The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

Tedious, 28 Jul 2008
I can't agree with the hyped reviews of this book. I found it terribly tedious; had no interest in any of the characters at all. A big expectation drop after Bowles' ***** Sheltering Sky

Over praised, over long and overdone, 07 Jul 2008
I don't understand this novel's classic status at all, but, having enjoyed The Sheltering Sky, ploughed on and on hoping for some improvement or development, but found little. The main character seemed to do things for no reason, and many of the actions of the characters, and even their inclusion in the novel, seemed completely arbitrary. Some of the description of life in Tangiers was interesting, but I'd rather read Bowles' travel books for that; this was a novel, and I found it rather unsatisfying. Also, the book's blurb rather gave away the ending.

Astonishing...if you like that sort of thing., 13 Aug 2004
The blurb on the back cover does this book no justice at all. My (low) expectations were blown out of the water by a book that began in comic 50s style (a la "Lucky Jim" visits North Africa) with a bank clerk fleeing his dull but secure job to Tangiers.
After a dose of half-hearted hedonism, the book slowly but surely turns into black hole of nihilism. Think Camus. Think Battle of Algiers. That sort of thing.

Sex & Drugs in Tangier, 09 Mar 2004
I agree with alaranja77@hotmail.com's review (although not so generous with the stars):

Dyar is bored with his trapped & conventional life in post-war USA &, on a whim takes off to Tangier, where in a comical mix of pouring rain, drink, drugs & sex (all of which he resolutely pretends to leave him unaffected: after all - he's only following conventional behaviour) he finds himself with a lot of cash. (The author’s preface gives this away.) Finally he takes a chance to be unconventional, free-at-last and for all the wrong reasons decides to flee. This gives Bowles a brief opportunity to contrast the honest, but superstitious, village life of the Berbers with the corrupted city dwellers.

This book is an entertaining collection of irritating character-types, everyone wheeler-dealing, the jealously of multiple interleaved love-triangles and more. Passages describing Dyar’s drink- and then drug-induced hallucinations are impressive for their ability to explain the madness Dyar feels at being unable to free himself from his own paranoia. A dark ending after the comic beginning: the wages of sin! The author doesn’t find it necessary to tie up all the loose ends – just like real life: when it never rains but it pours.

Let it come down, 17 Feb 2004
I rarely give five stars to books but this is an incomparable piece of art. The back cover (of my copy anyway) describe this as a thriller but you know that Bowles wouldn't write just a simple thriller and it isn't in any way simple. This is a story of Dyer who is lost in NY and comes to Tangier only to lose everything including his identity and ultimately his mind. But through this loss, he discovers something too. Something which can only be found when in solitude in deepest Morocco. Bowles again shows off his local knowledge of Morroco and treats us to some understanding of the rich and varied Arabic culture.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

Tedious, 28 Jul 2008
I can't agree with the hyped reviews of this book. I found it terribly tedious; had no interest in any of the characters at all. A big expectation drop after Bowles' ***** Sheltering Sky

Over praised, over long and overdone, 07 Jul 2008
I don't understand this novel's classic status at all, but, having enjoyed The Sheltering Sky, ploughed on and on hoping for some improvement or development, but found little. The main character seemed to do things for no reason, and many of the actions of the characters, and even their inclusion in the novel, seemed completely arbitrary. Some of the description of life in Tangiers was interesting, but I'd rather read Bowles' travel books for that; this was a novel, and I found it rather unsatisfying. Also, the book's blurb rather gave away the ending.

Astonishing...if you like that sort of thing., 13 Aug 2004
The blurb on the back cover does this book no justice at all. My (low) expectations were blown out of the water by a book that began in comic 50s style (a la "Lucky Jim" visits North Africa) with a bank clerk fleeing his dull but secure job to Tangiers.
After a dose of half-hearted hedonism, the book slowly but surely turns into black hole of nihilism. Think Camus. Think Battle of Algiers. That sort of thing.

