A perennial favorite. Apathy, hopelessness, complicated relationships, mythical landscapes. It's all so devastating.

Despite having read this book, I have no idea what happened in it. I liked the beginning despite it's oddness and somewhat obscure information hidden behind excellent writing. I thought I had a handle on the book and what it was trying to say--It's about trying to reconnect on a human level and hiding behind a setting, a fear or another person to avoid actually doing so, right? But then wait, somebody just died, there's all sorts of rape going on and then the books just ends in what could easily be mid-paragraph. I'm sure there was some overall message/theme/parallel, but wow did it pass me by. I finished this book wondering what exactly had just happened to me. The dry and parched Saharan setting of the book mimicked that of my brain after reading through this. The skill of writing saves it from being a "bad" book but wasn't enough to make it a book I enjoyed.

First published in 1949, The Sheltering Sky was Paul Bowles’ (1910-1999) debut novel.

It’s a rather enigmatic tale about a young American couple travelling through French North Africa after the Second World War, but what begins as a typical story (albeit in an atypical setting) of a marriage on the rocks morphs into something else entirely.

Part horror, part suspense (part WTF is going on?), it’s a chilling tale about strangers in a strange land and the unforeseen fates that can await the naive traveller.

The story goes something like this. Port and Kit Moresby, a sophisticated American couple from New York, are exploring Morocco and Algeria with their friend Tunner. They don’t have a proper itinerary, they simply move from place to place when they feel like a change of scenery because, as Port puts it, they are not tourists but travellers.

But while the trio take their time moving around the country there are tensions at play.

In the opening chapters, for instance, Port spends a night with a local prostitute (a pattern that repeats throughout the novel) and puts himself in danger of being robbed or mugged.

Later, when the trio meet a young Australian traveller, Eric, and his mother, Mrs Lyle, a travel writer (whose vile views on Arabs and Jews make for uncomfortable reading), staying at the same hotel, they are offered a ride to Boucif by car. Port accepts, but Kit and Tunner go by train because there’s not enough room for all of them in the vehicle. It is during this long train journey that Tunner makes a pass at his friend, setting into motion a convoluted love triangle in which Kit constantly plays off her lover with her husband.

Port, who has his suspicions about his wife’s trysts, engineers it so that Eric gives Tunner a lift to the next city on the pretext that Kit and Port will catch him up in a few days. This is where things get tricky. Port’s passport is stolen and it’s dangerous to be a foreigner with no identifying papers. It’s also dangerous to be on the road during an outbreak of meningitis, and when Port falls sick on a long bus journey the sense of danger becomes even more heightened.

All the while the Saharan landscape and her ancient cities form an exotic backdrop in which the characters play out their petty dramas which quickly escalate to become life or death situations.

On the whole, The Sheltering Sky is a strange yet beguiling read — and one I won’t forget in a hurry.

For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.

I strongly disliked this book after the first chapter and hated it by the start of the third story. Port considers himself a "traveller" rather than a tourist. This is just snobbishness on his part because he rarely leaves his hotel and then only to visit brothels (despite the fact his wife is with him). The first two thirds of this book consist of all the white characters moaning about and criticising the "natives" as well as almost every other nationality they come into contact with. They never actually bother to talk to the "natives" other than to give them orders or have sex with them.
Fortunately Port dies in the second story. But the novel was never really about him. It was about his pathetic wife Kit who has so little personality and character she might as well be a shop mannequin. She just attaches herself to the nearest male available, has sex with him and hopes he'll make decisions so she can continue being a doormat.
I found the rape scene(s) quite hard to digest. I suppose it could be seen as a metaphor of white colonists coming to Africa and raping the continent of its resources, languages, cultures, traditions, etc, but really it was mindblowingly unbelievable that a woman could be so indifferent to rape and not even consider it such. All the flowery romantic language in the world can't disguise the fact that it is rape, plain and simple.
I suppose she went crazy because her husband died (not that she seemed very fond of him anyway) and it meant that suddenly she was in a position of having to make decisions herself which she just doesn't do. I really don't know why she didn't just run into the welcoming arms of Tunner who was far too willing to take her on and make all her decisions for her. I haven't been so infuriated by a female character in a long time.
If you like healthy doses of racism and misogyny thrown in with pseudointellectual philosophy by insufferable, ignorant westerners, help yourself.

This book is pretty insane. It starts as a travel story, but it descends into absolute insanity. What happens when you die. What happens when you go insane. I'm not quite sure what I I was supposed to get out of the book. It is beautifully written, but I can't say I really liked it.