he did not know what to say about The Sheltering S, a fine nocturnal way as any of admitting to not have finished it, but that he preferred the short stories.

Well, I am still in avid avoidance of people like Johnathan Franzen, but when I was out buying presents at the used bookstore the other day and I saw the exact edition of The Sheltering Sky I had to take another peek. The Kafka quote sold me, to the effect of: 'There comes a point where there is no turning back; that is the point to be reached.'

The short stories were next to the novel. I had to laugh, skim through, then purchase both.

My old friend from the closet was right here: The stories are really good. They evoke the scent, the setting, of writing by pencil in a hut, smoking hash and drinking extremely powerful tea, sifting through the breeze-enhanced lucidity of dreams within nightmares, nightmares composed of self-induced, albeit subtle, disaster, yet not always without hope; hence, the perpetual return trip; a kaleidoscopic whirlpool of the mind, harmoniously balanced by linguistic and structural mastery.

The stories read like dual first-hand reports: The stranger in a strange land, possessing a camera-eye, intact with x-ray vision into the veins and minds of mankind, the human condition, as seen through an American transported to Morocco.

The Bowelsian subtlety, the shadowy style, each syllable perfectly place, each analogy not spot on, little repetition; this collection's a quiet gem for me. I mean that in the instance of not quite rushing out and recommending the shorter fiction to everyone. Kind of like the short work of Tennessee Williams. Little spoken of, but when acknowledged, met with bewildering acclaim, little gems in the cannon of the English language.

Well then, why not share!?

To quote the friend who introduced me to this book, when, naively, I asked him why the media portrayed San Franciscans as homosexual, drug addicted, both, or insane (The futile implication there an obvious propaganda tool, thus one that confused me as a youngster, that the citizens of that great city did not care). Oh, it's easy, he said. We don't care because it keeps all the idiots out of the city.

And while the term idiot applies zero in my case, the work of Paul Bowles is, for me, another, private world, one which I will re-read over the years, recommend once or twice, and return to, preferably over cheap California wine, in a closet, past midnight, when I temporarily lose faith in the art of literature, only to return from the work the way a relighted fuse burns faster, and onto business, that of alphabetical delirium.

*There is nothing wrong with fedoras, save they're like not be worn between the ages of 30 and 70, or so I am told.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 ostensibly subjugated, it is always staring right back — waiting to infiltrate the protagonist, to explode him or her from the inside.

In his introduction to this edition of the collected stories, Robert Stone writes of a certain "'something missing'" that many readers of Bowles claim to feel, and to balk at. We "trade sympathy for the absence of ordinariness," Stone writes. It's more than that, though. If there is a single universe or sensibility uniting these stories, it's one in which the Other is utterly corrosive to the Self. It's not that Bowles has left empathy out of these stories, it's that he constructs stories in which empathy is impossible. There is a coldness here, a repetitive cruelty, that made these stories difficult for me to read at times.

So perhaps my giving these stories four stars instead of five is more a reflection of my own tastes and beliefs than it is of the icy power of Bowles's art. I'd argue, though, that for all the "absence of ordinariness" Bowles gives us in setting, character, and plot, in theme he strikes the same few notes over and over — strikes them beautifully, masterfully, no doubt, but I felt a certain monotony nonetheless.

[Andrew Kramcsak · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 Peter what the hell just happened? I will never be able to explain this to my friends back in civilization what just happened (completely unexpected) for it could never occur there. Never, I tell you!

[Rupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Larou]

Paul Bowles is probably best known for his novel The Sheltering Sky, and likely more for the movie made from it rather than his book, but apparently (at least I seem to remember reading that somewhere and I’m too lazy to look it up) he himself considered his stories his superior effort, and it would of course not be the first time that “most popular” does not coincide with “best”. I cannot judge that claim that myself, not having read any of Paul Bowles’ novels (yet – but I hope to remedy that eventually), but I do not regret having made my way through the almost 700 pages (or their Kindle equivalent) of this collection.