Sex & Drugs in Tangier, 09 Mar 2004
I agree with alaranja77@hotmail.com's review (although not so generous with the stars):

Dyar is bored with his trapped & conventional life in post-war USA &, on a whim takes off to Tangier, where in a comical mix of pouring rain, drink, drugs & sex (all of which he resolutely pretends to leave him unaffected: after all - he's only following conventional behaviour) he finds himself with a lot of cash. (The author’s preface gives this away.) Finally he takes a chance to be unconventional, free-at-last and for all the wrong reasons decides to flee. This gives Bowles a brief opportunity to contrast the honest, but superstitious, village life of the Berbers with the corrupted city dwellers.

This book is an entertaining collection of irritating character-types, everyone wheeler-dealing, the jealously of multiple interleaved love-triangles and more. Passages describing Dyar’s drink- and then drug-induced hallucinations are impressive for their ability to explain the madness Dyar feels at being unable to free himself from his own paranoia. A dark ending after the comic beginning: the wages of sin! The author doesn’t find it necessary to tie up all the loose ends – just like real life: when it never rains but it pours.

Let it come down, 17 Feb 2004
I rarely give five stars to books but this is an incomparable piece of art. The back cover (of my copy anyway) describe this as a thriller but you know that Bowles wouldn't write just a simple thriller and it isn't in any way simple. This is a story of Dyer who is lost in NY and comes to Tangier only to lose everything including his identity and ultimately his mind. But through this loss, he discovers something too. Something which can only be found when in solitude in deepest Morocco. Bowles again shows off his local knowledge of Morroco and treats us to some understanding of the rich and varied Arabic culture.

for bread alone, 28 Oct 2008
this book of choukri should have been titled ''For sex and bread alone instead of 'For bread alone'.I heard that he is a famous writer in marocco but you can be famaous even you are not a good writer which happen in this case.The life and moral of poor people is portrated in a very bad light.Of course it has some true on it but i did not find nothing good towards the poor class excpet naming them as thieves,dirty,liers,violent.etc,etc all the bad things you can find.Reading the whole book you will soon realise that the main character in words choukri spends all his childhood and adoleshence with prostitutes rather then trying to live a decent and honest life. Do not buy this book unless you are looking for a soft porno book.I am very dissapointed at myself for spending around £3 towards this book.If i could rate the book with no stars if i could but it is not possible.

Bitter truth, 04 Nov 2004
If you are Moroccan or North African, you'll love this book. It was particularly eye-opening for me as a Moroccan born & bought up in London to read about the poverty and hardships Mohamed Choukri faced as a young man trying to find his way in Tangiers.

There are many funny parts to this book as well and you always have the feeling that he'll be alright.

I loved this book & have read it twice, its a book that makes me feel full of hope. Mohamed Choukri has come through these hardships, dealt with the death of his sisters, educated himself and is a great role-model for any young man in Morocco today.

I would strongly reccommend this book to anyone.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

Tedious, 28 Jul 2008
I can't agree with the hyped reviews of this book. I found it terribly tedious; had no interest in any of the characters at all. A big expectation drop after Bowles' ***** Sheltering Sky

Over praised, over long and overdone, 07 Jul 2008
I don't understand this novel's classic status at all, but, having enjoyed The Sheltering Sky, ploughed on and on hoping for some improvement or development, but found little. The main character seemed to do things for no reason, and many of the actions of the characters, and even their inclusion in the novel, seemed completely arbitrary. Some of the description of life in Tangiers was interesting, but I'd rather read Bowles' travel books for that; this was a novel, and I found it rather unsatisfying. Also, the book's blurb rather gave away the ending.

Astonishing...if you like that sort of thing., 13 Aug 2004
The blurb on the back cover does this book no justice at all. My (low) expectations were blown out of the water by a book that began in comic 50s style (a la "Lucky Jim" visits North Africa) with a bank clerk fleeing his dull but secure job to Tangiers.
After a dose of half-hearted hedonism, the book slowly but surely turns into black hole of nihilism. Think Camus. Think Battle of Algiers. That sort of thing.