I do not think anyone would claim for Bowles the status of a major literary figure - he is rather too firmly entrenched in the comfortable conventions of nineteenth-century realism for most of his career, and by the time he risks to wander outside of this familiar ground into modernist territory, that also has already become thoroughly explored and mapped by more adventurous authors. Bowles is interesting on a thematic level rather than a formal one – which is not to say that he is a bad writer, his stories would not be literature if there was not some kind of interplay between form and content, but from a great author I’d expect an attempt to go beyond the true and trusted, an attempt at transgression, at developing a unique voice. Paul Bowles to me just seems too complacent for that.

Which is a bit weird, as thematically many of the stories in this collection concern themselves with the opposite of complacency. The works of Bowles are often said to be about Westerners (Europeans / Americans) and their encounter as well as the ensuing (often violent) disillusionment with the lure of foreign cultures (mostly North Africa / South America). But while that is true on a surface level it seems to me that there is another layer to this, one where the Europeans are not really blind to what is awaiting them, but seem on some level to actually crave the doom they are walking into. They might not be aware of it, might not consciously want it, but still desire it in some deep, hidden stratum of their personality. Whether one conceives of it in Freudian terms or not, I think most of Paul Bowles’ stories can only be comprehended with some conception of an unconscious.

Even if the stories have someone from an Non-Western culture as their protagonist or take place entirely in a Western context, there is almost always some kind of Other involved, often one that exercises some kind of dangerous, even fatal attraction on the protagonist; that Other can even be located inside the protagonist herself, as is the case with the narrator of “You are not I” (who turns out to be insane). And while Bowles (except for some stories occurring very late in this volume, with their publishing date 1977 and later) never really moves beyond the conventions of realism, reality in his stories is quite often something that cannot quite be trusted.

The protagonists in Bowles’ stories are often strangely passive, offering no resistance to what is done to them, enduring what they are going through with tacit acceptance like it was preordained. It is not just that they are resigned to their fate but as if they could not even conceive of things being any different, and this unquestioning fatalism tinges everything with an eerie, dreamlike quality. And even in the rare cases where someone is acting, it is not with any real agency; instead, they get entangled in circumstances they do not oversee and set into motion events they cannot control (like the boy in “Senor Ong and Senor Ha”) or are outright delusional (like the narrator in “You are not I”). They also quite often have something childlike about them (in fact, they surprisingly often are children or adolescents) in that they sense themselves to be surrounded by a vast conspiracy of grown-ups that they are not being let into and that is always just out of reach of their comprehension.

Therefore, as vivid as Bowles’ evocations of it can at times get, the world his characters’ move through never seems quite real, it’s texture and density are more akin to a fever dream or a drug-induced hallucination. Mind you, the stories never get explicitely phantastic or outright surreal, but they (at least the best among them) have a slightly off-kilter feel to them, like they were slightly out of focus, or maybe on the contrary too crisp and sharp in the details to be quite real. This can be rather disquieting to the reader, even creepy, and at least in my opinion it is in those moments, when the hold of realist conformity on Bowles’ imagination slips that he is at his most impressive.

In ending, let me add a remark on the edition of this collection: It sucks. It sucks, because it is pretty much non-existent. I am aware that this is not a critical edition, but even so – all the readers gets here is a short and not particularly introduction by Robert Stone and the year of first publication at the end of each story. One would have at the very least some information on when the stories were composed, where they were published and where collected, whether this are the complete stories of Paul Bowles, and if not, on what grounds they were selected – all very basic stuff that even a non-academic reader is likely to be curious about and that might help with placing the stories in a context and all of wich is missing from this edition.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 showing a lack of understanding between the natives of North Africa, and the visitors and expatriates who are mostly the subject of the stories. The stories can be funny, savage, and wise - sometimes all three at once.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

These sentences are so good on a molecular level. It’s taken me forever to get through, because I keep leap-frogging back to read the ones I’ve already read. The atmosphere just gets in your bones, the way you can feel the weather.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many feelings of Deja Vu as I would struggle with the same turn of phrase, wondering if a story had been accidentally included twice in this massive tome. The stories weren’t BAD, persay, and there were a scattered few I enjoyed, but the vast majority were just so very, very dull. I figured that since I adored The Sheltering Sky, I would like his works of short fiction. I was sorely mistaken.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bowles spent much of his life in Tangier and many of these 62 stories are set either there or in the surrounding countries. He brings the keen observation of a stranger in a strange land and recasts landscapes as unforgiving in climate as they often are culturally. In many cases, a fatalistic tension pervades the narrative as if we are all playing out the bleak role cast us by nature.

This opening from “Istikhara, Anaya, Medagan and the Megaganat” sums up a good bit of the tone and writing style: “In the Sahara, where the air, the light, even the sky suggest some as yet unvisited planet, it is not surprising to find certain patterns of human comportment equally unfamiliar. Behavior is strictly formulated, with little margin allowed for individual variations. If circumstances offer the opportunity for attack and pillage, the action is expected; indeed, custom demands it.”

My favorite stories from this collection were:
- You Are Not I
- How Many Midnights
- The Circular Valley
- The Successor
- The Hyena
- The Garden
- Here to Learn
- Massachusetts 1932
- An Inopportune Visit

(It took me almost a year to read this because I thought I could be relaxed and pick it up to read a few stories per month. Instead, it felt like this huge unfinished project always lingering in the background. It was levels more enjoyable when I spent the last couple weeks only reading this title.)

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing and satisfyingly unsatisfying. He builds a lot of dramatic tension, then resolves it - or doesn't - or sort of does - in unexpected ways. He explores and explodes the social mores of Europeans of his time (1920s-1950s). Warning: there are no happy endings in these stories - just less disastrous ones.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Paul Bowles! I've read almost every novel he's written. This huge volume has short stories galore and is pure Paul Bowles. The main reason I love him is because his stories usually don't end anywhere near the "and they lived happily ever after" end of the spectrum. His stories and protagonists are often dark and pretty unlikable, in that order. I love Paul Bowles!

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is impeccable, clean and intelligent and thoughtful, but most of the stories are so dark that I found myself full of dread every time I'd pick it up. And I'm not easily deterred. Dark, not horrifying or scary - and, actually, often quite funny and wise. I read about 75%, and maybe someday I'll go back and finish them.

[Ali Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

What strikes me most about Bowles short stories is his ability to put himself into so many different perspectives. Most of the stories (not all) are written from the third person, but not omniscient, in that only the thoughts of the main character are present. My favorite story in the collection was The Circular Valley (1950) : an excellent story about a spirit (known by the natives and feared) of a place (restricted to that place) that inhabits different creatures, and comes to know inhabiting people, first men: monks, then bandits, then soldiers, then finally a couple of lovers, where it enters a woman for the first time.
Many of the stories are set in Morocco, which is what prompted me to read it, after having read "The Spider's House". Only someone who has lived for a moment in Morocco can understand some of these stories, like "He of the Assembly" set in Marrakesh; it's filled with expressions, places, and references that only someone familiar with the place can know.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the reading, there seems to be a pervading sense of cynicism towards humanity in general and many of the stories are unequivocally negative.

[Suyog · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading “A Distant Episode” in a short story anthology, it was stuck in my head and led me to want to read more chilling tales by Bowles. Many of these stories do depict the darkness of humanity (or as Bowles puts it, someone in trouble), but the main theme across the book is the concept of otherness. What conflict, whether in the form of violence, misunderstandings, or otherwise, occurs when a character feels out of place? With his detached tone and clear prose that do not judge his characters or place any values, Bowles explores this question in a multitude of settings in these stories that he wrote over the span of almost 50 years. If I am ever lucky enough to visit Tangier one day, I would probably feel nostalgia for the magic that is so vividly captured here.