Sex & Drugs in Tangier, 09 Mar 2004
I agree with alaranja77@hotmail.com's review (although not so generous with the stars):

Dyar is bored with his trapped & conventional life in post-war USA &, on a whim takes off to Tangier, where in a comical mix of pouring rain, drink, drugs & sex (all of which he resolutely pretends to leave him unaffected: after all - he's only following conventional behaviour) he finds himself with a lot of cash. (The author’s preface gives this away.) Finally he takes a chance to be unconventional, free-at-last and for all the wrong reasons decides to flee. This gives Bowles a brief opportunity to contrast the honest, but superstitious, village life of the Berbers with the corrupted city dwellers.

This book is an entertaining collection of irritating character-types, everyone wheeler-dealing, the jealously of multiple interleaved love-triangles and more. Passages describing Dyar’s drink- and then drug-induced hallucinations are impressive for their ability to explain the madness Dyar feels at being unable to free himself from his own paranoia. A dark ending after the comic beginning: the wages of sin! The author doesn’t find it necessary to tie up all the loose ends – just like real life: when it never rains but it pours.

Let it come down, 17 Feb 2004
I rarely give five stars to books but this is an incomparable piece of art. The back cover (of my copy anyway) describe this as a thriller but you know that Bowles wouldn't write just a simple thriller and it isn't in any way simple. This is a story of Dyer who is lost in NY and comes to Tangier only to lose everything including his identity and ultimately his mind. But through this loss, he discovers something too. Something which can only be found when in solitude in deepest Morocco. Bowles again shows off his local knowledge of Morroco and treats us to some understanding of the rich and varied Arabic culture.

for bread alone, 28 Oct 2008
this book of choukri should have been titled ''For sex and bread alone instead of 'For bread alone'.I heard that he is a famous writer in marocco but you can be famaous even you are not a good writer which happen in this case.The life and moral of poor people is portrated in a very bad light.Of course it has some true on it but i did not find nothing good towards the poor class excpet naming them as thieves,dirty,liers,violent.etc,etc all the bad things you can find.Reading the whole book you will soon realise that the main character in words choukri spends all his childhood and adoleshence with prostitutes rather then trying to live a decent and honest life. Do not buy this book unless you are looking for a soft porno book.I am very dissapointed at myself for spending around £3 towards this book.If i could rate the book with no stars if i could but it is not possible.

Bitter truth, 04 Nov 2004
If you are Moroccan or North African, you'll love this book. It was particularly eye-opening for me as a Moroccan born & bought up in London to read about the poverty and hardships Mohamed Choukri faced as a young man trying to find his way in Tangiers.

There are many funny parts to this book as well and you always have the feeling that he'll be alright.

I loved this book & have read it twice, its a book that makes me feel full of hope. Mohamed Choukri has come through these hardships, dealt with the death of his sisters, educated himself and is a great role-model for any young man in Morocco today.

I would strongly reccommend this book to anyone.

These characters are Realistic and then some., 18 Mar 2008
Reading this you will feel like you have been too Morroco at the time of their conflict. The character and life of Amar is a pure delight to read.

History of the destruction of culture revealed, 17 Feb 2004
Only Bowles could write a book like this. He has the eye of an outsider but the knowledge of a local. And he has a fantastic narrative gift. We follow two characters in Fez during the violent independence of Morocco. One is an American writer living in a hotel and the other is a local boy. Through these eyes, we see two sides. But the clever thing about it is that these two sides are neither French colonial nor fundamentalist Islamic. This is a sad story of the destruction of culture and religion. It is a story of the struggle between true Islam and the Fundamentalists. It is a piece of history told by a witness Paul Bowles.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

Tedious, 28 Jul 2008
I can't agree with the hyped reviews of this book. I found it terribly tedious; had no interest in any of the characters at all. A big expectation drop after Bowles' ***** Sheltering Sky

Over praised, over long and overdone, 07 Jul 2008
I don't understand this novel's classic status at all, but, having enjoyed The Sheltering Sky, ploughed on and on hoping for some improvement or development, but found little. The main character seemed to do things for no reason, and many of the actions of the characters, and even their inclusion in the novel, seemed completely arbitrary. Some of the description of life in Tangiers was interesting, but I'd rather read Bowles' travel books for that; this was a novel, and I found it rather unsatisfying. Also, the book's blurb rather gave away the ending.