[Wally Wonka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I asked AI to give me the 15 best Bowles short stories. So these are the ones I read. Those with asterisks are the ones I recommend.

If you like gorgeous prose and a haunting, oppressive sense of isolation in foreign, bleak landscapes, this is the dude for you!

I feel like I have to give “A Distant Episode” its own warning. It’s amazing — but damn if it hasn’t scarred me for life.

By the water *
The echo *
A distant episode *
The Scorpion
Under the sky *
Pages from Cold Point
Pastor Dowe at Tacaté *
The circular valley
The deadly prey
The fourth day out from Santa Cruz
The hours after noon *
The time of friendship *
Allal *
In the red room *
Too far from home *

Also: If your book is like mine, the last story (more of a novella, really) had a misprint — and the ending isn’t there! (Unless he ended it mid-sentence, which I highly doubt. Maybe I’ll ask AI.)

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for nothing, I hope I get to write for as long as Paul Bowles did.

The first story in this collection is from the mid-1940s while the last one is from the early 90s (he died in 1999) and while a single hefty volume doesn't seem like a lot for such a relatively wide expanse of time, it seems like he kept pretty busy over the course of his life doing other stuff. While he did some travel writing, music and translations chances are if you've heard of him, you might know him as "that dude who lived in Tangier most of his life" and these days he's probably most associated with Morocco, especially in his efforts to capture the culture as he saw it during a certain time period. He's a good entry point into Moroccan music of that time, having released a set of recordings he did crisscrossing the country in the late fifties that was later expanded a few years back into a much larger set (which I have, and its nice).

From a writing standpoint I've seen people associate him with the Beat writers of the fifties (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc) but I don't know if he really fits in with that group. He got his start much earlier hanging out with Gertrude Stein in 1930s Paris and by 1947 had moved entirely to his new home in Tangier. Eventually he'd mostly shuttle between there and a winter home in Sri Lanka, with the occasional visit to the US. His most famous novel came early with "The Sheltering Sky", which I have and will get to eventually, and while he did publish a handful of novels the short stories soon far outnumbered the longer works. Otherwise he composed music, received visitors who made the trek out to Morocco and more or less got to enjoy living in a place he really liked while becoming internationally famous, which probably had its benefits.

The stories here don't seem to comprise all his short fiction but at over six hundred pages I think you can safely say you're getting the bulk of it. I don't know what kind of person he was like in real life but he definitely seemed to envision fictional characters getting brutally killed a lot (or at least suffering) as a large number of these stories ends up with at least one person in them dead, sometimes because they were stupid and sometimes just because they just made the proverbial wrong turn at Albuquerque. Perhaps because of his fascination with Saharan and Arabic culture, quite a few stories are along the lines of culture clash stories that go horribly wrong, with someone's inability to grasp how exactly a culture works turning out very, very badly for them. It’s a theme he likes to hit over and over, something that could get a bit wearying when you hit a stretch of really short works that seem to be pounding the same theme into your head repeatedly . . . and may even seem a bit much when he really starts to treat the local cultures as some alien species that Americans or Brits can't possibly fathom, which starts to turn the whole experience into a sort of pseudo-Lovecraft vibe where people go mad just from shopping in a bazaar. I'm sure some degree of culture shock/adjustment was inevitable, especially in the days before everything was global and you couldn't find a McDonalds in Tangier (spoiler alert: you can now) but they still have two arms and two legs and eat food, so even if people in a dark alley with curved knives kidnap you there's still a chance of finding some common ground. Or maybe not.

The creepier/weirder stuff comes early on, with some grisly stories that caught everyone's attention. "A Distant Episode" is one of the ones that get cited most often, where a professor's visit to a foreign country veers quickly into "Hostel" territory. It’s a good introduction to Bowles' style, which is spare and sparse and slightly detached, setting the mood well even as things gradually disintegrate. That vibe carries through most of the 40s/50s era tales, so you have the "marriage falling apart in an exotic land" vibe of "Call at Corazon" (which has a pretty cold ending), the "boy ticks off local culture" vibe of "Pages from Cold Point", the "pastor doesn't understand foreign religions" vibe of "Pastor Dowe at Tacate" . . . you get the idea. Even the violent stories simmer more than erupt, with the collapse coming both gently and brutally. Its effective but often affects the characters more than it does the reader . . . no matter how many bad things happen, it was rare that I felt the same chilling sense of glimpsing a truth I'd rather not understand about now the world works the same way I did in the stories of, say, Flannery O'Connor, where it seems like God is very present, just not in a way that's directly helpful and its clear that the universe's concept of justice conflicts very sharply with the human concept of it, if there's even any intersection.

Bowles' stories, on the other hand, float more on the notion that most of the people reading it are never going to have visited any of the places that are depicted in these stories or perhaps even met people immersed in these cultures the same way that Bowles was. That loses a little of its power today, unless he pushes things to extremes . . . "The Delicate Prey" is a good example where its savage enough to be shocking, where the reasons are both logical and just out of reach even as it again doesn't quite cut to the heart.

The more Latin American oriented stories don't seem to mash the "ooh, different cultures" buttons as hard, and so wind up being more stories about bad things happening to people ("Dona Faustina", "Fourth Day Out from Santa Cruz") in a places that aren't in the US. And I actually enjoy his first person tales quite a bit ("If I Should Open My Mouth", where a lazy guy tries to be a mass murderer, or even the late period "In Absentia" where he gets snippy with a relative) mostly because the "voice" winds up being a little less detached, with a bit more urbane scorn, if that makes any sense.

Around the 1950s he seemed to focus less on the experience of being in a foreign country and more on people being rotten to each other, which switches the mood up a little. There's a run here that, even if "like" is the wrong word, I find at least memorable . . . "The Hours After Noon" (clueless parents act clueless toward their daughter) and "The Frozen Fields" (a highlight for me in how it intersected a kid's point of view with a history he wasn't around for and comes close to stabbing you in the heart) before the 1960s hit and he starts to go with very short stories once again focused on, if not Morocco, at least stuff associated with it. Some of them seem to be him retelling Arabic fables and while I don't know if they're a substitute for actual Arabic literature its an interesting extended look into Bowles' interpretation of the culture that he eventually spent decades living in (though I hope "The Garden" is metaphorical). There's enough variety to keep it from getting monotonous, even if the extremely short lengths of same stretches make it feel a bit choppy. But then you aren't trying to read them all at once anyway.

Eventually the longer tales wind up being a bit more effective. "The Time of Friendship" depicts a older Swiss woman who summers in an African country and befriends a young boy . . . the length lets him stretch out the story a bit and have you get to know both characters before things go bleakly south. "Here to Learn" is another good longer story, where a teenager leaves her village to hang out with foreigners and survives in situations where everyone treats her like a museum exhibit, even as she learns to live in the world.

Later on he starts to get experimental, with stories that veer toward hallucinations ("Allal", which is decently nuts . . . the later "Kitty" feels like a gentler version) or are outright stream of consciousness (three stories that have a place name and a year in the title and . . . aren't super-readable) to a couple epistolary stories ("Unwelcome Words", gleefully nasty, the aforementioned "In Absentia") before finally closing with the relatively normal "Too Far From Home", which seems to come around to his earlier stories about coping with a foreign culture, only now having a wearier, more lived-in feel about them, less about plunging into the realms of the unknown and figuring out the mundane stuff like communicating with the servants and going to the store.