Astonishing...if you like that sort of thing., 13 Aug 2004
The blurb on the back cover does this book no justice at all. My (low) expectations were blown out of the water by a book that began in comic 50s style (a la "Lucky Jim" visits North Africa) with a bank clerk fleeing his dull but secure job to Tangiers.
After a dose of half-hearted hedonism, the book slowly but surely turns into black hole of nihilism. Think Camus. Think Battle of Algiers. That sort of thing.

Sex & Drugs in Tangier, 09 Mar 2004
I agree with alaranja77@hotmail.com's review (although not so generous with the stars):

Dyar is bored with his trapped & conventional life in post-war USA &, on a whim takes off to Tangier, where in a comical mix of pouring rain, drink, drugs & sex (all of which he resolutely pretends to leave him unaffected: after all - he's only following conventional behaviour) he finds himself with a lot of cash. (The author’s preface gives this away.) Finally he takes a chance to be unconventional, free-at-last and for all the wrong reasons decides to flee. This gives Bowles a brief opportunity to contrast the honest, but superstitious, village life of the Berbers with the corrupted city dwellers.

This book is an entertaining collection of irritating character-types, everyone wheeler-dealing, the jealously of multiple interleaved love-triangles and more. Passages describing Dyar’s drink- and then drug-induced hallucinations are impressive for their ability to explain the madness Dyar feels at being unable to free himself from his own paranoia. A dark ending after the comic beginning: the wages of sin! The author doesn’t find it necessary to tie up all the loose ends – just like real life: when it never rains but it pours.

Let it come down, 17 Feb 2004
I rarely give five stars to books but this is an incomparable piece of art. The back cover (of my copy anyway) describe this as a thriller but you know that Bowles wouldn't write just a simple thriller and it isn't in any way simple. This is a story of Dyer who is lost in NY and comes to Tangier only to lose everything including his identity and ultimately his mind. But through this loss, he discovers something too. Something which can only be found when in solitude in deepest Morocco. Bowles again shows off his local knowledge of Morroco and treats us to some understanding of the rich and varied Arabic culture.

for bread alone, 28 Oct 2008
this book of choukri should have been titled ''For sex and bread alone instead of 'For bread alone'.I heard that he is a famous writer in marocco but you can be famaous even you are not a good writer which happen in this case.The life and moral of poor people is portrated in a very bad light.Of course it has some true on it but i did not find nothing good towards the poor class excpet naming them as thieves,dirty,liers,violent.etc,etc all the bad things you can find.Reading the whole book you will soon realise that the main character in words choukri spends all his childhood and adoleshence with prostitutes rather then trying to live a decent and honest life. Do not buy this book unless you are looking for a soft porno book.I am very dissapointed at myself for spending around £3 towards this book.If i could rate the book with no stars if i could but it is not possible.

Bitter truth, 04 Nov 2004
If you are Moroccan or North African, you'll love this book. It was particularly eye-opening for me as a Moroccan born & bought up in London to read about the poverty and hardships Mohamed Choukri faced as a young man trying to find his way in Tangiers.

There are many funny parts to this book as well and you always have the feeling that he'll be alright.

I loved this book & have read it twice, its a book that makes me feel full of hope. Mohamed Choukri has come through these hardships, dealt with the death of his sisters, educated himself and is a great role-model for any young man in Morocco today.

I would strongly reccommend this book to anyone.

These characters are Realistic and then some., 18 Mar 2008
Reading this you will feel like you have been too Morroco at the time of their conflict. The character and life of Amar is a pure delight to read.

History of the destruction of culture revealed, 17 Feb 2004
Only Bowles could write a book like this. He has the eye of an outsider but the knowledge of a local. And he has a fantastic narrative gift. We follow two characters in Fez during the violent independence of Morocco. One is an American writer living in a hotel and the other is a local boy. Through these eyes, we see two sides. But the clever thing about it is that these two sides are neither French colonial nor fundamentalist Islamic. This is a sad story of the destruction of culture and religion. It is a story of the struggle between true Islam and the Fundamentalists. It is a piece of history told by a witness Paul Bowles.