Needless to say, there's quite a bit here and even if Bowles tends to have the same general interests for large swaths of this you can tell he's fiddling about with the notes, trying to find different ways to say it. There's no bad stories in here, only one that don't hit as hard, with the less effective tales so short it may not matter anyway. But flipping through them to review this its impressive how many I remembered after reading a few paragraphs. To some extent his stories read sort of their time, where American needed another American to give us a glimpse into other cultures. We don't have that need anymore . . . I can find translations of many, many authors from other countries that provide me better gateways into the lives of people who aren't me. But Bowles has his own quirky point of view that's still worth reading . . . maybe people will be happy with "The Sheltering Sky" and have no need to go on but if that book made you wonder what else was out there, this one has enough good stories that even after you finish it you may find yourself flipping through it again to revisit some that linger at the edges and won't quite let go.

[Adam Bregman · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may have read The Sheltering Sky and you might be aware of Paul Bowles' association with the Beats (though he wasn't one), but many readers are probably less knowledgeable of Bowles' unrivaled mastery of the short story. A general theme, familiar from The Sheltering Sky: an American or European find themselves in an exotic locale and everything goes poorly, on the quick, before they know what's what. Living in Morocco for most of his life, Bowles set many of his most fantastical stories there, but Latin America is also a frequent setting. It's been said before, but Bowles' stories are not for the timid. He does not hold back and the innocent do not fare well. Many times over, the protagonist is no longer breathing after a couple of pages. However, it is the telling, the wild arcs and unpredictable endings to his stories which make them so phenomenal.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am all about under-read brilliant authors this year, apparently, because GUYS. PAUL BOWLES. Wow. It is a shame and a grave injustice that he isn't on every list of essential American authors. This is a thick, dazzling, astonishing collection of stories about human nature, especially its darker and weirder representatives. Many stories involve Morocco, where Bowles lived for most of his adult life, and almost every story involves a compelling character brought to life by Bowles's vivid, perfect prose. I loved The Sheltering Sky, his unsettling and gorgeous novel, but I loved this collection of stories even more, if that's possible. I am stumbling for the right words to tell you how magnificent Paul Bowles is. You have to read him. You really have to.

[Christopher Hawkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something terminally estranged about Paul Bowles' stories. Very well-written and effective in what they do but the nihilism gets a bit single-note after a while. In omnibus form you get the gist quick and it's a bold reader that keeps going. I jumped ship after the one where the murderer/thief/rapist gets buried up to his neck and left in the sand. How many images like that do you need floating around in your head?

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories troubled me so much on the first read that I had to put it down, only to come back to it ten years later when I was better able to absorb the intensity of Bowles' writing. These are metaphysical/mystical tales. They read like wakeful dreams, inhabiting a place between worlds, haunting and strangely seductive.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Distant Episode" is one of the most amazing (and effed up!) stories I've (possibly ever) read. Like all of his work: vivid, surreal, menacing, and utterly capitivating.

[Rick Slane · Rating 4 out of 5]

American lives in Tangier-writes about distant lands dispassionately

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of these I read years ago. A few I've read in other collections within the last 10 years.

His stuff takes you to another time and place to a 5 star level in most of these short stories for sure. Furthermore his writing has tremendous depth to it, he doesn't need 7 paragraphs to get to the visceral of just a few phrases. And often you KNOW the characters and cores of actions very quickly which is also a rare writer's skill.

YET. My problem is that his people are like few homo sapiens I have ever known. Not in any country I have traveled within either. Which isn't on any scale or continents to the places he did and he knew. BUT. The premise of the humans he chose to write about and within? UGH! Manipulators, users and criminal in deeds. And those are a few of the "nicer ones". It is a voice overall of an adventurer "visitor" who roams. Also the eyes and the actions that abound are nearly feral in nature. Or within cultures that do not hold much slack whatsoall or ever.

Cultures of other continents than the ones I know best, for sure. You feel them/ those perceptions too and you are there. A few of these are 4 stars for me because of that element alone, but most are 3 stars for the meanness and prejudices practiced as rote/ normal/ acceptable. Also just too much corruptions and actions of violence for me per copy length. Many are tribal in nature by their very identities. Most of the time I love being taken to another time and place in reading and these did that exceptionally well. It's just I didn't enjoy being there once I've arrived. Lots of viscious, feral, mean spiritness of vastly selfish in these.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with homo sapiens of all times "average" being a 5 with 1 as saints and 10 as serial killers, these people roam somewhere in the 7 to 9 territory. Thank God my long life was around those in the 2 to 4 bracket.

[Gregory Eakins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The aching nostalgia for her own youth remained—the bright Andalusian days when each hour was filled to bursting with the promise of magic, when her life lay ahead of her, inexhaustible, as yet untouched.

The Stories of Paul Bowels is a collection of Boweles's short stories. If you've read The Sheltering Sky, you know the tone and settings that Boweles is famous for.

And on these counts, Boweles delivers. Nearly every story is tense - not so much in the action, but in the subtleties. The prose tells you something bad is going on here but the words never quite deliver the closure your mind craves. The unfamiliar and brutal setting (at least to us Westerners) of Africa adds mounds to the suspense and unknown.

A few stories were standouts to me. Allal, the story of a snake charmer takes some strange turns and demonstrates Boweles's skill in morphing perspective. Frozen is a subtle story of child abuse that will resonate with some people that understand what it's like to live under those conditions. Pages From Cold Point is a strange father and son story that approaches issues of parenting, homosexuality, and incest.

But the hit ratio in this collection is low. Most, although thick with Boweles's striking prose, felt like repeats of the same theme and setting, with no big original ideas explored. After coming from the stories of Ted Chiang, I found most of this collection a mild letdown. I could tell that the story was buried in the details, but they did not seem to be worth digging out of the monotony.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has all the wicked classics. The shocking one like "The Delicate Prey" maybe now isn't nearly as good a reread as "At Paso Rojo". "The Circular Valley" is another favorite.

Paul Bowles is an interesting writer and his novel "Let It Come Down" is a wonder of prose. The nastiness of his stories and books aren't exactly someone you, or at least me, always want to have around. Something like "A Distant Episode" is almost a comedy written by a vicious child. It's truly a horror tale but as a clash-of-cultures tale it's so hysterically overdone that I can't credit Bowles for it, and I think that Bowles never would have been content to just write a horror story.

I haven't reread Bowles in many years so it's possible my memories aren't doing him justice.

[Greg Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by Paul Bowles is kind of a mixed bag. Most of the stories are truly short quick reads. And, as you would expect, the majority of them are set in what used to be called exotic places, e.g. North Africa or South America. From my perspective, some of the stories are quite excellent while others are just so-so. In general, I really like Paul Bowles' stories and writing style. But none of these stories made the impression on me that "The Sheltering Sky" did. So my overall impression of this collection is just "meh".

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are good stories. Bowles writes about such interesting places. Much centers around Morocco and North Africa but certainly other locations. Still, as interesting as the writing is, the characters are well drawn, the locations are exotic, there just is not a great deal to hold on to. To quote. To rave about. To tell an acquaintance “ you have to read these stories. “. The Sheltering Sky was a book like that. Perhaps others were as well. These stories are good but in a world of more great literature than one will ever read I do not know if one could call it necessary.

[Abdelrahman Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

المجموعة الى قريتها 290 صفحة فقط
وهي جزء اول من قصص بول بولز ظهرت بعنوان العقرب وقصص آخرى الجزء الاول
ولها جزء ثان.
بس ملقتش صفحة لها على الموقع هنا لذلك استعنت بالصفحة دي عشان اعرف قريت ايه ووصصلت لفين .
مجموعة مميزة للكاتب الاميريكي الذي عاش فترة كبيرة في طنجة المغربية ونلمس تأثره بعيشه في المحيط العربي زي قصة حادث قديموفريسة رقيقة وواضح كمان في قصصه القس دو في تاكيت و صفحات من النقطة الباردة وفي باسو روجو تأثره بثقافة الهنود الحمر وثقفاتهم لكن قصة الوادي المستدير هي أكثر قصة بدأ فيه بتأثره بثقافتهم في تناسخ الأرواح والحياة والطبيعة .