An odd little find, 18 Feb 2004
The story is one of Bowles's short stories from his collections. It is not his best short story by far but it is the juxtaposition of this odd little story about a German woman's relationship with a Moroccan boy, with Vittorio Santoro's grainy black and white photographs. The photographs do not convey anything in the story. Well at least I cannot see the link between them. But that is the charm of this little book. It is not a book to be read over and over again but something to flick through every now and then and try and work out what it all means...

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

The Last Third, 22 Oct 2008
This very original and dynamically written novel should be read for its final third.

Starting (and continuing) as a rather pedestrian travelogue, it eventually transcends to one of literature's truly vivid moments as a Western woman literally loses her identity in the desert and ... and this is the point...can't locate a context to rebuild or recover it.

These paragraphs plot some of the most emotionally involved writing I have ever encountered and certainly make it a novel worth staying with.

Loses the plot badly, 04 Oct 2008
Four fifths of this book are excellent, if a little ponderous and slow-moving. The characters are well drawn and we feel gradually drawn in to a web of intrigue and decay. But just when I expected the narrative to pick up the pace in the final fifth of the novel, something strange happens. What was a vividly portrayed, believable tale, turns into an almost stream-of-consciousness babble of highly unlikely and dreamlike scenes. Of course, this is partly to convey the inner machinations of our leading lady's mind, but the result is almost as if we've leapt out of one novel into another, entirely different one. So, the build up we patiently pay in for, never really pays off with any kind of satisfactory conclusion.

Splendid pictures of people and places, 29 Jun 2008
The three main characters in this story are nicely drawn in the first few pages and we stay with them throughout their journey across a part of Africa. The mood is a brooding one and relationships are never quite what they seem. The African scene is very accurately represented with much filth, darkness and brooding uncertainty that matches what is going on between the characters.
I came to feel that the self obsession bordering on self pity of the married partners made them morally bankrupt and very unsympathetic characters. By the end I had a very precise picture of what I wanted to happen to them. It did..
Shame on me for not finding Bowles' work before now but better late than never.

Character is Destiny, 14 Jun 2008
Initially, Kit and Port, the preppy primary characters in THE SHELTERING SKY, seem more like attitudes than people. The character Kit, for example, observes: "Other people rule my life." Early in his narration, Bowles adds: "The terror was already there inside her ready to take command."

Meanwhile, Port, despite his charms, is a sadly isolated person. Bowles says: "Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being; he had built the being around it."

Early in TSS, these concept-driven characters have experiences of slightly bogus theatricality, with the insightful Bowles explaining the interaction between characters but not really bringing them to life. Kit and Port, in other words, have experiences that just don't ring true.

But then Bowles takes his characters and puts them on a bus on a heedless journey into the Sahara. And, their adventure, a truly riveting tale, is the perfect vehicle to explore the wacko personalities that Bowles has defined. "Book Two, The Earth's Sharp Edge," starts in Bou Noura, a desolate outpost where the European influence is negligible. Thereafter, everything that happens to Kit and Port is frighteningly real. And the writing becomes first-rate.

"The sun poured down on the bare earth; there was not a square inch of shadow, save at their feet. Her mind went back to the many times when, as a child, she had held a reading glass over some hapless insect, following it along the ground in its frenzied attempts to escape the increasingly accurate focusing of the lens, until finally she touched it with the blinding pinpoint of light, when as if by magic it ceased running, and she watched it slowly wither and begin to smoke. She felt that if she looked up she would find the sun grown to monstrous proportions.

My daughter told me this book was great and she was right! Highly recommended.


well-worth reading, 15 Mar 2008
I really enjoyed this book.It gripped me from the start but i am not really sure why?It is a page turner and at the end of each chapter i wanted to read on but i wanted more to happen.

Tedious, 28 Jul 2008
I can't agree with the hyped reviews of this book. I found it terribly tedious; had no interest in any of the characters at all. A big expectation drop after Bowles' ***** Sheltering Sky

Over praised, over long and overdone, 07 Jul 2008
I don't understand this novel's classic status at all, but, having enjoyed The Sheltering Sky, ploughed on and on hoping for some improvement or development, but found little. The main character seemed to do things for no reason, and many of the actions of the characters, and even their inclusion in the novel, seemed completely arbitrary. Some of the description of life in Tangiers was interesting, but I'd rather read Bowles' travel books for that; this was a novel, and I found it rather unsatisfying. Also, the book's blurb rather gave away the ending.

Astonishing...if you like that sort of thing., 13 Aug 2004
The blurb on the back cover does this book no justice at all. My (low) expectations were blown out of the water by a book that began in comic 50s style (a la "Lucky Jim" visits North Africa) with a bank clerk fleeing his dull but secure job to Tangiers.
After a dose of half-hearted hedonism, the book slowly but surely turns into black hole of nihilism. Think Camus. Think Battle of Algiers. That sort of thing.

Sex & Drugs in Tangier, 09 Mar 2004
I agree with alaranja77@hotmail.com's review (although not so generous with the stars):

Dyar is bored with his trapped & conventional life in post-war USA &, on a whim takes off to Tangier, where in a comical mix of pouring rain, drink, drugs & sex (all of which he resolutely pretends to leave him unaffected: after all - he's only following conventional behaviour) he finds himself with a lot of cash. (The author’s preface gives this away.) Finally he takes a chance to be unconventional, free-at-last and for all the wrong reasons decides to flee. This gives Bowles a brief opportunity to contrast the honest, but superstitious, village life of the Berbers with the corrupted city dwellers.

This book is an entertaining collection of irritating character-types, everyone wheeler-dealing, the jealously of multiple interleaved love-triangles and more. Passages describing Dyar’s drink- and then drug-induced hallucinations are impressive for their ability to explain the madness Dyar feels at being unable to free himself from his own paranoia. A dark ending after the comic beginning: the wages of sin! The author doesn’t find it necessary to tie up all the loose ends – just like real life: when it never rains but it pours.

Let it come down, 17 Feb 2004
I rarely give five stars to books but this is an incomparable piece of art. The back cover (of my copy anyway) describe this as a thriller but you know that Bowles wouldn't write just a simple thriller and it isn't in any way simple. This is a story of Dyer who is lost in NY and comes to Tangier only to lose everything including his identity and ultimately his mind. But through this loss, he discovers something too. Something which can only be found when in solitude in deepest Morocco. Bowles again shows off his local knowledge of Morroco and treats us to some understanding of the rich and varied Arabic culture.

for bread alone, 28 Oct 2008
this book of choukri should have been titled ''For sex and bread alone instead of 'For bread alone'.I heard that he is a famous writer in marocco but you can be famaous even you are not a good writer which happen in this case.The life and moral of poor people is portrated in a very bad light.Of course it has some true on it but i did not find nothing good towards the poor class excpet naming them as thieves,dirty,liers,violent.etc,etc all the bad things you can find.Reading the whole book you will soon realise that the main character in words choukri spends all his childhood and adoleshence with prostitutes rather then trying to live a decent and honest life. Do not buy this book unless you are looking for a soft porno book.I am very dissapointed at myself for spending around £3 towards this book.If i could rate the book with no stars if i could but it is not possible.

Bitter truth, 04 Nov 2004
If you are Moroccan or North African, you'll love this book. It was particularly eye-opening for me as a Moroccan born & bought up in London to read about the poverty and hardships Mohamed Choukri faced as a young man trying to find his way in Tangiers.

There are many funny parts to this book as well and you always have the feeling that he'll be alright.

I loved this book & have read it twice, its a book that makes me feel full of hope. Mohamed Choukri has come through these hardships, dealt with the death of his sisters, educated himself and is a great role-model for any young man in Morocco today.

I would strongly reccommend this book to anyone.

These characters are Realistic and then some., 18 Mar 2008
Reading this you will feel like you have been too Morroco at the time of their conflict. The character and life of Amar is a pure delight to read.

History of the destruction of culture revealed, 17 Feb 2004
Only Bowles could write a book like this. He has the eye of an outsider but the knowledge of a local. And he has a fantastic narrative gift. We follow two characters in Fez during the violent independence of Morocco. One is an American writer living in a hotel and the other is a local boy. Through these eyes, we see two sides. But the clever thing about it is that these two sides are neither French colonial nor fundamentalist Islamic. This is a sad story of the destruction of culture and religion. It is a story of the struggle between true Islam and the Fundamental